Ahh, the lovely skies

SKY WATCH FRIDAY time! Though Obama-madness has died down some in my neck of the woods, I am still pretty swamped with stimulus yuck, so I might not get a chance to say hi. Please don't take offense. Thanks for the visit anyhow. Our hosts: Klaus Sandy Ivar 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 have spoken about crepuscular rays often. They are what look like rays of light peaking through breaks in the clouds, which are actually light bouncing off dirty particles in the air. Well, what happens when the cloud actually obstructs the light...? Well, you get cloud shadows, and I have talked about those before, but I have never captured as nice of an example as I did yesterday.

Yesterday, I noted that the Storm Prediction Center had issued a mesoscale discussion regarding a likelihood of severe weather in my neck of the woods... they outlined an area that could expect damaging wind and hail. The area that was expecting to get some action is identified here to the right. Notice the storm reports from yesterday... notice any here??? ... or anywhere in the mesoscale discussion area, for that matter????No, I think not! We did have some beautiful clouds, really amazing towers, as the instability revealed itself, but check out the ridiculous radar for yesterday, which shows a clear depiction of the weatherless void that exists around me (the less than fondly dubbed, Dewvoid). Locally, all I saw was a little lightning, nothing happened here... judging by the lightning show, it looked like it all happened north of here, in Meso Mike's neck of the woods. Incidentally, his mom told me she thought it was active down our way. The buck tends to stop at her son... sigh. Here are some amazing sky shots from yesterday though.



It really was spectacular with the striking blue contrasting with the brilliant white climbing desperately to its highest height. I wonder if any of them produced hail. Cumulonimbus clouds are exciting and exotically beautiful to me. That last one would be considered a Cumulonimbus capillatus, which is a cumulonimbus cloud with cirrus-like, fibrous-edged top. Oh, I didn't even mention the hail/rain shaft that I captured. Looks like it could have been hail, but I'm not too sure.

You remember me talking yesterday about the Tropical Depression 2, which prematurely was being called Ana... well, that is typically the kiss of death to a tropical system. I think it's Ma Nature's way of saying... "So, you think you know me, do you? Well, I'll show you..." Check out the image to the upper left... under the Lx, do you see anything...? I think not. The circulation has lost an essential characteristic of tropical cyclone-ness... convection. All the moisture has been dried out of the low pressure system, which will most likely suffocate the system causing it to vanish into nothingness... however, they are still thinking TD2 will become Tropical Storm Ana before eventually dissipating. The next area of concern would be that juicy area off the coast of Africa. The models are still carrying it all the way to the US in about 10 days, as a tropical cyclone. Will it be Ana? Will it be Bill? Who knows??? Stay tuned.

Have a fantabulous day!
~Dewdrop

A little bit of this, and a whole lotta that

Well, the heavens opened up last night in a spectacular light show that I wasn't able to partake in because Mini-Dew has started back to school, and I got to listen to her explain scientific processes instead. Yee-haw. I did get the one pre-cursor shot awesome anvil-looking cumulonimbus, while shopping for a 1" binder that Mini-Dew had to have by today, but somehow I knew nothing about it until 6pm yesterday... ehem. I was able to see a few flashes of the crawlers creeping across the sky, and the thunder boomed and rumbled as the storm made its presence known. Rick posted some pics on the Weather Brigade team site. Great shots, Rick.

As we watch, the future Ana traipse across the Atlantic, still just Tropical Depression 2, yet destined for Tropical Storm-ness (to the point where the mets on TWC are referring to it as Ana... oops), we note another (much larger) area of disturbed weather popping off the African coast. Sure, right now, it doesn't seem like much, but I watched the GFS model turn it into a hurricane and bring it up the coast. In fact, it almost looks like the GFS has Africa lining them up for us, but the one in question shows a minimal hurricane off the coast of North Carolina, by Sunday August 23rd...... models are just models. I am not saying this will happen, but it looks like the tropics have indeed awakened, and they are ready to go!!!

The other day, I was coming back from lunch with my wonderful groom, when, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed this beautiful brilliant orange color from the garden by the picnic area behind my office. Well, of course, me being me, I had no choice but to grab my camera and investigate. Sure enough, when I got back there, I discovered this...Amazing, huh? That'll make it over the mantel.

When I spoke about the Bacon Party! the other day, I mentioned that my wonderful groom and I won the Best Presentation, and we were awarded the ceramic Big (my wonderful groom pointed out the typo in my post about the bacon party) PIG prize. Well, in case you have been holding your breath...We're so silly... I love it!

1:30 update: The slight risk area has been expanded to include my neck of the woods, and a Mesoscale Discussion was just issued to cover the potential for severe weather here... watch unlikely...

AN ISOLATED SEVERE THREAT SHOULD DEVELOP/INCREASE THROUGH MID AFTERNOON ACROSS PORTIONS OF SOUTHERN GA/FAR NORTHERN FL. AMPLE INSOLATION HAS CONTRIBUTED TO A WELL-HEATED /LOWER 90S F/ AND WEAKLY CAPPED AIRMASS. MODIFIED 12Z OBSERVED RAOBS FROM TALLAHASSEE/JACKSONVILLE ARE SUGGESTIVE OF AS MUCH AS 2500-3500 J/KG OF MLCAPE!!!! (they didn't include the exclamation points, I did!) ISOLATED/PULSE-TYPE DAMAGING WIND/PERHAPS MARGINAL HAIL THREAT WILL EXIST THIS AFTERNOON

Weather radios on!!!

Have a splenderifous day... (I will hereby be getting my adjectives from moshi monsters...)
~Dewdrop

Finally, the tropics are awake!

Well, it's about doggone time!!! Finally, arriving late on the scene this season, we have a tropical depression. Yes, folks, that Cape Verde wave that I spoke of yesterday has earned Tropical Depression status. Join me in welcoming Tropical Depression 2 to the stage... Tropical Depression 2?!?, you ask?! Yes, folks, we actually had a pre-season blip, that stole away the 1st depression status. It didn't ever amount to anything, so you might have forgotten about it.You might be noticing those two other areas of interest, one in the Windward Islands, and the other between our tropical depression and that wave... neither have much of a shot at development, but I find it funny that we went from nada... to kaboom, just like that. Tropical Depression 2 is forecast to become our first named storm of the 2009 Atlantic Basin Hurricane Season. That would make Tropical Storm Ana (pronounced Uh-nah). It doesn't look like they expect her to become anything much more than a fish, but Bermuda should keep a close watch on the storm, as it creeps across the Atlantic, making the long track from Africa to this neck of the woods.

AS USUAL THERE IS CONSIDERABLE UNCERTAINTY AS TO THE STRENGTH OF THIS SYSTEM LATER IN THE FORECAST PERIOD. IF THE CYCLONE MOVES FARTHER NORTH THAN ANTICIPATED (ABOVE) IT WILL PROBABLY ENCOUNTER STRONGER SHEAR AND NOT INTENSIFY AS MUCH AS FORECAST. ON THE OTHER HAND IF THE SYSTEM MOVES FARTHER SOUTH THAN EXPECTED LATE IN THE PERIOD...IT WILL PROBABLY BECOME STRONGER THAN ANTICIPATED HERE.

I will keep you posted... You know, I've kept my mouth shut about something that has really irritated me, but enough is enough! "Wake up with Al" is the Weather Channel's newest brain fart, where someone apparently got the hair-brained idea that TWC watchers might for some reason want to watch the less-than-intelligent NBC "celebrity", while catching up on the weather... not true! The guy crawls up my skin, and the whole little news segment is exactly what I am trying to get away from by watching the Weather Channel instead of the umpteen thousand news channels and ridiculous morning talk shows... Seriously, Weather Channel bozos, do you think I want to watch Al call an obvious shelf cloud... a wall cloud (as he did this morning--give me a break people!!!)? I think not!! It irritates me to no end, and I sure hope that someone gets a brain at that establishment... and starts to actually show--- gasp, WEATHER!

