GEMA training

Yesterday was an exciting day for me. I sat through training offered by the Georgia Emergency Management Agency (GEMA) facilitated by the Emergency Manager of Lowndes County, where we learned the process for Preliminary Damage Assessment (PDA) for individuals, which is the first step toward acquiring FEMA assistance during a time of disaster. It was interesting and exciting for me, since this is an area that is near and dear to my heart. As a storm chaser, I am passionate about weather, seeing the storms, learning everything there is to know about weather, but as any natural disaster victim knows, the human side drives an incredible emotional response in me that has driven me to learn as much as I can about what to do. As such, I trained to be a Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) member, which makes me more valuable if I am first on the scene after a disaster, say for instance, if I am chasing a tornado that destroys structures. I would love to pursue first responder training, in order to add more value to a scene, should the situation arise. I have an extensive background in disaster services with the American Red Cross, having served for 5 years as a local Board officer and serving as the the Damage Assessment team lead for a couple of years, deploying for damage caused by Hurricane Jeanne locally. I have studied the same training guidelines that the National Weather Service utilizes in categorizing tornadoes, with regard to evaluating building structure and damage caused by storms. My passion definitely falls within this area, and I plan to continue to pursue any further training made available.

Aside from all that, the forecast calls for a (VERY) slight chance of snow or ice pellets to our south... I'm so tired of winter weather, I can't even begin to tell you.

LIGHT RAIN MAY FALL SOUTH OF I-10 SATURDAY MORNING AS LOW PRESSURE MOVES FROM THE CENTRAL GULF INTO SOUTH FLORIDA. RAINFALL AMOUNTS WILL BE VERY LIGHT. WHILE A COUPLE OF SNOW FLAKES OR ICE PELLETS CANNOT BE RULED OUT...RELATIVELY WARM LOW LEVEL TEMPERATURES AND THE LOW PRECIPITATION CHANCES WILL MAKE FROZEN PRECIPITATION UNLIKELY.

Have a great weekend!
~Dewdrop

SDS (Supercell Dewvoid Syndrome)

I knew I was in trouble last night when I was watching the water rotate as it escaped down the drain into the garbage disposal, and I shouted... "A WATER SPOUT!" Yep, SDS (Supercell Dewvoid Syndrome) is hitting me hard this year... unfortunately, it generally sticks with me year-round because the way my storm chasing goes, I am either not seeing anything nearby, or my life circumstance at the time of occurence doesn't support a chase. For instance, while I was chasing the sunset and some dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico... ... and "tornado" was spotted and warned back home. It turns out that the tornado was just a downburst, so whew... I didn't miss anything. The time we had a tornado warning with what had just been an EF3 in Boston (Georgia, that is) that was headed right toward us, it was the middle of the night, and I was charged with keeping Mini-Dew safe over seeing what was coming. The rotation passed within a mile south of us. I hate night events. High risk event in SD, while filming a storm chasing show, yeah, one doggone tornado, and we missed it. So, yep... permanent SDS for me, but in my heart, I'm chasing naders.

Have a great day!
~Dewdrop

A birthday to remember

Talk about a crazy weekend. Mini-Dew had a birthday on Friday. Hibachi-style (family tradition lets her choose) family dinner on Friday... Family brownie cake after that... slumber party Saturday night. I'm still in recovery mode. As is normally the case, the slumber party was crazy from the start. 7 tweens. Am I nuts? We had pizza, play time, band hero, scary stories, midnight ice cream social, trampoline at 2 (yes, AM), an attempt at a 3AM VHS copy of "It", which was so frustrating with it's skipping and jumping that they didn't make it 10 minutes in before changing it to "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs". Interesting trade-off. More jumping in the morning. I think everyone had a great time.
The weather was perfect for the whole party, clear skies and mild temps, even approaching 70° on Sunday morning... well, afternoon... Perhaps spring is finally knocking at our door. I sure hope so. All the cold is getting really old!!!

Have a great day!
~Dewdrop

A little piece of Heaven

SKY WATCH FRIDAY time! Welcome all sky fans!!! I truly appreciate your visit and comments. I might not have time to respond to you, but I will try my best to visit!!!

