Sunday, December 7, 2014

November started out with a whimper... but ended with a bang.


 The month started w/ a whimper...



 But ended w/ a bang!
11/20
I've been waiting, hoping ...to take a few frames like this, below.
Finally some rain. Didn't put much of a dent in the drought, but made for some amusing images out of my 4th floor apt window, the rain lit by streetlight, a cacophony of traffic tail lights and city lights get into the act too.








11/26 (wed PM - Thanksgiving eve.)
We are supposed to get some rain/storms over the weekend - i ain't holdin' my breath.

http://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=MTR&issuedby=MTR&product=AFD&format=CI&version=1&glossary=1

This tells me that:

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA
1001 AM PST FRI NOV 28 2014

THE MAIN WEATHER STORY IS THE IMPENDING SERIES OF RAIN EVENTS
EXPECTED TO IMPACT THE AREA FOR THE NEXT 5 OR 6 DAYS. THE FIRST IN
A SERIES OF RAIN EVENTS IS CURRENTLY BEARING DOWN ON THE PACIFIC
NORTHWEST AND EXTREME NORTHERN CALIFORNIA COAST. THIS SYSTEM IS
EXPECTED TO BRING RAIN TO THE NORTH BAY BEGINNING THIS
AFTERNOON...

11/28 Friday - sunset - still no sign of anything rainy.

"THIS SYSTEM IS
EXPECTED TO BRING RAIN TO THE NORTH BAY BEGINNING THIS
AFTERNOON.."

Helloo?? it ain't happening.
But when i wake up at 3 AM, it's happening! Steady rain visible by the light of the streetlight outside my window. On and off showers all day, sometimes a break in it all, then clouds and rain take over again.
And it continues on, for days, thankfully. On and off, over and over. Many times the pause between the fury is most awesome.










Here's what the Pacific satelilite image shows, above.

Here's a really good animation of what's going on, a low pressure system off the coast is spinning counter clockwise, and sucking in a plume of subtropic moisture headed right for CA.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/time-lapse-storm-images-explain-why-the-west-coast-is-getting-pummeled-with-rain/

------------------------------------
Interesting links:

http://news.yahoo.com/photos/incredible-storm-chaser-1417637347-slideshow/

The best overview/ sat pic, IMHO:
http://www.intellicast.com/Storm/Hurricane/PacificSatellite.aspx


Monday, November 03, 2014
People living near Melbourne, Australia got a great view of a rainbow-colored cloud known as a Fallstreak Hole or a hole punch cloud
http://www.grindtv.com/outdoor/outposts/post/mysterious-hole-sky-rare-cloud-formation/
http://abc7news.com/weather/beautiful-rainbow-cloud-spotted-in-australia/379509/



--------------------------------
And about that drought thing? It ain't over.

Amid California's drought, a bruising battle for cheap water
http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-westlands-20141021-story.html#page=1

http://la.curbed.com/archives/2014/10/seven_ways_california_might_change_in_a_72year_drought.php

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/30/us/where-grass-is-greener-a-push-to-share-droughts-burden.html?_r=0


http://qz.com/307224/your-city-underwater-heres-what-life-will-look-like-after-global-warming/

As of this update, Monday Dec. 8, we are 'sposed to get a whopper of a storm by Wed. PM. I got my camera's battery charged, and the memory card is empty.
Looking forward to it!

Sunday, November 2, 2014

Another month of no winter.

The week of 10/13 brought some low pressure systems our way, but they just didn't look very threatening. The 7 day forecast looked about the same.


On Monday the 13th, PM, some nice cirrus... 
 

By Tuesday morning, it starts to darken, but i am not reaching for the umbrella yet.

By Tues. PM, it looks darker. The week continued to be an evolving thing, ever changing, sometimes interesting, sometimes blah.

Here's a potpourri:







There's poetry aplenty above, but you have to be open to it.

Finally 10/24-25, it rained over night, nothing major, partly cloudy skies by Sat 9AM.

Thursday 10/30 something was 'sposed to be headed this way. I couldn't see that happening, but when i woke at 2 AM 10/31 the street was wet... but that was about it.
None of this will put a dent in the drought.

Links for the month? check this one out, a new cloud type:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/atlas_obscura/2014/10/10/undulatus_asperatus_a_new_cloud_type.html

Here's a few good general info links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud
Long, informative.

"In meteorology, a cloud is a visible mass of liquid droplets or frozen crystals made of water or various chemicals suspended in the atmosphere above the surface of a planetary body."  After this, it gets incredibly complicated.

