I went looking this morning for a picture of the sun and found this one with the title I used for today. It is HOT, HOT, HOT. Holy Cow. Even if it cools off as local meterologists predict for this end of this month, it will still go down as the hottest August on record for my area. Hotter even than the Dust Bowls of the 1930's! We are dry too, under an extreme drought and code red as far as fires go. Everything is tinder... Bad, bad, news.

Here's is the iformation that goes with the picture I borrowed from Space.com Which has some really great images and stories.

The Sun Goes Wild

The Sun ended 2004 with a bang, firing off one of the most unusual eruptions scientists have ever seen.

The complex eruption is called a coronal mass ejection (CME). It originated from a region of the solar surface where pent-up magnetic energy was unleashed. Superheated gas, called plasma, was flung into space. All that is normal.

But in this case, several white strands of plasma elongated and lingered "longer than anyone can remember seeing," said Paal Brekke of the Norwegian Space Center. The strands were visible to scientists over a nine-hour stretch.

"The pieces appear almost like shreds of torn clothing after something ripped through it," Brekke said. "They clearly illustrate how a CME drags pieces of the Suns magnetic field out in space."

In this picture, the overwhelming light of the Sun's main disk is blocked out by an instrument aboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft, allowing it to capture the action in the solar atmosphere and beyond.

As for me, I am making big "ice cubes" to put into the dogs dish, drinking LOTS of water and staying out of the heat as much as possible... I don't want to wish for fall because then winter is not far behind but I am wishing for a little relief! Rain would be oh so welcome!