Life is in the Detours...

Well, my gtb and I decided to chase an adventure yesterday during my lunch hour. We grabbed a quick bite at a mutual friend's cafe and then hit the road looking for a country road to explore. It was funny, we were driving along looking, chatting... when all of the sudden, seemingly out of nowhere we both have an a-ha moment with the same road, roughly carved out by sporadic traffic, but not enough to consider it an actual road, just a trail really, leading who knows where. I don't even know where we were to tell you quite frankly. So, we hopped on the trail in the dirty jeep (as it should be) and headed for who-knows-where... one of my (and seems to be gtb's) favorite destinations. The sky was a brilliant blue with a scattering of patchy cumulus and cirrus wisps. ... an occasional dragon fly flittering by over-head...We took the trail until it ended at a cut out for a row of power lines, but among the power lines was a scattering of beautiful yellow and purple wild flowers amid the brush (pictured above)... it was tranquil and beautiful except for the occasional whooshing sound of a car passing on the not-too-far-off road. As we were exploring, we discovered a stow-away... a praying mantis had found a resting place on the mud splattered grill of the jeep... In the pose below, it is actually looking at us and almost saying, "What an atrocious mess! Don't you ever wash this thing?!" Interesting creatures, those praying mantises...

Praying Mantises are in fact named for the typical "prayer-like" stance. The word mantis derives from the Greek word mantis for prophet or fortune teller.

While mantises can bite, they have no venom, and are not dangerous to humans. They do not appear to be chemically protected; nearly any large predatory animal will eat a mantis if it is able to detect it (mantises are generally quite aggressive towards one another, in fact, and most species are readily cannibalistic when given the opportunity).

Sexual cannibalism is common among mantises in captivity, and under some circumstances may also be observed in the field. The female may start feeding by biting off the male’s head (as with any prey). Whether the behavior in the field is natural, or also the result of distractions caused by the human observer, remains controversial. Mantises are highly visual creatures and notice any disturbance occurring in the laboratory or field such as bright lights or moving scientists. ~source

Splendid afternoon excursions... you know how I love those.

Aside from that, we see that the tropical wave approaching the Windward Islands, now about 650 miles east of the Lesser Antilles, has picked up some more convective activity and is now expected to become a tropical depression during the next day or so. The Hurricane Hunter is standing by... I suspect this one will be named Fay in the near future. We also have two other areas, one a large area of "disturbed weather" out of the Cape Verde Island area, which "could" develop into a tropical depression has some moderate potential for life as Gustav. Finally, we have the very unlikely development of the tropical wave in the southwestern Caribbean.

A little closer to home... well, up in New England we have a low spinning just on shore, bringing torrential rain and wind, causing storm damage and flooding... locally, we actually have rain in our forecast. Actually, we are within an area of slight risk for SEVERE WEATHER... hmm. Same for tomorrow... very interesting. Sounds like it's about time for my gtb to put the top back on his jeep. Actually, it looks like things could get interesting around here. They actually said...

FAIRLY SUBSTANTIAL LOW-LVL (0-1 KM) SHEAR WILL EXIST. GIVEN VERY RICH MOISTURE INFLOW (DEWPOINTS IN THE MID 70S)... THIS COULD ENHANCE POTENTIAL FOR LOW-LVL STORM ROTATION *** TORNADOES*** ESPECIALLY IN THE PRESENCE OF ANY DISCRETE OR SEMI-DISCRETE STORMS.

WITH SHORTWAVE IMPULSE AND ASSOCIATED WIND FIELD EXPECTED TO FURTHER STRENGTHEN OVERNIGHT... EXPECT THAT SVR THREAT WILL CONTINUE AND POSSIBLY EVEN INCREASE THROUGH EARLY WEDNESDAY EWD ACROSS AL INTO GA AND NW FL.

Well, then... isn't that special? Tornadoes a possibility in my forecast.

Could be a bright, bright, bright mesocyclonic day... :O) (my blog, my lyrics...)

Sure enough... 3:25PM... Tornado Watch issued, well to my west, and warnings have been issued sporadically throughout this afternoon.Have a great one!
~Dewdrop