Phrase of the Day

 "Atmospheric River"

"Trying to Reason with Hurricane Season"

 June 1st marks the "official" start of hurricane season.

I declined to participate when it came time to renew my affiliation with The Salt Mine's response apparatus. I'm getting to old to bunk on troop ships or a cot in a tent some place...

We seem to be out of scary names for winter storms

As of 1100 this morning.

As of about 2200 last night.

This is fairly typical of snow storms here in the low lands, low. A mere dusting, sufficient to terrify Californians.

As of about 1100 this morning.

You might get the impression from the fact that I blog about weather like this that it happens a lot.

That would be a "Man bites dog" news report.

Somebody insisted on 'sploring the backyard, but soon repented.

I'm Dreaming Of A...

...wet Christmas.

Screenshot from the Dark Sky app a while ago:

That streak of orange, pink, and blue is an "atmospheric river", known locally as The Pineapple Express. By noon local, we are likely to have set a new record for one day rain amounts.

Earlier, I tweeted thusly:

This may actually be relevant in western Washington today...#wawx @waEMD @NWSSeattle https://t.co/ce391F0Xr2

— Drang (@DWDrang) December 20, 2019

Now, flash floods are not often a threat in western Washington (although regular normal floods are all too common) , but the Washington State Emergency Management Department not only "liked" the tweet, but rated it accurate.

So I've got that going for me. Which is nice.

(Edited to add this, which I had forgotten stealing pirating borrowing from... somewhere.)

Going and Coming

Sort of an NRAAM post, pics on the way there and on the way back...

All photographs © 2019 D.W. Drang and The Cluemeter.

On climb out from SEA

It got a bit hazy once we made altitude, but this gives you an idea of the local terrain.
(Click to embiggenate.)
I was on the wrong side of the plane for shots of Mt. Rainier.
Too far south for Mt. Adams, Mt. Baker, or Glacier Peak.

Somewhere over the Mississippi weather started to close in.
Last 45 minutes or so of the flight into IND was rough.

On final into SEA, sunset over the Olympics 1

On final into SEA, sunset over the Olympics 2

On final into SEA, sunset over the Olympics 3

SEA has airplanes hanging from the ceilings, so naturally, IND displays race cars...

Obligatory local color/architecture shots:

The buildings in that part of town are all connected by a series of skywalks.
Most of them are not this fancy.

Oh, dear

Warning: Science and math, presented with a rather heavy Ukrainian accent. Mind you, she does a good job of making some pretty esoteric science understandable to the layperson, but some might be intimidated by the very concepts. (One might be tempted to turn on closed captioning, due to her accent. It might help, but I think they used a speech-to-text app, and it gets thrown off by homophones which aren't valid, due to... her accent.)

So that's an hour and a half of in-depth discussion of solar activity, including helioseismicity, sun spots, the corona, poloidal and toroidal magnetic fields...

... the gist of which is that Dr. Zharkova says that not only is the current (imminent, actually) sun spot cycle (25) going to be even lighter than the previous one (24, just ended), but she says that we are headed into a 30+ year Grand Minimum. (A sun spot cycle is usually about 11 years long, by the way.)

Can you say "Maunder"?

No solar activity means amateur radio continues to have poor propagation on the High Frequency bands, but, like the old George Carlin routine, it also means a mini-ice age, so I wouldn't sweat the propagation. As KB6NU points out in the blog post where I learned of this presentation, satellites are a workable alternative. (Yes, hams can and do use satellites. Yes they have their own issues.)

But, hey, at least that rig will be generating some heat...

...assuming there's power.


1. Solar minimum - Wikipedia. Political correctness leads Wikipedia to deny any correlation between solar minima and terrestrial climate.
2. I took a look at the effects of the Maunder Minimum in Quickie Book Review, The Global Crisis.
3. Homepage | NOAA / NWS Space Weather Prediction Center

That time of year...

The flowering plum trees are in bloom. I've been meaning to get and post pictures since I started the blog, but never did.

Add caption

 Flowering plums do not, allegedly, produce fruit.

These don't, but the one at Alte Schloss Drang does. Granted, it is more like very large cherries than plums, but still.

This one is a "volunteer", growing out of the hedge. We decided to let it grow, partly out of curiosity, partly out of not being sure how to do away with it without having to replace the hedge...

Darned overhead power lines...

Of course, the utility company says the same thing about trees. Every couple of years they come along and trim trees away from the lines, which is fine by me, because I regard reliable power as preferable to having that particular tree in that particular place.

They started blooming last week, and I suppose if trees could think they'd have been wondering what the heck was going on with the weather. Here's a picture of the front yard when I got home last Saturday morning:

Will we or won't we? -- UPDATE

According to the National Weather Service (as seen on Twitter), in order for it to be a White Christmas there must be one inch of snow at 0700 Local.

Just so some of you know, the official definition of a "white Christmas" in the U.S. is 1" of snow on the ground at 7 AM local time Christmas morning. The definition also varies for other counties. #Seattle's probability of a white Christmas is about 7%.

— NWS Seattle (@NWSSeattle) December 23, 2017

As of 1600 Local 24 December here in the 98-double Ought-3, it is snowing lightly; the original forecast called for snow and then rain and then more snow, but the current forecast says snow and snow showers until tomorrow afternoon, so...

...Maybe?

UPDATE: It is now 10:26 AM on Monday, December 25th, and we have about three inches, with more drifting slowly down, so I am saying we did, indeed, have a White Christmas by the Government Standard.

Ho ho ho.

It is snowing in the 98 double aught 3

That is all.

Sigh -- UPDATE 10/13/2017

Hurricane Ophelia

The good news is that this one is not heading to the USA. Of course, we've seen storms mill about for days and change direction.



