The high heat will stick around for the next week, with a subtle shift in the flow allowing some of the monsoonal flow to move up from the south. While Wednesday will likely stay sunny in the Reno area, with high temperatures expected to touch on triple digits, the moist air could get close enough to us by Thursday to allow some scattered afternoon thunderstorms to pop up in the area. That basic pattern will remain unchanged through the weekend.

So why doesn’t sunset start getting earlier right after the summer solstice? Right now we are just about at the furthest point out from the sun, and as a result we are moving around the sun at the slowest speed. Every day, the earth spins one full rotation PLUS 1/365^th of a rotation to make up for how far the earth has orbited the sun (we keep our days straight with respect to the sun’s position relative to the earth). That means that every 24 hour period we over-rotate a bit a bit since we are travelling a little less around the sun during that 24 hours.

Ponder that for a bit, and tomorrow, I’ll finish up.