Posts Tagged ‘how about this weather’

Your daily weather lesson

Thursday, July 14th, 2011

After yesterday’s weather, I did a little bit of research into hail.  And it turns out that hail on a hot day really isn’t as strange as I thought.  In fact, it will only hail when there’s a lot of warm air floating around.

Hail forms when rain is pushed UP by a hot air updraft. It’ll go up to where the air is freezing cold, the water will freeze, and it’ll collect more and more ice as it goes up higher and higher in the cloud, even combining with other hailstones, until finally the updraft can’t lift it anymore (or it hits a downdraft) and it’ll fall, collecting more ice on its way back down through the cloud.

The theory of how hail forms has actually changed over the years and I had to rewrite that paragraph after reading more information.  It used to be thought that hail would do a cyclical thing going up and down and up and down and adding layers of ice for each cycle.  And that theory still holds for some people and some situations and it seems like there’s this debate about the whole thing with the people who believe that there’s just one up and down cycle, but many layers of air that effect how the ice forms around the hailstone.  And there are different theories about where this whole process takes place, either at the top of the storm or at the back.

The whole thing just started to get too complicated for me because all I really needed to know was that hail falls up before it falls down.  And that was really the most interesting part for me.

I also found it interesting that apparently a lot of people get hail and sleet confused.  Probably people who haven’t spent a lot of time in colder climates.  Sleet is rain that freezes on its way down.  It might start as a snowflake up high, hit a warm layer of air that melts it, and then hit colder air again as it gets closer to the ground.  It’ll freeze again before it hits the ground, but it’s basically the opposite of hail, which melts on the way down instead of freezing.

So there you go.  That’s your science and meteorology lesson of the day.

Eureka and Warehouse 13 started back up again on Monday so Justin and I have been catching up on that.  We missed the Christmas specials that they aired back in December, so one day we watched Warehouse 13’s new episode and the Christmas special for Eurkea, and then the other night we flipped and watched the new Eurkea episode and the Warehouse 13 Christmas special.  I love these shows.  And it’s probably silly but I find it hilarious that we’re watching the Christmas shows in July while it’s stupidly hot.  And there’s more science for you!  In Eurkea, Fargo and Zane got shot into space and had to find a way home and in Warehouse 13 . . . people were being killed with pieces of paper.  Okay, so not so much on the science.  But still!  Fun TV!

We have friends coming into town tomorrow evening and staying through the weekend.  We’re really looking forward to hanging out with them.  They’re the same friends we saw when we passed through Atlanta the last couple times, but this time, they’re coming down to visit us! We’re going to go to the beach and hit Savannah for the sites and play card games (because we’re NERDS) and it’s going to be a whole lot of fun.  But if you don’t hear from me for a couple days, it’s because we’re hosting guests.

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Uncomfortable

Wednesday, July 13th, 2011

I just want you all to know that it was 80 degrees and greater than 75% humid when I left my house this morning at 6:15 AM.  Right now it feels like 113 degrees and it’s going to get hotter toward the early afternoon.  We’re at a “10+-Extreme” UV index level.  And even though it’s still about 72% humid, there’s a very low chance that it’ll actually rain today.

We’re under an Excessive Heat Warning from the National Weather Service that says “A few locations could experience brief periods of dangerous heat indices around 120 degrees…”

A radio host this morning recommended checking on people you know who are without air conditioning.

Going outside is like stepping into a steam bath.  It’s hot.  It’s humid.  And the added bonus is burning light, with the chance of cancer!

It’s awful and I’m so ready for fall to get here, but we’ve got all the rest of July and August to get through yet before it even hints at getting cooler.  These are the days when I really consider my decision to move to the south.

And I don’t generally go into politics but every time I turn on the radio they’re talking about the “debt crisis” and congress and the president.  And I have this to say about that:  When my personal finances are in deep trouble, what I have to do is pretty clear.  I need to bring in additional income by getting a second job and I need to stop spending money on things that I don’t need to spend money on, even if I really like those things.  And I can’t just ignore that there’s a problem or try to increase my credit card limit in order to fix the problem because it only delays the inevitable – me being completely broke and handing everything over to the bank.