The bad news is that Ireland and Scotland need to start battening down the hatches.

UPDATE:Ophelia May Become Ireland's Strongest Storm Since 1961 - Bloomberg

I Ain't'nt Ded Yet

It's just, you know, so hot and humid here...

I confess, some of us have been kind of hoping that we'll see Hurricane Ruben* before the season is through...







And I already did this one, so sue me:
Which reminds me I still need to get a pic of me standing by an A1A sign...


*Alas, no.

Fact Checking The Nay Sayers

I keep hearing people criticize "people who live on the beach."

Aside from the fact that many urban areas have reached the point where you build where you can and hope for the best, these graphics from the National Weather Service, besides showing how Hurricane Harvey has forced them to revise the "amount of rain" color coding of their graphics, also show the sheer extent of the storm.

San Antonio is hardly "the beach."

#Harvey in perspective.  So much rain has fallen, we've had to update the color charts on our graphics in order to effectively map it. pic.twitter.com/Su7x2K1uuz

— NWS (@NWS) August 28, 2017

Earworm, Have You Met Harvey? Edition

For my friends in Texas, those I've met, and those I've yet to meet.

Stay safe.

LIVE Satellite feed of Hurricane Harvey

In case the feed here goes down, it is at this link: Hurricane Harvey LIVE video from NASA Goes 16 satellite - YouTube


Edit to add: View of Hurricane Harvey from the International Space Station:

Uh-oh... UPDATED

So I woke up about 0200, couldn't get back to sleep, decided to read a bit. Mrs. Drang informed me that she was watching a DVD because the satellite dish was acting up again, "probably the snow." (See comments to previous post.)

About 0400 or so as I was about to turn out the light she came to bed and informed me that we might be about to lose the birch tree in the back yard.

"Nothing we can do about it now" we agreed.

Right.

Ten minutes later I was out in the back yard.

One of the limbs her father had secured with a line (plastic-sheathed clothed line, I think) was hanging down almost to the ground; the line had snapped.

The upper branches from the limb were over-hanging the corner of the roof, although I couldn't get a good look. Being me, I grabbed a large pair of side-cutting loppers from the back porch/lawn tool storage, and trimmed it up as best I could.

I think I need a real chain saw.

Did get the satellite dish cleared, though.

The tree in question.
Pretty sure I ran pics of it in pretty much this condition a few years ago.
Photo ©2017 D.W. Drang and The Cluemeter

Same tree, from driveway, post-dish clearing.
The white streaks are more snow falling, BTW.
Photo ©2017 D.W. Drang and The Cluemeter

The hood of Mrs. Drang's car.
The snow is heavy enough that the front half of the hood was cleared, the snow there slid off of it's own weight.
Photo ©2017 D.W. Drang and The Cluemeter

The solar-powered garden light seems to have problems...
Photo ©2017 D.W. Drang and The Cluemeter

For those of you in Fimbulwinter-free zones:
This picture was taken with ambient light, no flash.
"Waiting for daylight to assess the damage" wasn't completely necessary...
Photo ©2017 D.W. Drang and The Cluemeter

No bird baths today...
Photo ©2017 D.W. Drang and The Cluemeter

While I was out there I could gear limbs cracking all over the neighborhood, but did not see any actual damage to any of our trees. I think maybe what woke me up was a limb breaking down the street.

UPDATE: Just heard a loud cracking noise from outside. 😟 Can't tell if it's ours or a neighbors. Will wait for full daylight for further inspection, don't want to walk around under it if  it's about to go...😨

UPDATE 2: Lost power just before 0700. Lost two limbs from the birch tree, they fell down in the street. Called in power outage, notified 911 of a downed line in the street. Checked out the limbs in the street, decided it was enough of a public nuisance I needed to clear it away...

...and my silly little electric chain saws had no power.

Dug around in the garage and found a fairly large saw that Mrs. Drang's father had, grabbed it and a pair of offset loppers and got the street cleared, if not the entire mess cleaned up.

Power just came back on, trying to decide if I'd rather have breakfast or a shower first...

FLASH!

FLASH! It is snowing in the 98-double-ought-3. No stickage yet, but maybe this time...❄#Weather, #FederalWay @NWSSeattle

— Drang (@DWDrang) February 5, 2017

@NWSSeattle Flakes are bigger and there's more of them. 🐱 came in and is applying 🐱 Gravity, so unknown if we have stickage yet.

— Drang (@DWDrang) February 5, 2017

The kitty emojis are handy for saving you from the 140-charecter limit... 😉

Cat Gravity is still being applied, BTW.

FOLLOW-UP: Cat gravity removed. She wants back outside, I don't think so.

Snow sticking on grass.

***NEWS FLASH***

IT IS SNOWING IN THE 98003!


THAT IS ALL.

****

Although maybe I ought to add that the weather forecast gives us a 7% chance of rain right now...

Well, this is dumb

It is currently snowing in the 98003, but I can't find anyplace to report it on any of the weather sites, even ones I have a login for.

They all say it's raining....

Wait! What?

So, this morning I stumbled out of bed to feed the demanding tomcat, and observed to Mrs. Drang (who was getting ready for an early doctor's appointment) that it was very foggy out. 

I then stumbled back to bed, since it turned out that The Salt Mines did not need me to go and try to bail out the Southeast. 

I woke up to see a snowplow going down the street, clearing a very messy, slushy snow storm.  

I was about to call Mrs. Drang and make sure she could make it back, when the tomcat standing on my chest started demanding that I wake up and feed him again.

It was still foggy out, but why I went to being relieved that I didn't have to go and reason with hurricane season to letting it snow, letting it snow, letting it snow, I don't know...

Earworm