December 27, 2009 at 9:24 am (weather)
The storm system that is storm 12, as oblong as it has become pressed up against that strong barricade over Nevada, has moved on shore and pushed that barrier towards the east. That means there’s now room for storms to come ashore here in California. And that is what appears to be about to happen. There are some robust looking storms heading in from the waters due west of Southern and Central California. At least that what it looks like.
UPDATE:
The massive cloudly blobs of heavy water vapor content air that looked like huge storm clouds on the Water Vapor image came right in, and are over California now, but instead of heavy rain, it’s sunny. The Water vapor isn’t condensed. The extra vapor in the air should create spectacular sunset, however, and that is just getting started now.
Updated satellite: not one those huge clouds of water vapor are condensed — it is sunny!!
The moisture rich air came from a southwest direction, so as you might have guess — it’s totally pleasant outside! So I went and photographed the sunset, picking a picturesque spot to do it from: a dormant orchard near Sanger.
Leave a Comment
December 26, 2009 at 6:14 pm (political)
BREAKING NEWS! — dorks set off fireworks on plane. BREAKING NEWS! The dorks have been upgraded to terrorists and the fireworks show in the cabin has been upgraded to failed terror attack. BREAKING NEWS! The terrorists have been upgraded to Al Qaeda. Keep going now. Keep following the progression so predictable … BREAKING NEWS! The act of terror has been upgraded to act of war BREAKING NEWS! The act of war has been linked to a base and a leader BREAKING NEWS! The leader has been linked to a host country BREAKING NEWS! The host country has been linked to IRAN – read the British Dossier, it’s true! HEY I HAVE IDEA – AN OLD IDEA – GIVE PEACE A CHANCE. We can ratchet down rhetoric, we can respond to legitimate concerns that lead people to support terror. When traveling the road of peace, it’s true, you may come upon a roadblock, a Hitler, a Hirohito, a Franco, a Mussolini, an Idi Amin, an Ahmedinijad. But I’m talking about the concerns of the ordinary people, not the Al Qaedas or the Ahmedinijads. How are we addressing their concerns as a world power?
……………………………………
“What I said was essentially that rather than see a complete collapse in Copenhagen, in which nothing at all got done and would have been a huge backward step, at least we kind of held ground and there wasn’t too much backsliding from where we were.” – Barack Obama.
EXCUSE ME, BUT
Barack: YOU LED THE “INDUSTRIALIZED NATIONS’” MOVEMENT (eh, China, India, USA?) to kill Copenhagen’s promise of meaningful global action to combat climate change. Casting yourself as riding in on a white horse to save it from “total collapse” is good political language, but not what I expected from you as President of the United States. I wanted you to support concrete action on climate change and not have gone there to save anything, but sign something meaningful.
GRANTED…
Hold your horses Hillary and Bill supporters feeling shorted by Obama’s compromising approach on the environment. There’s no telling what Bill, Hill or even Al Gore would have done at Kyoto or Copenhagen. Bill left office before he could sign it, leaving him to not have to participate in Kyoto, thereby having to reveal his cards, while Al Gore surrendered his rightful place as POTUS in 2001 to a coup and didn’t get to participate in any global conferences. Therefore, Obama’s approach to United States policy of global warming and the environment has only 1 actual alternative in the real world: George W. Bush’s approach, and we know we didn’t like that one. There’s no Clinton or Gore alternative, just vague assumptions about how they would have behaved.
……………………………………………………
IN THE YEAR 2000……… IN THE YEAR 2000………
If Al Gore would have taken his rightful seat as POTUS in 2001 by FIGHTING FOR IT and HELL BE DAMNED IF RIOTS HAPPENED and the STOCK MARKET LOST VALUE over a “Constitutional crisis” because THIS IS AMERICA AND THIS IS A DEMOCRACY and WE DIDN’T FIGHT HITLER AND HIROHITO to save anything less from the hands of despots…
We would have had Al Gore vs. Al Quaida instead of Bush vs. Saddam.
……………………………………………………
Read MIDDLE EASTERN NEWS told from the point of view of the Islamic majority.
Leave a Comment
December 26, 2009 at 12:23 pm (weather)
It is COLD outside. The air is heavy with water vapor. The coastal surf is up and generating warnings. A storm of the Pacific is arriving, but is expected to arrive weak. At its core is a fistful of energy spinning furiously and moving east towards us like a ramrod. To the east, on the other side of the Sierras, an outer wave of another huge storm is heading west, the direction storms rarely are seen moving. Only a very powerful storm could generate such a westward moving wave. The two waves, one from the Pacific, one from Great Plains, are running into each other, squishing our poor storm’s energy out like a penny on the railroad track.
