Turn Around Don't Drown... Texas, Dolly!!

Happy Sky Watch Friday!! It's post time!!! (Please visit our host, Tom, Klaus, Sandy and Imac's Sky Watch blog (click here or on the logo to participate) to participate in Sky Watch Fridays. So much fun!!! I highly recommend it!) Today, I have chosen a shot of a cumulus congestus (Latin word congestus means: A HEAPING TOGETHER) ... or a cumulus tower. A cumulus tower (TCu) is what occurs when moisture meets instability. In a cumulus tower, you are seeing strong updraft, which is air being lifted to higher levels in the atmosphere, when colder air forces warm air up. The higher the tower is, the more updraft you are witnessing. In this case, the cumulus clouds were rising extremely high into the atmosphere, beginning to block the sun... thunderstorms were the result (key ingredients for a thunderstorm are moisture, instability and lift).... as well as buckets of rainfall. When you start to see lots of these forming, you can expect a doozy. Unfortunately, this shot is interrupted by the ever present cell phone tower which seem to be popping up everywhere these days... mucking up the scenery. Down in the bottom right of this shot, you see crepuscular rays, which I love.

Now, onto the now Tropical Storm Dolly. Yesterday Hurricane Dolly made landfall in South Padre Island as a category 2 hurricane, with 100mph winds slamming southeastern Texas, knocking out power, knocking down trees, damaging structures along the coast and dropping buckets and buckets... and buckets of rain. Seriously, heavily convected Dolly packed a WET punch and slowing down to turtle pace has made her presence very well known, with MORE THAN 10 inches of rain having fallen in some areas of southern Texas, but you can see in this current satellite capture that she is still going!! Of course, as with any land falling tropical cyclone, the danger of tornadoes exists. In fact, that purple box represents a tornado warning in that area.

Outside of TS Dolly, we have the very b r o a d area of underconvected low pressure out by the Cape Verde Islands, which has a slim chance of development, but it is the next thing on the "radar". Could we be looking at the future Edouard??? If so, he's a monster!Bf and I are headed to the mountains of NC this weekend to do a little waterfall exploration... I should have some great photographs to share after this trip. A huge thank you to EG Tour Guide for teaching me how to cross things out!!! :O)

Have a great day!
~Dewdrop