Miriam downgraded in Pacific; Nadine spins in Atlantic

(AP) MIAMI (AP) -- Forecasters say Miriam is rapidly weakening and has been downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm well off Mexico's Baja California peninsula.

The National Hurricane Center in Miami said Miriam had top sustained winds of 70 mph at 5 a.m. EDT Wednesday, down sharply from a day earlier. The storm was centered about 430 miles west-southwest of the southern tip of the Baja peninsula.

Miriam is moving northwest at 6 mph. No coastal watches or warnings are in effect and more weakening is expected.

In the open Atlantic, Tropical Storm Nadine remains far from land. It is about 530 miles south-southwest of the Azores islands with top sustained winds of about 45 mph. Nadine has been spinning in the Atlantic for more than two weeks.

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Severe storms, possible tornado lash Illinois

OKAWVILLE, Ill. (AP) -- Cleanup efforts were under way Wednesday in southern Illinois after a storm pounded the region with large hail and as much of six inches of rain, and spawned an apparent tornado that overturned a tractor trailer and leveled farm outbuildings.

Okawville Police Chief Steve Millikin said a tornado that he videotaped Tuesday night on his dashboard camera clipped the northern edge of his 1,400-resident Washington County village, narrowly missing the community's downtown.

"We got lucky, to be flat honest with you," he told The Associated Press on Wednesday. "Had it come a half mile to the south, it would have come right through town, and we would have had a mess."

Millikin said the trucker in the semi rig that was blown over on Interstate 64 was slightly injured. He also said the storm leveled a house being built and damaged roofs and farm structures.

Eyewitness reports and video appear to confirm that a tornado caused that damage, although the intensity, path and length of that twister were expected to be determined Wednesday, said meteorologist Ben Miller of the National Weather Service in St. Louis.

"We're pretty sure it's a tornado," Miller said.

Portions of southern Illinois got pelted by hail at times as big as pingpong balls, with 4 to 6 inches of rain dumped by the storm since Tuesday night causing flash flooding.

Miller said the storms were expected to hound the region perhaps into the weekend.

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This year's Harvest Moon rises Sept. 29

NASA/Sean Smith

A full moon captured July 18, 2008.

NASA/Sean Smith

A full moon captured July 18, 2008.

If you've ever wondered what, exactly, a harvest moon looks like, poke your head outside Saturday. That's when this year's harvest moon will rise.

The harvest moon is the full moon closest to the autumnal equinox,

which this year was on Sept. 22.

It's different from the other full moons because it rises at roughly the same time for several nights running, giving more light.

"In the days before tractors with headlights, having moonlight to work by was crucial to getting the harvest in quickly before rain caused it to rot," says Alan MacRobert, an editor at Sky &Telescope magazine.

The harvest moon will rise this year at 11:19 p.m. ET.

On average, the moon rises 50 minutes later each day than it did the day before. However, at this time of year, because of the angle of the moon as it orbits Earth, "the moon is rising at roughly the same time it rose the night before," says Ed Krupp, director of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles.

So for about three days in a row, the full moon is coming up just after the sun sets.

"This brings a great deal of light into the early evening sky, which was important for the people harvesting because it extended the period of useful work time they could work in the fields," Krupp says.

The moon may look bigger and seem closer, but it's not, says David DeVorkin, a senior curator at the Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. Generally, photos of harvest moons are taken with telephoto lenses, distorting the size. The harvest moon can appear more reddish, though, because of coloration caused by dust in the atmosphere, but it depends on where you are.

The change in the time of moonrise "has to do with the angle along which the moon is traveling in its orbit," Krupp says. At the fall equinox, "the angle is very shallow, so it doesn't go so far below the horizon and as a result comes up again at about the same time."

The harvest moon isn't the only one to have a name, though few are remembered now. The new moon after the harvest moon was typically called Hunter's moon, because it aided hunters stalking night game as fall deepened.

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