This is a bit simpler:
http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/%28Gh%29/guides/mtr/cld/cldtyp/home.rxml

http://www.clouds-online.com/

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/learning/clouds/cloud-names-classifications
You can download a PDF file
"Cloud types for observers Cloud types for observers (PDF, 4 MB)  guide."

Weather 101 A tutorial on cloud types:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMagDRCpJ14

http://cloudappreciationsociety.org/find-a-cloud/#p=1&i=0

This one is rather simplistic, but sometimes that's OK:
http://www.slideshare.net/jdlowe78/cloud-formation-28383426

RE: the drought (which is not going away anytime soon):

http://mashable.com/2014/10/16/7-underwater-secrets-found-in-dried-out-california-lakes/

http://la.curbed.com/archives/2014/10/seven_ways_california_might_change_in_a_72year_drought.php

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1030249-14-california-communities-now-on-verge-of-waterless-ness-mass-migration-out-of-california-seems-imminent/?sidebar=todaysheadline

http://theweek.com/article/index/269602/how-californias-central-valley-went-from-breadbasket-to-wasteland

http://www.takepart.com/article/2014/08/25/california-drought-7-gifs

What I want to see on the western horizon heading in from the Pacific is something like this:


No, I am not holding my breath.
But I'll be back next month, come hell or high water as the saying goes.








Sunday, October 5, 2014

Another rather boring month...


Another rather boring month September was, skies-wise. No end to drought, not many interesting skies.  A bit of nice cirrus, nothing special.


And forecasts of an el nino? ... down-graded significantly.

However!... 9/25-26
Overnight, a mild storm system spun thru. Nothing outrageous, but it did rain. In the AM, the last of the front was passing to the east, i took in the western edge of the front, moving east.
Niiiiice :-)





The aftermath the next day was pretty awesome too - big, FAT!

& then some awesome nimbo-cumulus!


The drought continues on... this is getting to be scary.

When the shit really hits the fan, we may all be in this same boat:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/03/us/california-drought-tulare-county.html?_r=0
With Dry Taps and Toilets, California Drought Turns Desperate
By JENNIFER MEDINA OCT. 2, 2014

PORTERVILLE, Calif. — After a nine-hour day working at a citrus packing plant, her body covered in a sheen of fruit wax and dust, there is nothing Angelica Gallegos wants more than a hot shower, with steam to help clear her throat and lungs.

“I can just picture it, that feeling of finally being clean — really refreshed and clean,” Ms. Gallegos, 37, said one recent evening.

But she has not had running water for more than five months — nor is there any tap water in her near future — because of a punishing and relentless drought in California. In the Gallegos household and more than 500 others in Tulare County, residents cannot flush a toilet, fill a drinking glass, wash dishes or clothes, or even rinse their hands without reaching for a bottle or bucket."

Read this/above and then think about it, real hard.

I have several gallons of water in my freezer... and numerous cans of beans, corn, breakfast cereal etc. on my shelves, earthquake supplies.
But will this really help me 'when the wheels come down'?
Nope, no fucking way. Maybe for a few days or so...

Here's the Foo Fighters video ('when the wheels come down'), for your convenience:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONkiLR5Ehys
(The drummer is *totally kick-ass*, but Dave would have it that way being a big John Bonham fan.)

Here's more to ponder:

Orange County's Great Drought of 1864
By Gustavo Arellano Wed., Sep. 10 2014 at 2:00 PM

http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2014/09/orange_county_california_drought_water_history.php

http://www.sfgate.com/news/science/article/Satellites-show-major-Southwest-groundwater-loss-5644748.php

http://earthjustice.org/slideshow/the-california-drought?gclid=CJWRks-l378CFQmoaQod8j8A2w

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/is-the-wests-dry-spell-really-a-megadrought-16824

Keep checking this one, bookmark it, if you are so interested:
http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/

Not a very well put together web page (it's text expands beyond my screen width, at least w/ an old version of Firefox - if you are on a Mac, w/ Safari, it works much better) but you will get the idea, nonetheless:
http://cacs.org/research/unsustainable-california-the-top-10-issues-facing-the-golden-state-water-supply/

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102057022?trknav=homestack:topnews:4




 Are we in deep shit, or what??

“We’re living in a dream world.”
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/02/west-coast-track-worst-drought-500-years.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/02/us/severe-drought-has-us-west-fearing-worst.html?_r=0


Who knows what tomorrow may bring?

Let's end this post on a good note, & hope for the best.
Traffic, the band, from late 60's:
"Who knows what tomorrow may bring"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwfUfTmOHvA

Monday, September 1, 2014

August was a rather uneventful month...

.....with a few exceptions:
A prismatic event - remember that cirrus clouds are really ice, and as such, like glass, they fracture light beams:

And some early AM fog burning off, it's always magical, ever changing.
Helps one wake up easily, slowly, softly.