Our hosts: Klaus Sandy Sylvia Wren Louise Fishing Guy

Thanks, also,to Dot and Tom, who were instrumental in the success of this blogging event. You should definitely come fly with us!I call this one... "Heaven". Doesn't it look like what a glimpse of Heaven??? Well, it's what I imagine Heaven to be like. In light of life and busyness and too much work, I haven't been out shooting, as much as I'd like, which is a whole lot more than NEVER, I assure you. I plan to remedy that... SOON! Since I have no new shots, I searched the archive to find a shot to share for Sky Watch Friday. This shot was taken back in June of last year, back in the days of real weather, good weather, severe potential... not all this annoying cold weather and blue, dry skies. Yes, yes, we had snow for 20 minutes on Friday, but this dry, freezing cold, it's getting OLD! The photo was captured during a severe hail and wind weather event. I didn't experience the hail personally, but I know it happened.

Have a heavenly day!
~Dewdrop

Yeppers, snow in south central Georgia!!!

Greetings and salutations! Well, as reported, we did actually get a brief snow flurry here in south Central Georgia on Friday evening. You see in this shot, the snowflake over my right shoulder and a very happy wonderful groom (he was giddy--can tell he's from the south). As much as I grumble about snow, it truly was a masterpiece, as huge (half dollar sized) flakes poured out of the sky. My wonderful groom and I were struck by the stillness, the quietness that seemed to surround us, which felt almost surreal. It started at about 6:55, frozen rain/slushy sleet was falling, as we were driving away with our carry out from Valdosta, headed home to watch our shows online. I called it into the weather service. Then, just as I hung up, it turned to snow. It was magnificent to watch it change over to snow. As slushy rain turned to a fury of big brilliant snowflakes in a raging downpour of snow. Even in the dark, they were easy to see. As we drove, it took on almost a tunnel-effect as snow flew toward us and raced past us. We were both laughing and smiling at the wonder of it. Given that it was a night event, the pictures aren't as great as I had hoped, and there was no accumulation here. It pretty much melted on contact, though in the picture with the doggone dog, you can see some flakes still on the ground. My wonderful groom thought it was funny that after I was out "playing" in the snow, I had accumulation on my head, looking like some crazy dandruff. (Interestingly, the entire state of Georgia saw snow on Friday, and from what I hear 49 of our 50 states had snow... crazy. Al Gore, you know what you can do with your Global Warming theory...)

Hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine's Day, like my wonderful groom and I did. We decided to get all dolled up for a nice dinner in town. It was yummy and the leftovers made great omelet filling. :D The only disappointment was that they didn't have a great selection of desserts, which is my weakness... and I was kind of looking forward to sweets with my sweet.

This morning's sunrise was an amazing start to a Monday. The cloud base was all rugged, and the texture was pulling in the colors of the rising sun beautifully, as the golden glow rose into the morning sky. Breathtaking!Hope your day is as beautiful as mine started!
~Dewdrop

Local Storm Report -- SNOW

I can't believe that Tim referred to me as "PUBLIC" (I have addressed that with him), but here goes...

PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TALLAHASSEE FL
703 PM EST FRI FEB 12 2010

..TIME... ...EVENT... ...CITY LOCATION... ...LAT.LON...
..DATE... ....MAG.... ..COUNTY LOCATION..ST.. ...SOURCE....
..REMARKS..

0655 PM SNOW VALDOSTA 30.85N 83.28W
02/12/2010 E0.0 INCH LOWNDES GA PUBLIC (???)

JUST STARTED SNOWING IN VALDOSTA.


&&

$$

BARRY

IT'S SNOWING!!! Big huge beautiful flakes!

That snow report... it's from me. :D

EEK! Still a chance...

LOW PRESSURE WILL MOVE SOUTH OF THE AREA THIS AFTERNOON AND EVENING. AHEAD OF THIS LOW A COLD RAIN WILL CONTINUE TO FALL ACROSS THE AREA. THE RAIN MAY OCCASIONALLY MIX WITH SLEET OR A FEW WET SNOWFLAKES EARLY THIS MORNING. (nothing here this morning. It's not here yet.)

THE LOW WILL PASS EAST OF THE REGION LATER THIS AFTERNOON AND EARLY THIS EVENING WITH A COLDER AIRMASS RAPIDLY FILTERING INTO THE REGION. IT IS DURING THIS TIME FRAME THAT SOME LIGHT SNOW MAY BRIEFLY BECOME POSSIBLE...ESPECIALLY ALONG AND NORTH OF THE INTERSTATE 10 CORRIDOR (ummm, that's us). LITTLE OR NO ACCUMULATION IS EXPECTED WITH THIS SNOW IN THE EVENING. HOWEVER...TEMPERATURES ARE EXPECTED TO DROP BELOW FREEZING LATER IN THE EVENING...AND CERTAINLY AFTER MIDNIGHT. PATCHY ICE IS POSSIBLE WITH THESE FALLING TEMPERATURES IF ANY WATER REMAINS ON THE ROADWAYS.