Leave a Comment
December 25, 2009 at 11:31 am (nature, photography)
I’m joyously in love with the special light of the sun at this time of year. Haven’t got out to see it yet, but check out the beautiful light captured by a Flickr contributor (credited in the photo caption above). In this light, it is the best time to get out and see your gorgeous countryside. The sun is unique at this time of year because it is at two extremes simultaneously: solstice and perigee. For solstice, Northern Hemisphere dwellers are tilted farthest away from the sun and it shines on us at the lowest angle, and in Alaska, Norway, not at all. Earth orbit is also nearest the sun, so it is brightest and hottest at this time. See how in the photo it roars with intensity from beyond the frosty horizon of winter. This photo was snapped in the rolling hills of the east Bay Area not far from Danville, California.
Leave a Comment
December 21, 2009 at 10:48 pm (political, weather)
Just in time for the upcoming Olympics, some nice, cold air from British Columbia, where everyone, from cradle to grave, has complete Universal Health Care coverage. The subtropical jet has supplied the storm inland, so get out your shovel SLC Dan! The storm is outside right now, dropping tiny raindrops – not measurable precip. Maybe a snow dusting for the Mtns?
UPDATE-
Sprinkles – that’s it? That’s what I said? It’s been raining off and on for 7 hours now, with very brief downpours then very faint sprinkles. – I’m going to grab a fresh satellite image just to see how this storm is playing out…
The cold dry (Dry-because cold air holds little water vapor) air from off the coast of British Columbia arrives.
Okay, I see what’s been happening. The warm wet air from the south has been, right along the easter edge of the San Joaquin Valley, thanks in part to the uplift created by the Sierra Nevada, just getting lifted high enough to form precipitating clouds. Streams of warm wet air have been starting cloudtrains that chug northward to Utah and Nevada all day. This is just coming to an end right now. The Canadian air has finally arrived. We’re under a freeze watch tonight, but not a freeze warning, since the Canadian air appears to be stretching out and getting modified (or tamed) quite a bit.
Leave a Comment
December 19, 2009 at 10:58 am (life)
Back in high school, Hoover High in Fresno, California, from 1979-1982, I ran with a bunch of post pubescents who had tons of manic energy and no interest in the dating scene, and poured some of it into comedy songs. Some of them where quite good, others just good only to our ears, and others totally sucked to all ears. The actual music era we were living in was the punk (Dead Kennedys, The Dickies, the Ramones) New Wave (Split Enz, The Police, The Clash) era on the “white side” and very early hip hop and rap (Grandmaster Flash, Sugarhill Gang) and R&B dance (Bar Kays, Cameo, The Gap Band, The Whispers) on the “black side” of the American music scene. There was also the comedy of the day: Monty Python, Saturday Night Live, Steve Martin, CFheech & Chong, Robin Williams and Richard Pryor, even Bill Cosby. Then there was Dr. Demento, the radio show of novelty songs. We had movies we shared as a group favorites: Mel Brooks 1968 classic “The Producers”, The John Landis tour de force “The Blues Brothers”, Ringo Starr in “The Magic Christian”, the mocumentaries “Meet the Rutles” and “This Is Spinal Tap”. We like old time Amnerican comedy, like Laurel & Hardy and The Three Stooges. Then there were Don’s Movies, John’s Movies, Ray’s Movies. I sudder to think “what if there was the internet” back then. Then We liked really bad movies, too: Xanadu. We all liked classic rock, some of us soul and Disco. We were too backwards and out of style for punk/new wave/Rap & R&B.
Then there was our own songs. Our recording studio: a cassette recorder on the floor.
Hmmmm
to be continued as I think I might now try to unbury the archives…
Leave a Comment
December 12, 2009 at 7:21 pm (weather)
The powerful jet stream that has got the central California coast in front of a wind tunnel continues to blow, and from the front of the tunnel, waves of storm disturbance ripples, arcs of energized storm waves pour in one after another nonstop. Well, almost nonstop. There was a break in them big enough to distinguish apart those belonging to a series of them I called Storm nine and today’s even heavier rain waves I’m calling storm 10.
Check out the fresh new blast - no wonder it's so dark outside and it's noon.
Storm 10 is forecasted to end by morning and stagnant weather, including dense fog, shall be in full effect by Monday. Storm totals for Storm 9 and 10, the Pacific Blast twins, just half an inch for Fresno (due to a long cross-valley rain shadow cast by the Coast Range caused by the storm’s speed) and 4 inches in the mountains that get the rain the rain shadowed areas don’t.