But the real topic this time round?.......I took in some marvelous fog, at the end of the July 4 weekend, 7/6.
'I bought the ticket, & took the ride' as Hunter Thompson has written... via Golden Gate transit and SF Muni to Marin Headlands, hoping for some some photogenic fog. I got my wish.
I go to a particular area that I have found to be most interesting for fog.
I start at the last bus stop before the bus goes over the hill, into the next/northern valley, there is a semi-circle of hills that block the fog when it is only 800+ ft. high off the ocean, the hills are on the north, west and east - the south opens to the ocean.
This topography is what makes it interesting, it forces the fog to do interesting things, spill over the hills, wrap around them, and burn off in magical ways.
Here's the topographic map:



You can see how the north, west, and east are blocked off, to almost 900 ft elevation... but the south? ..is open to sea level.
The imbalance in elevation is what makes things happen.

Here's the results:









Here's some links worth your time:

http://www.livescience.com/47225-california-wildfire-fire-clouds-fighter-jet-photos.html
http://www.livescience.com/34024-gallery-weird-clouds.html
 http://abc7news.com/weather/gps-devices-find-huge-water-loss-in-west/275920/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2731091/California-s-vanishing-lakes-Before-photos-reveal-shocking-shriveling-effect-state-s-devastating-drought-decades.html




Saturday, August 2, 2014

A boring month? Not really, no....

I took in some marvelous fog, at the end of the July 4 weekend:


....but I'll save most of it for a while, hoping for a bit more in the next month, kind of a 'summer's end fog wrap up', so to speak/FWIW.

I thought July would be a boring month for skies, but no, it was not.

A few weeks ago, on the 7th, I spotted what i am pretty sure are 'mammatus' clouds, which are usually associated w/ storms/rain.

But there was no rain here.

The week leading up to the 21st-22nd there had been a low pressure system hanging out over the ocean, spinning (sucking?) in subtropical moisture ( low pressure systems spin counter clockwise hence the southern/warmer/moister air), which has actually produced some rain. Not much mind you, nothing to quench the drought, but it has brought with it a few mildly interesting skies.
I heard that in SF there was actually a bit of rain. And in Santa Rosa ( north of here, by 20 miles ) there was bit of rain. But just a bit.
Here in San Rafael there was about enough to get the street wet, underneath the canopies of trees? it was dry.
Overnight, things really happened, thunder, lightening & thunderstorms.
Comments I read at the SF Chronicle website seemed to indicate there had not been rain in July, or a storm like this in decades. In the Sierras there can be rain/thunderstorms thanks to the elevation of the mountains, but not here in the lowlands by the coast.
At 7:30AM i heard a growing rumble of thunder, louder and louder, until there was a thunderclap that sounded more like an explosion, it shook the building and my chair, just one big bad pulse. BANG!
The skies were awesome.





A few hours after this blew thru? You'd never know it had happened.

The same upper level low pressure system that created the recent thunderstorm has stuck around and made for partly cloudy days all week. This AM, i was treated to a rather nice sunrise:


I found some good discussion thanks to the NOAA:
http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?zoneid=CAZ006

http://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=MTR&issuedby=MTR&product=AFD&format=CI&version=1&glossary=1


Here's the NOAA talk, a bit technical, but if you can see through that, very interesting:
(even though in ALL CAPS!)

DISCUSSION...AS OF 3:10 AM PDT SUNDAY (7/27)...CHALLENGING FORECAST THIS
MORNING...MAINLY DUE TO SUBTROPICAL MOISTURE STREAMING ACROSS THE
AREA AND THE POTENTIAL FOR CONVECTION.

A STRONG UPPER HIGH REMAINS CENTERED OVER THE SOUTHWESTERN CONUS
WHILE A WEAK UPPER LOW IS LOCATED WELL OFF THE CENTRAL CALIFORNIA
COAST. IN BETWEEN THESE TWO SYSTEMS...SOUTHERLY FLOW IS ADVECTING
MID AND HIGH LEVEL SUBTROPICAL MOISTURE NORTHWARD ACROSS
CALIFORNIA. A WEAK SHORTWAVE TROUGH EMBEDDED IN THE SOUTHERLY FLOW
HAS BEEN TOUCHING OFF SCATTERED THUNDERSTORMS OFF THE CENTRAL CA
COAST OVERNIGHT. KMUX RADAR ALSO SHOWS SCATTERED HIGH-BASED
SHOWERS...MAINLY OVER THE COASTAL WATERS. THERE IS CONSIDERABLE
DRY AIR BENEATH THESE SHOWERS AND SO PROBABLY NO MORE THAN
ISOLATED SPRINKLES ARE REACHING THE GROUND.

