As of late night Friday, the forecast looks right on the money. Good looking Saturday with mid to upper 70′s. Sunday we jump to the mid 80′s and Monday to the upper 80′s. With temperatures pushing towards 90, its not out of the question to see a few afternoon guys popping up with the heat. However, we will continue to be dominated by a ridge of high pressure, which is sinking air. I haven’t looked at the calculations because it’s so far out, but whether or not we reach the convective temperature will be questionable. The sinking of the air under the ridge may be such that the convective temperature will not be acheived. I had a question about severe weather after that and what I see is that our ridge is scheduled to squash a bit and move east.
A little upper low will be allowed to wander through Monday night. With the heat of the day this may be sufficient to trigger t’storms. Then on Tuesday, the ridge will have shifted and squashed enough to allow for a frontal boundary to slip down across the area. It will be a slow mover and typically there would be little waves moving across the boundary. So, Tuesday would have a risk for storms as well. At this juncture, there is nothing from a general scan that jumps out at me that would suggest a general bad weather situation other than thunderstorms. My best guess at this early time would be that perhaps a few storms may get tumultuous enough to cause some trouble.
But the story remains the same..don’t worry about that now. Enjoy the Holiday Weekend and take time to remember why it is a holiday. Brave, Patriotic, Americans from the Revolutionary War to the current conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq have paid the ultimate sacrifice so that we may have such a weekend. The least we can do is pause to remember.
Gasoline Prices:
So much has been written about the price of gasoline. We hear cries of price gouging by the oil companies and such. Under that line of thinking, then in 1999 when the price of oil was somewhere between 10 and 20 dollars a barrel and our gas was about a dollar a gallon, one would have to surmise that the oil companies didn’t feel like making money. Truth is, the oil companies almost always have a profit margin of between 5 and 10 percent. ExxonMobil is a shade above that but the industry average right now is about 8 percent. It’s just the dollars have gotten so large that such a small percentage creates huge profits that are mind boggling. However, most of the retail outlets of gasoline are not owned by the large oil companies. An exception I can think of is Speedway, owned by Ashland and I think Marathon owned by Maraton. But those companies typically aren’t thought of as the big guys. They got out because teh margins were too small and they didn’t want to get into the convenience store business. Most of the gas stations are not operated or owned by the major oil companies. So…where does our money go to a gallon of gas?
This is interesting. It’s a link to the California Energy Commission. One would think that the state of California was not colluding with anyone with these numbers. It shows charts regarding where each of our pennies go when we fill up. The latest on this chart as of this print is May 19. It’s a little short of detail because it combines profits and cost for refining and also for marketing and distribution. But, even so, according the the state of California, branded gasoline of profit and costs in these areas only make up $.25 of the final retail price of $3.95. It’s even less for unbranded gas. They claim that there is actually a $.03 loss for marketing and distribution cost and profit and a total of that combined with refining costs and profits of $.25. I’m curious as to why the refining profits and costs are just $.19 for branded gas but 50% higher for unbranded gas at $.28.
Anyway, it’s an interesting look and, unless you think that the state of California is cooking the books, may be eye-opening and counter intuitive.
Hey, before I provide the link…I’d give my advice. Stay here in town, enjoy all of the resources of Louisville and spend quality time with your friends and family. Enjoy the weather. All of those things don’t cost a thing yet are priceless.
Cost of Gasoline in California
Here is an interesting article with different numbers but the same conclusion. It also verifies much of what I mentioned:
