Tag: weather

Crankypantsing

It’s the Heat *and* the Humidity

Shelly

It’s supposed to be the hottest day yet, with temps in the mid-90s. At 5am it was already 75F and 90% humidity. Of course, that meant I got to work to find that chilled water will be rationed today and that they’re asking everyone to conserve electricity. As soon as the e-mail arrived, folks turned on their fans! Hello!!! Electricity conservation does not involve turning on power-sucking fans. It especially does not mean turning on power-sucking fans when the AC is still on. *boggle*

I have a feeling that this afternoon will be a lot of No Fun.

Meta, Photography

Sunlight and Fog

Shelly

It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood. The folks at weather.com are a bunch of liars, apparently. I woke up to bright sun sparkling on a heavy dew, with a veil of fog skirting the southern edge of the valley. It was hot already, though, so I decided to get my butt in gear and run my errands early. Not that it helped much, because by 8am the heat and humidity were already oppressive.

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Sunlight and Fog

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Southern Ridge at Sunset

As I drove home from work on Friday, the sky was overcast and there were intermittent sprinkles of rain. The cloud cover thinned as evening approached, and I was hopeful that we’d be treated to a beautiful sunset. As it turned out, the western sky didn’t produce much of interest, but the clouds above and the southern horizon glowed a lovely shade of pink.

Technical note: My web host is in the process of physically migrating to new servers. I’m scheduled for migration on the 17th, which means they could begin as early as midnight Sunday. The move will involve everything, including e-mail. I’ve had a look at the helpdesk boards and there are quite a few folks who have been experiencing migration issues. Coppermine, which I use for my image gallery, seems to be making a particular pain in the arse of itself. So, if there are outages or other problems, they will hopefully be temporary. If not, I’ll try to get them resolved as quickly as possible. In the meantime, please think lots of happy, painless migration thoughts for me.

Photography

Rain, Rain, Go Away

Shelly

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It’s storming. It’s been raining on and off and on and off and on and off for days, and according to weather.com, it’s supposed to continue in the same pattern for the foreseeable future. Ugh. There are even some rumbles and flashes of lightning, but nothing consistent enough or far enough away–I’m not stupid enough to go stand outside in the lightning!–to motivate me to try to get a photo. Instead, I’d rather just grumble about the bloody weather.

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Instant Review: Black Books

I just got the first season of Black Books from Netflix. I haven’t laughed that hard in a long, long time. I nearly made myself sick. And, I’m not sure why. I suspect that others might not find it quite so riotous as I did. I think it just catered to my weird sense of humor, in all the right ways. Whatever the reason, I found it to be deeply, deeply funny from start to finish.

And, now, I’m going to get off the computer, because it’s starting to get a little nasty outside. I think maybe I should burn hecatombs to the weather gods, so the electricity won’t go out again. Eeep!

Art

Happy Blow Things Up Day

Shelly

I’ve had four days off, and didn’t manage to accomplish anything useful. Now that’s a rare and wondrous talent. I did some laundry, some cleaning, some arting, and a whole lotta no mowing. It’s just been too damned hot to even think about it. It’s supposed to cool off tomorrow, though, so maybe I’ll suddenly get motivated. I don’t recommend holding your breath, though.

I did manage to get some writing done. Nothing fun, but I’d been meaning to add a few things to the Tutorials & Tips section of the website. I haven’t proofed it yet, and I’ve still got a bunch of topics to cover, but it’s a start.

And, Lordy! Here comes the rain. Eeep! I hope it doesn’t last all night, because I really don’t want to drive to work in the rain. Hrmf.

Photography

Sweet Serendipity

Shelly

Earlier today, I posted a link to a website on lightning photography. Well, this evening, I managed to snag my second ever lightning photo. Wheee!

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For about thirty minutes, thunder had been rumbling. Then, I suddenly noticed that the sky to the southwest was a little pink, from the sunset. At the same time, a large, dark cloud mass had crept in from the north, creating a dark band of land, a light band of pale pink, then a dark band of clouds. I thought the contrast was lovely, so I grabbed my camera. The lightning strike was pure serendipity.

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A few moments later, I noticed that a fringe of rain was falling from the southwesternmost cloud rim. It was dry where I stood, and clear on the far side of the rain sheet. (Both images were taken at about the same time, but with different exposure lengths.)

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The backside of the storm spewed gumball-sized hail. I went out to check on my car and gathered up some specimens.

This therapy-through-photography thing is pretty damned cool. I’m scared to death of storms, but instead of getting sick, worrying about tornadoes, I actually found myself getting excited about the fact that there was lightning and hail. Not a lot excited, mind you, but any bit helps.

Photography

Between the heaves of storm

Shelly

We had an amazing storm in the early evening yesterday, with high winds, lots of lightning, and heavy rain (4 inches in one hour). The trees around me were bent over with the force of the wind, and I may have lost my largest sapling. When I went out to take pictures, after the worst had passed, I found the 8 foot tall tree bent over, with its top touching the ground. I wanted to cry, but I reminded myself not to get too attached to the baby trees because I’ll be moving soon. I can’t exactly take them with me, can I?

While I was out taking post-storm photos, I noticed an area of mammatus clouds to the south.

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Then, I noticed a break in the clouds to the southwest. A bird was wheeling around, appearing to circle the small patch of light. Right after I took this photo, he flew off to the east.

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To the south, there was mist rising from the trees. During the worst of the storm, this ridge was completely obscured by rain.

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A few hours later, another squall line moved through, less intense than the first.

Uncategorized

An ill wind

Shelly

We must have had a storm last night. It’s hard to believe I could have slept through it, but when I tried to go to work this morning, the road was closed. There’s probably a tree down. There were high winds yesterday, and if a storm did come through last night, it wouldn’t surprise me if it brought down trees. The ground being pretty thoroughly soaked doesn’t help, either. If you’ve ever seen an uprooted tree, you will have noticed that the root system is surprisingly shallow. It’s a wonder they stay up at all. When the ground gets soft, it doesn’t take much wind to topple them.

So, here I sit, contemplating whether I should call in or send an e-mail. I changed my schedule this summer, so that I have Mondays off. After three days at home, a fourth makes me feel like I’m playing hooky. As a penance, I might have to actually do some work. Or, I could wait awhile and try again. They may have the road cleared by now. Or, I could try going the alternate route, but I’m not familiar with it and would rather not get lost and spend the day wandering around back country roads. I’m pretty sure that staying home is going to win out, but I still have to decide whether to call in or e-mail. It’s far too early in the morning for this sort of decision-making.

Hmmm… Phone or e-mail…? E-mail or phone…?

Photography

Stormblogging

Shelly

A storm cell just passed overhead. Hoo-boy! It moved through quickly, thankfully, and we didn’t get the worst of it. North of us, there was a lot of rotation and tennis ball sized hail. We didn’t get any hail–in fact, we only got a few drops of rain–but there was rotation and a lot of movement in the clouds. Eeep!

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After the storm passed, the sun came out and lit up the towering cloud bank. Whew!

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Photography

The Calm Between the Storms

Shelly

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Wednesday evening, we had a couple of waves of storms pass through. The sky tried, unsuccessfully, to clear between the two cells. When a bank of tall clouds moved in front of the sun, I went inside to get my camera, in hopes of getting in on some crepuscular ray action. It’s subtle, but it’s there in the second and third photos. There is also a nice mix of thin, whispy clouds and tall, dense ones. The first photo is of a neat double arch formation that hovered over my neighbor’s barn.