MOTORISTS TRAVELING NORTH AND WEST OF TALLAHASSEE ARE ADVISED THAT WINTER STORM WARNINGS ARE IN EFFECT FOR ACCUMULATING SNOWS ACROSS SOUTHEAST ALABAMA...INLAND PORTION OF THE FLORIDA PANHANDLE AND PORTIONS OF SOUTHWEST AND SOUTH-CENTRAL GEORGIA. ROAD CONDITIONS ACROSS SOUTHEAST ALABAMA...THE FLORIDA PANHANDLE AND PORTIONS OF SOUTHWEST GEORGIA MAY DETERIORATE LATER TODAY.

All the pink in this graphic is winter mix, smack dab in the middle of the rain.Stay warm, as if.
~Dewdrop

S#@W?! HERE?! TOMORROW?!

SKY WATCH FRIDAY time! Welcome all sky fans!!! I truly appreciate your visit and comments. I might not have time to respond to you, but I will try my best to visit!!!

Our hosts: Klaus Sandy Sylvia Wren Louise Fishing Guy

Thanks, also,to Dot and Tom, who were instrumental in the success of this blogging event. You should definitely come fly with us! I want to share with you my sunrise this morning. The sky glowed with pink, purple, salmon, gold... it was truly breath-taking, a great reminder of God's glory and His outpouring of blessings into my life.Ahh, yes, the sky was alive this morning.

Our skies during this outrageously cold spell have been splendid. We've had amazing displays of billowing altocumulus (where they look like contrails lined up). We've had altocumulus cushions plastered across the sky, as if God, Himself, spilled cotton balls, and they got caught in the sky. Yesterday, I encountered such a display leaving work (and my wonderful groom sent me a similar picture where it almost resembled mammatus clouds, my favorite!) Like I said though... COLD SPELL!!! We are dealing, once again, with below freezing temps. The northeast is recovering from yesterday's blizzard, but we are dealing with worse cold than I've experienced here in a long time. The chatter here now, is the potential we have for s#@w tomorrow, that's right... a system is fast approaching. Parts of southern Alabama are under a winter storm watch.

A DEVELOPING AREA OF LOW PRESSURE NEAR THE TEXAS GULF COAST WILL MOVE EASTWARD THROUGH FRIDAY AFTERNOON. AS THIS LOW APPROACHES THE REGION TONIGHT...PRECIPITATION WILL BEGIN TO DEVELOP ACROSS THE FLORIDA PANHANDLE...FLORIDA BIG BEND AND SOUTH CENTRAL GEORGIA. THE RAIN WILL OCCASIONALLY MIX WITH SNOW OVER THE INLAND FLORIDA PANHANDLE AND PORTIONS OF SOUTHWEST AND SOUTH CENTRAL GEORGIA (that's here!!)...ESPECIALLY FRIDAY MORNING AND AFTERNOON. DUE TO WARM AIR AT THE SURFACE...LITTLE OR NO SNOW ACCUMULATION IS EXPECTED. ANY ACCUMULATION THAT OCCURS WILL BE CONFINED TO GRASSY OR ELEVATED SURFACES.

Try to stay warm...
~Dewdrop

Blizzard strikes the northeastern part of the country

With Obama-bucks pouring into my program, I have had no time (and still don't have any) to breathe, let alone blog, but I figured I would pop in quickly and share an extremely brief update. In a pattern of ferocious winter weather, the northeast is now facing their turn with blizzard conditions knocking on their doors, stopping everything in its tracks, schools and businesses have been closed, flights have been cancelled, no doubt sending a surge of delays and missed flights throughout the country. With the opening ceremonies for the Winter Olympics just two days away, let's hope the weather here doesn't put a wrench in some of those athletes' travel plans. As always though, better them than me. I live in a place where snow hasn't accumulated in the 16 years that I've lived here. We have to travel great lengths to get a snow experience for our children... which is fine with me. I don't like the cold, and I don't care much for snow. The wording of the blizzard warning is chilling (I'm so punny)

...AN EXPLOSIVELY (strong word) DEVELOPING NOR/EASTER WILL BRING HEAVY SNOW TO MUCH OF OUR AREA TODAY AND THIS EVENING...WITH BLIZZARD CONDITIONS EXPECTED FOR MANY AREAS.

