I have been in Arizona since Sept of 1974 my first 5 years in this State just about every month new moon weekends were a go. Even Jan and Feb. The monsoon of August 1975 almost was non existant. I could not figure out what people were talking about. But as I mentioned seems like the weather changed for the worse around 1978 and thereafter. Some years being pretty good and others down right not fun for Astronomy :( Dwight In a message dated 4/15/2009 6:33:28 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, stanlep@xxxxxxxxxxxxx writes: Tom, Irrespective of what the data shows with regard to clouds, it has been extremely windy this past month, more so than usual. Other residents here have noticed the same thing. April has never been this windy, and cold (not all areas are equally affected by global warming, and besides, recent research discovered we won't feel the real impacts of global warming for about 10 years). Even if the skies are clear, you would not be able to observe as most amateurs do because it is just too windy. Even with an observatory with a dome, like I have, it is not much fun when the wind is not only strong, but cold. Stan tpolakis@xxxxxxx wrote: >Dan, > >The "85% clear skies average" must mean that it's somewhat sunny for a good >part of the day. It has little bearing on the sort of clear sky >astronomers are interested in. Fortunately, we have the truth in the form >of cloudiness data that Brian Skiff has been gathering since 1980. We >discussed this subject on AZ-Observing as recently as 2007. > >//www.freelists.org/post/az-observing/Flagstaff-nighttime-cloudinesssk y >-brightness,6 > > >Note the lack of any real trend in yearly cloudiness. While troughs >typically don't come this far south in April, it's typically not a very >good month for observing. > >Climate change is happening, but I doubt that Arizona's astronomical >viewing conditions have been impacted by it yet. > >Tom > > -- See message header for info on list archives or unsubscribing, and please send personal replies to the author, not the list. **************Great deals on Dellâ??s most popular laptops â?? Starting at $479 (http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100126575x1220631252x1201390195/aol?redir=http:%2F%2Fad.doubleclick.net%2Fclk%3B213968550%3B35701427%3Bh) -- See message header for info on list archives or unsubscribing, and please send personal replies to the author, not the list.