The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
-Psalm 19:1

Do you know that God controls the clouds and makes his lightning flash?
-Job 37:15



Thursday, January 08, 2009

Whatever, the weather... I'm there.

Boy, have I been slacking from the Sky Watch wonderfulness!!! I guess with Christmas and New Year's, I am excused, but I have missed it and all my SWF friends, so that means, it's time to swing back into action... Please visit Klaus, Sandy, Ivar, Wren, Louise and Fishing Guy's SKY WATCH BLOG to participate in Sky Watch Fridays, which is WELL WORTH YOUR WHILE!! Thanks to Dot, the mother of this fabulous blogging event, and to the "retired" Tom (miss you), who brought it to full bloom. I, personally, love visiting the skies all over the world!!! You should definitely come fly with us! Today, I chose to post a picture of this morning's sky to go along with my weather discussion today. The United States has a lot going on weatherwise, so I figured I would give a little insight. This picture of the water tower (yet another of my infamous water tower) with the stream of cirrus clouds rolling by...

Cirrus
(abbrev. CI) High-level clouds (16,000 feet or higher), composed of ice crystals and appearing in the form of white, delicate filaments or white or mostly white patches or narrow bands. Cirrus clouds typically have a fibrous or hairlike appearance, and often are semi-transparent. Thunderstorm anvils are a form of cirrus cloud, but most cirrus clouds are not associated with thunderstorms.
~source
I love cirrus clouds because, it's in them that you will see sun dogs, which just thrill me to pieces. These cirrus clouds, however, didn't reveal parheleons (sun dogs), but they are the consequence of the cold front that tore it's way through the southeast (less impressively down in my neck of the woods, where it quickly moved across as merely a baby squall line) mostly impacting north Alabama and central and northern Georgia, then eastern North Carolina yesterday. OK, so this crazy, super fast moving cold front pushes into the south, with its strong cyclonic flow generating a windy squally mess, even dropping in a couple of tornado reports. "Cold" on the heels (what? I can't say hot on the heels, it wasn't hot at all...) of this quick burst of rain down here, yet drought quenching drencher up in the areas that really needed it, the wind arrived in a burst of cold air that quickly laid to rest the 80 degree temps we've all been enjoying down this way. It was another one of those super fast systems though that sort of went bam bam bam with its sequence of weather.







Now, that system has moved up north, dropping snow on the folks in New England and around that area... while moving over the not-yet-frozen lakes, it's causing some lake effect snow (better them than me)... In Colorado, the dry air and some HIGH winds (gusts over 100mph!!!) fueled some destructive wildfires, while over in Washington state, many of the rivers there are in major flood stage, threatening to impose themselves on nearby homes. CRAZY, CRAZY WEATHER!

Now, if all that hasn't been bizarre enough... an arctic clipper system will be moving into the northeast over the weekend, which will carry with it some of the COLDEST temps of the season (I know, I keep saying that, but each time it gets worse... eek!), dropping some of those northern states (watch out my dear Wisconsin and UP friends) down to temperatures that MAX out at 0 degrees (that's not a typo, folks) by Monday and Tuesday. I'm sorry, but I can't even think about a temperature of 0 degrees, but I certainly can't imagine that as the high for the day. YUCK! As that pushes in though, cold temps will feed into the south, pushing us down into freezing (low temps), but enough to counteract all the blooming we've got going down here, so we might be dealing with some peach crop destruction... sad. The peach trees thought it was time... can't blame them with this spring-like weather we've been experiencing... so much for that though. Well, that's the US weather story, in a nutshell.

Have a great day!
~Dewdrop

39 comments:

  1. I agree with your Dew-rific post, this is my first time in over amonth also because of the holidays and time involved. Glad to have you back.

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  2. zero....yikes! See you at your place! lol

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  3. Welcome back, Dewdrop. You HAVE been missed!

    You're correct about that clipper moving southward. I hear the temperatures in central Ontario may go as low as -21 0r 22 Celsius. EW!

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  4. Hi Dewdrop, Happy New Year to you and yours.
    It seems some folk have had computer glitches too in this cold spell, keeping them off line, me included and cured thanks to dancin' at In The Pink.
    I enjoy your pictures very much and the help with cloud formation information.
    Thank you very much.

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  5. while the holidays are something to look forward to, i am glad that its over and now we all could go back to regular programming and that includes a weekly sky watch bloghopping.

    have a good weekend.

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  6. Welcome back, Missed your posts Dew.
    Great shots too.