A COASTAL STORM DEVELOPING OFF THE CENTRAL MID ATLANTIC COAST BEFORE SUNRISE WILL INTENSIFY EXPLOSIVELY (there's that word again!) TODAY. STRONG WINDS GUSTING TO 40
TO 50 MILES AN HOUR THIS AFTERNOON...BLIZZARD CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED AT TIMES MAINLY FROM ABOUT MIDDAY AND THROUGH THE AFTERNOON... TOTAL SNOW ACCUMULATIONS ARE EXPECTED TO RANGE FROM 8 TO 16 INCHES INTO EARLY TONIGHT...

NEAR-BLIZZARD OR BLIZZARD CONDITIONS ARE RARE FOR OUR AREA...SO IT IS LIKELY THAT PEOPLE WILL NOT REALIZE THE PERIL (another strong word) THAT EXISTS IN VENTURING OUT IN SUCH STORMS. LIFE-THREATENING CONDITIONS ARE POSSIBLE...AND DRIVING WILL BE HAZARDOUS AT BEST DURING THIS WINTER STORM TODAY AND EARLY TONIGHT. IT IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED THAT TRAVEL BE CURTAILED DUE TO THE DANGEROUS CONDITIONS...AND ONLY DRIVE IF IT IS TRULY AN EMERGENCY SITUATION.

TRAVEL EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. DO NOT TRAVEL. IF YOU MUST TRAVEL...HAVE A WINTER SURVIVAL KIT WITH YOU. IF YOU GET STRANDED...STAY WITH YOUR VEHICLE

Ominous and serious warning. Be safe.

Sometime, I will try to post some pics from a recent adventure with my wonderful groom.

Have a great and safe day!
~Dewdrop

Mare's Tail

SKY WATCH FRIDAY time! Welcome all sky fans!!! I truly appreciate your visit and comments. I might not have time to respond to you, but I will try my best to visit!!!

Our hosts: Klaus Sandy Sylvia Wren Louise Fishing Guy

Thanks, also,to Dot and Tom, who were instrumental in the success of this blogging event. You should definitely come fly with us!

Well, with my wonderful groom and Mini-Dew (and even the doggone dog) both sick yesterday, I was pretty tied up caring for the two of them, didn't even get on the computer. They have the virus that I happened to have on Monday, which basically involved an upset stomach, chills and extreme tiredness. My sources indicate that this strange "bug" is making its rounds. Fortunately, rest was just what the doctor ordered, and they are back where they are supposed to be. If you gotta have a "bug", a short-lived one is the best kind to have.I took the above shot on Sunday. We had just gotten back from grocery shopping on Sunday, when I looked up to see this amazingly sheared stream of cirrus clouds, sweeping across the entire sky. Mixed in were some random "Mare's Tail" cirrus clouds, which are the whipped looking clouds, sort of resembling a mare's tail, hence the name. They look like little hooks in the clouds.

As for weather... well, yet another snow storm pummels the country, further busting snow removal budgets all over the place, which have been under the strain of a worse than normal snow and ice coverage year. We are back under a flood watch. Looking on the bright side, at least we aren't dealing with drought again...

Have a beautiful day!
~Dewdrop

Well, it's Groundhog Day... again...

Okay, campers, rise and shine, and don't forget your booties cause it's coooold out there, today.

That's right, woodchuck-chuckers - it's GROUNDHOG DAY!

Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow this morning, and texted his forecast to Facebook... what?! Seriously, folks, the groundhog sent a text message to Facebook announcing, in accordance with folklore, we can expect 6 more weeks of winter... I predict 6 weeks and 4 days, since Spring starts on March 20, but what do I know. The same thing happened last year. Somehow the rodent saw his shadow once again on a cloudy day. Maybe, I am confused about what would cause a shadow... perhaps, they mean because of all the media lights. According to the groundhog...

On Gobbler's Knob on this glorious Groundhog Day, February 2nd, 2010, Punxsutawney Phil, Seer of Seers, Prognosticator of all Prognosticators awoke to the call of President Bill Deeley and greeted his handlers, John Griffiths and Ben Hughes.

After casting a joyful eye towards thousands of his faithful followers, Phil proclaimed, "If you want to know next, you must read my text. As the sky shines bright above me, my shadow I see beside me. So six more weeks of winter it will be."

Of course, Phil's not the only fortune telling groundhog out there. Many cities have a version of their own, which they celebrate in the like. Here are those forecasts.So, there you have it folks, meteorology takes second stage to the predictions of a groundhog.

Have a nice winter.
~Dewdrop