Gulf Stream

Latitude & Temperature

East coast of North America is 10 to 20 degrees cooler than west coast of Europe.

via daily timewaster

Tam cops an attitude

Ugh.

Imagine me showing you a photo snapped out the window just now showing snow blowing around after yesterday afternoon’s sunny seventy degrees and captioning it “What fresh hell is this?”

That’ll save me the effort of walking over to the window.

Tips For Staying Warm

New York City. January 25, 2026. Laura Brett / ZUMA Press Wire / Scanpix / LETA

Russia's semi-opposition media Meduza offers some tips for staying warm during this winter storm. Ain't that sweet?

A historic winter storm has paralyzed much of the eastern United States, forcing airlines to cancel at least 10,000 flights and prompting more than 20 states to declare emergencies. On Sunday, more than a million homes and businesses lost power, leaving many people unaccustomed to severe cold to face freezing temperatures without indoor heating. For those suddenly confronting harsh winter conditions in parts of the U.S. that rarely see snow, Meduza’s employees — no strangers to the bitter cold — share their top tips for staying toasty.

Their tips come from:

• Denis, Moscow, Russia (average daily low temperature in winter: –8ºC / 18ºF)
• Sonya, Vologda, Russia (–13ºC / 9ºF)
• Dasha, Riga, Latvia (–5ºC / 23ºF)
• Vladislav, Perm, Russia (–17ºC / 1ºF)
• Sofya, Berdsk, Russia (–19ºC / –2ºF)
• Tyoma, Surgut, Russia (–22ºC / –8ºF)

Pink Pony Pub

Pink Pony Pub

Pink Pony Pub

Heat

Electric bill in the south
Jerry Wayne Live

I know of what he speaks. It got up to 95 here today, and yes, we turned the AC on. Truth be told, 95 here feels a tad warm, but it sure ain't like Houston. I spent a couple years there and I have no desire to go back. Also spent a couple of years in Arizona where it gets frying pan hot, but you don't melt like you do in Houston. My oldest son was born in July in Phoenix and Grandma came to visit. We had the AC cranked on to keep mama cool. Grandma cooks up a storm in the all electric kitchen and I got a $400 electric bill, back in 1990. That's like what, $4,000 now? Suffice it to say I was not able to rhapsodize about it like Jerry Wayne here.

Note - I was almost able to spell rhapsodize without looking it up. Forgot the h. Surprised myself, since I don't think I have ever used that word before, at least not on this here blog.

Via Bustednuckles

Hurricane Helene

Power Outage

Been hearing a lot of noise about how bad Helene was, but it was confusing because many of the reports came from places I have never heard of, so I went looking for a map. It looks like Helene had it in for Appalachia, which is kind of weird.

Houston Storm

Electricity transmission towers were damaged in Cypress, Texas, by a strong storm on Thursday, May 21, 2024 - Janett Avalos / Houston Public Media

I don't think I've ever heard of power transmission towers being taken down by a windstorm. Cypress is a suburb of Houston.

Via Bayou Renaissance Man

Let the Sunshine In

Let the Sunshine, Aquarius - Hair
Grupo Talía

It hasn't rained here for a week, so it seems like summer is actually here. You would think that after spending 30 years here I would be used to rain, rain, rain, but I really enjoy the sunshine. The performers here are Grupo Talia from Madrid, Spain, not the Morman Tabernacle Choir that some people, like Jack, seem to think.

The original was recorded by The 5th Dimension in 1967. The song is listed at number 66 on Billboard's "Greatest Songs of All Time". I don't understand why some people prefer big orchestral productions over small groups. Perhaps there is something in the sound, or maybe they just like big productions. It is kind of cool to see a big group all working together on the same tune. In some cases it might be because the originals are no longer available and any other individual singers would just not sound right. You get a hundred voices all together and that distinction disappears.

Tornado

THE MOST INSANE TORNADO VIDEO ever captured in Westmoreland, Kansas
Reed Timmer

It's tornado season in the Midwest. This video is pretty cool, never mind all the shouting. It's interesting the way all swirling winds at ground level are apparently disconnected from the funnel cloud itself. Also the way the funnel cloud stretches halfway across the sky.

Tornado

Raw video: Tornado forms near Rockwell City, Iowa
KCCI

This is just one of the five tornadoes that touched down in Calhoun County Iowa on Tuesday. Rockwell City is my wife's home town. Rockwell City has appeared here before.

P. S. No injuries.

High Altitude Lightning

High Altitude Lightning

Space Weather report from 2019:

On Oct. 15th, however, pilot Chris Holmes had no place to go when lightning started to crackle in thunderstorms around his aircraft. “I was flying 35,000 feet over the Gulf of Mexico near the Yucatan Peninsula when a super cell started pulsing with light,” he says. “It wasn’t just ordinary lightning, though. The cell was also creating lots of sprites and jets leaping up from the thunderhead.”

Via dailytimewaster 

Cold enough for you?