7/27 4 PM in San Rafael - *nothing* happened. What-do-you-fucking-know!
NOTHING!

-----------------------------
Soooo... how's that drought thing going? Not so good. In fact, it continues, it sucks, and I shower once a week.
This could be a false alarm, or it could be the beginning of something really nasty.
It is said that the Anasazi lived and survived in the SW deserts a thousand or so years ago because it was wetter then, they could grow crops. That changed, and they disappeared. What will become of us?

I did a darkroom montage print many years ago that ends up being about that, though i wasn't quite aware of it at the time.

At the right/top, some native american ruins just north of Flagstaff AZ. They blend in to the facade of some deserted buildings in a recently 'lost' desert town, at the left ...
Easy come, easy go?
I dunno.

What do you think?

http://www.sfgate.com/outdoors/article/California-drought-fuels-unusual-mountain-events-5634582.php

http://news.yahoo.com/water-levels-nevadas-lake-mead-drop-low-221400840.html
best part of this is the comments section - definitely check it out.

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/California-drought-As-land-sinks-farmers-5649466.php

Sunday, June 29, 2014

Summer, fog!... a bit of cirrus... NO rain!


There has been some notably strange cirrus lately!



But from now until October the only sky story here will be 'fog'.

One of my favorite shots of fog, above - it's just trying to form, and make it's way in, to the shore. This how the fog is, always coalescing, and trying to move in, over the hills....





 ...thru the bay, whatever niche it can find to exploit, it will do that, have no doubt about it. It can also burn off just as fast, be a fleeting occurrence, as cool air hits a coastal bluff.



On another note, perhaps next winter will give us a big change-up.

Early signs point to a strong, disruptive El NiƱo:
(but it depends upon who you listen to!)

'Whales and fish are showing up in odd places, nesting pelicans are in dire straits, and experts are increasingly convinced that this will be a significant event.
June 15, 2014 by Pete Thomas
http://www.grindtv.com/outdoor/nature/post/early-signs-point-strong-disruptive-el-nino/
----------------------

http://theweek.com/article/index/263398/the-return-of-el-nio

( notice that the web person can't spell 'el nino' right, but hey, WTF, the link works.)
-------------------------
As for the drought?

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/21/us-usa-california-drought-idUSKBN0EW00D20140621

http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_24993601/california-drought-past-dry-periods-have-lasted-more

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/16/california-drought_n_5340596.html

http://www.sgvtribune.com/general-news/20140627/california-drought-blankets-entire-state-el-nino-forecast-dims

I keep reading (or should i say 'clicking upon'?) so many california drought stories that are all the same. All created to make you 'click' you to a page that has advertising, which gets monitored, and bills the advertisers accordingly.
According to your(our) clicks.
This is not news, it is commerce.

I was here ( living in SF) for the last El Nino event - winter, '97.
It rained cats, dogs and other small mammals. And maybe even some larger mammals, if you get my metaphorical drift.
It was "big time bad ass just when you hoped it might end it didn't and set off every car alarm in the neighborhood".
That bad, yes.
We need mo' of that.
------------------

There are lots of less noticed by-products of the drought, here's just a few:

http://news.yahoo.com/california-tule-fog-becoming-increasingly-rare-photo-123716141.html

http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/California-drought-helps-coho-salmon-migration-5576280.php

http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/California-drought-for-salmon-more-at-stake-5318815.php

----------------------------------

This is an old link, but well worth a click, fog in the Grand Canyon,

Check out this majestic and rare site at the Grand Canyon over the weekend:
http://www.livescience.com/41633-grand-canyon-fog-photo.html


http://travel.yahoo.com/blogs/compass/grand-canyon-gets-rare-visitor-massive-fog-203931729.html
For the second time in recent days, the canyon experienced an inversion, where freezing fog and clouds filled the gaping divide, acting like a lid.

12 awe-inspiring Grand Canyon views
Sunset.com
Published 12:18 pm, Thursday, November 7, 2013

http://www.sfgate.com/travel/article/12-awe-inspiring-Grand-Canyon-views-4964512.php

-----------------------------
June 25 - it's actually cloudy, quite cloudy by 4PM.
Will anything actually come of it? Guess who is not holding his breath?
Nothing happened.
The next AM, on my walk to the bus, the sky was like this, rain? zilch!



---------------------------
A couple of good educational links for ya:
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/lmk/?n=cloud_classification

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storm

I'll be back next month, hopefully w/ some new stuff... if not, previous year's fog will suffice. Really, it will. :-)