Ok, I think I will crawl off my soap-box now. Sorry.

Have a lovely day! Let me know if you find a weather channel that talks about the weather.
~Dewdrop

How I got interested in weather... by Dewdrop

OK, so I was having a conversation this morning with a fellow storm chaser about where we got our start.... and that got me thinking I have a story to share there. I have always been a passionate weather geek for as long as I can remember. When I was a young child, ages 6-10, I remember standing on the porch during thunderstorms. My mother would drag me inside kicking and screaming, but I was seriously awe-struck at that young age, absolutely drawn to the storm... meanwhile, my brother dove under the bed hiding from the "light-ling"... literally. My first real memorable event was Hurricane Gloria. I lived on the coast of Boston, well, 6 houses down from the coast, when Hurricane Gloria moved inland and passed over Massachusetts in September 1985. My uncle, whose home faced the beach, was evacuated. We, however, decided to have a hurricane party at the neighbor's house. When it was realized that the worst of the storm was missing us, the kids were given clearance to go outside and play in the wind! I loved it, leaning into the wind, feeling it press against my face. It left a definite impression, and a burning passion for anything weather. According to Wikipedia, Hurricane Gloria ranks as the 13th costliest and the 16th most intense hurricane at time of U.S. landfall this century.

1985 September 27-28-Hurricane Gloria- cat.1/2- first hurricane of significant strength to move inland in southern New England since 1960. Widespread wind damage reported in Conn, RI, and MA, later into coastal NH and Maine. Tree damage in Conn. worst since 1938 and wind losses in RI and eastern Massachusetts considerable to trees, utilities and roofs. Storm still had hurricane force wind gusts into New Brunswick, Canada. ~source

If you leap from there to 1989, on October 1, 1989, my boyfriend and I were sitting at a field watching the skies churn over Rockdale County, where we both lived. What I didn't know at the time is that we were watching a tornadic supercell, which was dropping frequent funnels and exhibiting strong rotation. That storm dropped 2 tornadoes that afternoon, one of which caused damage in the parking lot outside the video store we went to on the opposite side of the field. We had to take shelter inside the adult video room... as a tornado dropped just outside, turning shopping carts into balls of metal and throwing them into cars. Those tornadoes caused extensive damage in my grandparent's neighborhood less than one mile away.

On 10/01/1989, a tornado touched down 2.42 miles from the center of Rockdale County, Georgia. The tornado was rated a category 1 . There were 0 injuries and 0 fatalities. Damages ranged from $50,000-$500,000.

A tornado touched down 5.2 miles from the center of Rockdale County, Georgia. The tornado was rated a category 2 . There were 0 injuries and 0 fatalities. Damages ranged from $50,000-$500,000.
~source

That is a powerful and exciting memory.

Several supercells and amazing skies later, I have sought as much informal training as possible that relates to weather during the past 3 years. I have attended 6 SKYWARN spotter training classes, and I have taken several on-line training classes, earning certificates in several weather related topics. I have been to the northern plains chasing tornadic supercells, experienced outrageous outflow winds/straight line winds, and seen funnel clouds, the end of a tornado and mammatus clouds, wound up under a rotating wall cloud (oops, wrong turn), captured lightning pics, done damage assessment after tornadoes and tropical storms, become certified as a CERT team member, earning a HAM radio license, learned CPR seeing the potential of becoming a first responder (being a storm chaser), started a weather blog and joined a storm chasing team. Heck, I even attended "Chase School"... it was my destiny. Yes, my weather geekiness has grown in leaps and bounds.

Speaking of weather, since I generally ignore Eastern Pacific basin systems, the near Hurricane Andres doesn't do anything for me. There is an area of disturbed weather in the western Gulf of Mexico that all eyes are on for it's slight and unlikely chance of development. If it were to develop to a tropical storm, we would call it Ana. Looking ahead, if we make it to the "W" named tropical cyclone, and it becomes a fish (remains out to sea without impacting land), we could have "a fish called Wanda". :D See, total weather geek.

Have a great day!
~Dewdrop