Why is the Arctic Asymmetric? | Why Trees Grow at the Same Latitude as Ice Sheets
Casual Earth

If you ever wondered why some places are covered with ice and places that seem to have similar characteristics don't, this video is for you. I think I probably wondered about it once, but I likely got an answer like 'oh, I don't think anybody knows, that's just the way it is'. Realizing my scrawny little self wasn't going to personally be able to map the weather of the entire arctic, I forgot about looking for an explanation. Come to think of it, I haven't run into anything about arctic weather that wasn't designed for three year olds. Yes, I know we (that's a royal 'we') keep trying to educate the ignorant, but you know, there are some people out here with brains. There is the problem of how much work is expended on explanations. The amount of effort and information in this one video is probably enough to produce a zillion videos aimed at three year olds.

Ventusky Hurricane Lee

Ventusky Hurricane Lee

This Ventusky thing is pretty cool. Zoom in, zoom out, change your altitude, look at a dozen different elements of weather. There is a heck of a network of computers and instruments collecting data, processing it, and funneling it through a stack of systems a mile high all to deliver this animated view of the weather. I suspect most of the data comes from NOAA which is funded by magic money from Congress. Your taxes? That's just the vig on the national debt.

Via The Feral Irishman

Twister Time in Indiana

It's 70-some degrees on this side of the front; unseasonably warm for this time of year. Drive an hour and a half west and the temperature is ten degrees colder and falling fast. That's a recipe for another round of serious convective activity. - view from the porch

Changing Weather

Castles in the Clouds, weather division: In today’s weather forecast, the computer-generated model shows a giant storm off Japan – shaped like Japan.

Storm map from Yard Sale of the Mind who also has some comments on G. K. Chesterton's brother Cecil (G. K. had a brother? Who knew?) and change.

Snow Storm

Driving conditions on Highway 26 on January 3, 2022 - KATU photo

We had a snow storm last week, seven inches of snow one day, enough that it hung around for several days. A week ago a friend of my daughter had a baby at St. Vincent Hospital in Beaverton. My daughter wanted to go visit mother and baby at the hospital, but not having a lot of experience driving in snow she asked me to drive. Since I have giant (relatively speaking) four wheel drive pick-em-up truck I said sure, let's go. It was a bit of an adventure.

It was basically a straight shot, ten miles down highway 26. The road was snow packed and there wasn't much traffic. There was no clear pavement. I have never seen it like that before. In addition, the wind was howling, so we are barreling down the road at 40 to 50 MPH and the wind is pushing us around and we drifting around on the road, maybe a foot either side of my intended path. I haven't had so much fun in a long time.

IAman was over on the east side when the storm hit. He checked Google maps before he tried driving over to the west side and all the routes were red so he was expecting a big traffic jam. However, when he got to the highway there was virtually no traffic. The cars that were there were crawling along 15-20 MPH. We suspect Google 'saw' how fast the traffic was moving and decided there was a traffic jam.

P. S. The picture isn't from where we were, but it looked just like that.

Heavy Lift Drone

Downed trees blocking the road at NW 22nd & Flanders Credit: Peter P

We has a snowstorm last month and because the trees had leaves, they collected a large amount of snow, more snow than they could handle, so we got a bunch of broken trees. There were so many downed trees that it impacted traffic over the west hills for a couple of days.

I was at the new house the other day and looking out the back door, down the hill, I can see a bunch of broken trees. Not giants, but still substantial with four to six inch diameter trunks. If should be cleaned up and I imagine it will, eventually. But cutting down the damaged trees and cutting them up pales in comparison to the work involved in hauling that wood to the top of the hill. I mean, you wouldn't have to haul it up, you could just leave it down there, pile it up neatly (or not) and let it rot. But if you could get it to the top of the hill, it could be worth cash money as firewood. Seems a shame to leave it to rot.

You know what would be perfect for this job? A great big drone, a drone that could lift 100 pounds. So I looked around and I didn't find much. Most big, fancy drones are aimed at the camera business and they are ridiculously expensive, like tens of thousands of dollars.

Incredible HLQ bench test

But then I found the Incredible HLQ (Heavy Lift Quadcopter). It looks like just the ticket. Except this project was started back in 2013 and disappeared shortly thereafter. I don't know whether they ran into technical problems or the FAA. I suspect it was the later, but I didn't find any explanation for its demise.

A380 Eunice Heathrow

A hovering giant, is this Plane really doing that? A380 storm Eunice London Heathrow
SpeedbirdTV

An Airbus A380 fights 65 MPH crosswinds while attempting to land during the storm that recently battered the UK.

Via FlightAware

Be Alert for STEVE

Steve - Mark Duffy, March 13, 2021 @ Moose jaw Saskatchewan

STEVE--short for "Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement"--was long thought to be a type of aurora borealis. But it's not. Auroras appear when particles rain down from space. STEVE, on the other hand, does not require "rain." Instead, satellite measurements show that it is a ribbon of hot (3000°C) gas speeding through the upper reaches of Earth's magnetic field faster than 10,000 mph. The ribbon's purple hue is still a mystery; some research suggests the color comes from heated nitrogen, but the jury's still out.

Studies show that, while STEVE may be seen at any time of year, he appears most often in weeks around equinoxes--that is, now. If you live at high latitudes, be alert for purple ribbons in the sky. - SpaceWeather

Via Indy Tom

 

Sahara Dust

Dust and Clouds Over the Sahara - Alex Gerst, September 2014
from the International Space Station

A dust storm from the Sahara is blowing over Europe. I went looking for picks but they weren't too impressive, just some streaks of brown, but then I found this one. It's not the current storm, but it's pretty cool.