I've seen this somewhere before...

Happy Sky Watch Friday!! It's post time!!! (Please visit our host, Tom's blog to participate in Sky Watch Fridays. So much fun!!! I highly recommend it!) Today's Sky Watch Friday Shot is of a sunrise taken from my driveway... This was no ordinary sunrise though... altocumulus painted the sky during the perfect time at sunrise to make the sky glow, as if on fire!! Looks like a patriotic sky to me.This reminds me of scripture that I read recently...

Matthew 16
The Demand for a Sign
The Pharisees and Sadducees came to Jesus and tested him by asking him to show them a sign from heaven.

He replied, "When evening comes, you say, 'It will be fair weather, for the sky is red,' and in the morning, 'Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.' You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.

Incidentally, here are two posts from that day... post 1 and post 2... but, there weren't any severe weather reports that day in my neck of the woods.

Onto the tropics... well, looks like history is repeating itself to a point... that strong tropical wave off the coast of Africa has been defined as a Tropical Depression 2 (a very pretty tropical depression, if I may say)... (ok, someone please explain to me why we have Tropical Depression 2, when we never had Tropical Depression 1... didn't we start with TS Arthur, which later became Tropical Depression Arthur? I don't recall a TD 1...) Anyhow, bottom line is that we have a Cape Verde tropical depression that is expected to become Tropical Storm Bertha later today, as conditions are favorable for development during the short term; however, her chances of survival beyond the abundant dry air in the central Atlantic are slim to none. They are, however, forecasting a strong tropical storm by the 8th as her path approaches Bermuda, most likely becoming a fish. She is one to keep her eyes on... Regardless, eastern Atlantic Tropical storm on July 2nd is pretty amazing... Last time that happened, was in '96 when Tropical Storm BERTHA was born. Crazy irony there. Aside from that, another tropical wave has formed in the eastern Caribbean, which is in a heavily sheared environment, which should tear that puppy apart, preventing any potential development. Interesting stuff over in the tropics... looks like their waking up. I just hope nothing hits our gas prices any worse than we are already seeing. A US landfall would most likely put us under... I can see them easily getting up to $6/gallon with restrictions and deficits in supply. Scary.

As for CONUS weather, Iowa saw a tornado yesterday, where an apparent tornado destroyed some silos and barns. I saw footage of this while I was watching TWC this morning.

2 E VAN HORNE, BENTON COUNTY, IA
SPOTTERS AND LAW ENFORCEMENT REPORTED A TORNADO BETWEEN VAN HORNE AND NEWHALL. LAW ENFORCEMENT REPORTS SILOS AND BARN DAMAGED AT HIGHWAY 218 AND E44.

Today the areas for a slight risk of severe weather have been moved to New England and the Washington/Oregon area... Weird.

Meso Mike is hosting a 4th of July cook-out in Enigma, GA, tomorrow night, so we will be voyaging up that way for the festivities. Apparently, we are turning it into a chaser convergence, with a request for me to bring the episode of the Twister Sisters that I aired on... fun. I'm sure that I will have plenty of great pics to post after that.

I hope everyone has a fantastic 4th of July!!

11AM Update: Welcome TS Bertha!!Toodles,
~Dewdrop