Leave a Comment
December 11, 2009 at 12:38 pm (weather)
NEW UPDATES GETTING TACKED ON to end of this article
Storm #9 is the leading edge of a new movement of Pacific Ocean storms onto the mainland. As you may have heard, the Northern Pacific has been exquisitely stormy. You should see my vacationing Flickr friend’s beautiful Hawaiian pictures, particularly the ones he got of the surf. The wild, wavy waters and incendiary sunsets are gorgeous and present a very atypical Hawaiian beach seascape. Really, Hawaiian beaches are normally quite boring. The Hawaiian Islands are mountains, and if you want to go to the hottest, stickiest, most uncomfortable part of Hawaii, it’s any beach that doesn’t get rain. Any way, I digress, for Storm #9 is in town, and it the first storm from wild, wet, wintertime stormy sea!
Punch Pow! Fistful of Pacific storm air hits West Coast
UPDATE, 1 PM PDT.
Enjoying Storm #9, the second significant storm this year, while storm #8 was very significant for points south of Bakersfield. That was the cold one, remember, but it was also the wet one for the inland regions of Southern California.
UPDATE 1:45 pm PDT
Storm #9 brought a sustained heavy rain for central California and heavy snow for the Sierras today! It’s a ski resort opener! The ground, air and sky is super wet outside – lots of lingering moisture.
UPDATE! 4 am Saturday morning, 12/12/09
Ripples of storm waves crash into the west coast like breakers at a beach
The ramrodding jet stream crashing into the west coast continues! And the flow has sped up and gotten wider. Many waves of “disturbances” continue to ripple inland from the coast. I am just considering all these myriad disturbances, as each flies over, bringing another cloud band of precipitation, creating the “on-off” effect, all part of storm #9.
Leave a Comment
December 8, 2009 at 11:37 am (nature, photography)
My Flickr picture of the Python snake in India was picked up for a Wikipedia Germany article about Indian (Tigerpython) Pythons! Along with inclusion of the photo in the article is info about the snake in the picture, which is nice for me, because I had no idea what kind of python it was, just that it was big. The park guides so kindly pointed her/him out. This park isn’t one for self-guided walks, I guess. You’d miss so much! They love their park and share with you well. In India, custom is the pay and tip. It’s old world. The guides at the park are excellent, by the way, so you’ll be happy to tip them.
Anyway, my picture’s inclusion in the article is great news after one of my Flickr pictures taken in Hawaii that was used by a nature web site had to be dropped because instead of it being a picture of a rare Hawaiian plant, it was a plant that can we found throughout the Pacific Ocean’s many tropical Islands and is actually quite the weed!
2 Comments
December 7, 2009 at 9:59 pm (political, weather)
UPDATE – TONIGHT’S DEEP FREEZE MORE IMPRESSIVE THAN ORIGINALLY FORECAST
Storm #8's very cold air settles into the valley
After a warm autumn that had farmers whining and complaining, as they usually do about everything, Winter has finally arrived. It’s outside right now. As for the powerful anti-environmentalist movement headquartered here in Fresno, the most anti-environmentalist city in America, good storms are devastating to the cause of undoing the legislation to revive the fish habitat of the California Delta, downstream from Fresno, because they can’t claim that they are unable to farm the steppelands (Steppes are dry grasslands) of the Central Valley. Unfortunately, this storm isn’t that wet. But it is plenty cold, and will threaten the citrus crop tonight and tomorrow night. When the Pacific storm flow is weak, icy air from the Great Basin tends to get into California. Tonight, a moderately deep freeze and tomorrow a deeper deep freeze will take hold of California’s inland valleys after band of light, cold precipitation passes over the Valley while leaving about a foot of snow for the Sierras. On Thursday, a warmer, wetter storm will arrive, then behind that, I presume an even warmer, even wetter storm.
The National Weather Service central Valley’s page today:
I was curious about the “coastal flood statement” on the lower left, since the cloud band really doesn’t thicken until you get inland,
so i went back to check out the statement and they took it down.
UPDATE — UPDATE
I just realized why that coastal flooding warning may have been posted in the first place … there was a storm down there!
In the picture of storm 8, you see that sea of clouds south of it? That’s the real Storm 8. The part we here in Central California saw of it was a minor cloud wave riding in behind it. Cold air surged from Manitoba, Alberta and Montana while a stream of Pacific moisture riding the Subtropical Jet provided the moisture needed to create a huge, practically nationwide storm event. Down San Diego, Imperial Valley way, then all the way out to Nebraska — an extremely huge storm event also rolled ahead of the cold Canadian air surge. There was street flooding in San Diego, and it was San Diego’s first winter storm of significance. There were blizzards all points east under that cloud… so a fresh look at that picture of Storm 8…
Leave a Comment