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  7. Great shot,and interesting as usual.

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  8. Great shot,and interesting as usual.

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  9. Hi Dew,
    This is a lovely sky shot with the tower. I love the angle!
    I actually captured a sun dog for last week's Sky Watch. When I saw it I told my hubby I'm pretty sure that's a sun dog - lesson learned. :)

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  10. Welcome back with a wonderful picture!
    I like the compostion and I don't know such water towers.
    Your second photo is gorgeous, I love the colors and the cirrus clouds!

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  11. It has been some nasty weather across this country of ours, I must say. Just to the west of me, some horrible flooding and mud slides caused by some unseasonable warm weather after that arctic outflow and record snowfall amounts... oy oy...

    Nice photos you have posted.
    I hope you are feeling somewhat better after your ordeal a little while back.

    Take care.
    ~Michele~

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  12. Fabulous photos as always! It would drive you crazy..... no, I think you might find our skies interesting. We're constantly staring at it to see if it will rain on my mother's laundry. Winter weather in Hawaii is so changeable.

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  13. Another great post with good information and beautiful skies. I love water towers. They lend themselves to sky shots.

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  14. ""Cold" on the heels"...

    sad... very sad. :P

    I dunno... I'm not sure you got the most flattering angle on that water tower. I think if you had moved just a 1/8" to the right, well, then it would be a masterpiece!

    Ya know ya luv me dahling! :D

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  15. i love the second photo, of the sun dogs
    thanks for sharing

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  16. Dew: Welcome back; you know we miss all your tech talk and your great skies.

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  17. beautiful sky pictures. i think i love Cirrus type clouds too but that's seldom here at my end.

    happy Friday!

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  18. Jenn... I am just forever and always in love with your sky pictures... not to mention the one of you and gtb kissy kissy! hee hee :o)

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  19. Glad you're back. Thanks for bringing such a great post with you. God bless.

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  20. Love the Cirrus type clouds..the color awesome!

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  21. Love those clouds and the colors. Hope you had a good holiday. Happy New Yr

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  22. I really love them both. I like water towers, but the gold is amazing.
    Have a great week
    Grammy
    Missouri, USA

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  23. Dew, you need to be blogging for NOAA or something, cuz I never can get such a simple (to read) explanation of nation wide weather patterns there... sometimes seems like a site built for climatol...weather scientists and never mind the others!

    Welcome back!

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  24. Beautiful pictures of the water tower and the impressive sun dog.
    Interesting to read something about the weather in the USA.
    Have a great weekend!

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  25. Beautiful sky watch sky and good info. MB

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  26. Dewdrop, you have a way with 'splain' weather! We are preparing for the great Arctic blast over here in Alabama.

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  27. Water tower and Cirrus clouds. Way to tell us about Weather. I thank you very much for share your knowledge.
    Luiz Ramos

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  28. Thanks for the wonderful education. I love the perspective on your photo.

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  29. I really like your water tower shot. :)

    As always, I learned something while I was here. I am delighted by sun dogs, too.

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  30. Hello there my friend.. :O)
    |Thankyou for remembering me and the mention... I'm still around and slowly coming back with a post here and a comment there.... I of course still visit many of the blogs I grew to enjoy... this one of yours being way up there with the best...
    Tom

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  31. Welcome back great photos and interesting post about the technology that goes into an interesting sky. Like that angles in your photo and thanks for your kind comments on my post earlier.

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  32. Great information as usual. I love the photos too. I like the angle of the tower and that 2nd shot of the sky was a great capture.
    :-)

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  33. It's great that you have such an interest in the weather and are so knowledgeable! Thanks for all the info. The two photos are wonderful...

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  34. Why is the weather always too cold or too hot? It never seems to hit "just right" with any reliability.

    Ah, well, I'll just stay inside and look at lovely pictures like yours.

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  35. It is crazy weather indeed and I am getting really bored with the freezing temps - problem is it's only the second week of January! HELP!!!

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  36. I always learn a lot from your posts. Looking forward to more in 2009!

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  37. Love the blue sky--I don't know when we will see sky that blue next. Between our 2.5 week Arctic Blast, and then our 2 day Pineapple Express which has left 1/2 my state under flood water, I am already sick of winter less than 1 month into it!
    *smiles*
    Kim

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  38. happy new year! and like you i've been away from skywatch for too long! and now im back to appreciating the skies all over!

    carla

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  39. I love yellow skies, yours is terrific!

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