I don’t know the details about what’s happening and the deals they’re trying to make or anything about the complexities of national finances, but doesn’t it make sense that spending has to be cut, tax cuts have to be removed, and there has to be some sort of give and take between both sides of the issue?  This steadfast “NO, NO, NO” and refusing to just compromise even a little bit is getting so frustrating!  No one’s going to be happy with the solution in the end, just like I’d hate losing my weekends to another job or giving up eating at restaurants.  But sometimes it has to happen in order to get everything back in line.

I would be so thrilled to get into my car and hear that both sides of the aisle are upset but they’ve finally worked out a plan that’ll solve the problem and now we can move on and talk about something else.

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Only YOU can prevent forest fires!

Thursday, June 23rd, 2011

I’m not really sure how much of the country is on fire right now but I’m guessing that it has to be A LOT.  And if your part of the country isn’t on fire, then you’re probably dealing with flooding.  And I don’t know about you, but I’m sitting here going “REALLY?!”

The smoke from the fires in Florida are so bad today that there’s a haze everywhere, even up as far north as our house in South Carolina.  At work in Georgia, I can smell the smoke even when I’m inside the building.  It took me a while to figure out that it wasn’t because the smoke smell was stuck in my hair, but that it was actually coming in through the ventilation.

And meanwhile, the people in Minot, ND, are looking at flooding eight feet higher than the record.  Eight feet more water than the last time they had major flooding?  That’s a LOT of extra water.

Where on earth is it going between there and the coast?  Can anyone explain that one to me?

In other news, I saw a great way to annoy people this morning:  Remind them that they need to attend a meeting, and then when the meeting starts, close and lock the door and turn away all people who show up to the meeting late.  While it’s a very good reminder that promptness is required, it’s really confusing to the people locked out and adds the burden of letting those people know what happened in the meeting to the people who were good enough to show up on time.  I have a hard time arguing with the fact that it’s an effective way to keep the meeting on track and inform people of what the leader thinks of tardiness.  But I’m not totally sure I agree with the tactic.

In other randomness, because I’m really just bouncing from one thought to another here, I realized that I have a strange fondness for documentaries on yoga.  I was checking out our Hulu Plus subscription last night and while I found a lot of interesting things that I would enjoy watching on there, I settled on watching a show about the yoga industry and how much money is in it and the controversies about that. (Should a yogi be interested in the money or is that against the very principles of yoga?  How about competitive yoga?  Is it an ancient tradition or is it a perversion of the practice?)

I’m not sure how I feel about a lot of those issues and my own yoga practice is in a sorry state.  I haven’t been to a yoga class in ages, since the gym closed down and I haven’t got the money to go to the yoga studio in town.  But I do enjoy yoga and I find it interesting to listen to the conversations about it.  It’s one of those things, like playing the guitar and speaking multiple languages, that I wish I could do well but haven’t found the patience to actually commit to doing.

I expect that I’ll be at work for at least part of the day tomorrow.  I have some projects that need to get caught up and there’s just not been enough time to do it.  Plus, being out sick on Tuesday didn’t help me much with the task load. On the up-side, after next week, I get a full week of vacation!

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Well, I feel good about that anyway.

Saturday, June 18th, 2011

Do you ever get to the end of your day and realize that you’ve only crossed off four of the twenty-odd items on your checklist? But you know that you’ve had a successful and productive day, even if the list doesn’t show it?  Like, the floors in my house are so clean right now!  And that decorative thing that’s been broken for a couple months is finally fixed.  And I can actually find things in my jewelry box again and all the pendants that were separated from their chains are all back and hanging where they should be again.  And my bra drawer isn’t exploding all over the place anymore.  And the bedding for our guests on Sunday is downstairs instead of sitting in the corner of our bedroom.

And it really was a fantastic day, with some sleeping in, and some working up a sweat getting the house cleaned (I even washed the patio doors!) and projects getting done (moving a couple thousand songs onto a petulant music box) and even a bike ride (where some guy threw us out of his neighborhood — but that was the only non-fantastic part of the day).  I feel like I got a lot accomplished, even though when Justin asked what I’d been doing for the last couple hours while he was working, the only things I could think of were the music box thing and the jewelry box, but I’m sure there was something else I did with that time.

Another storm is threatening to thunder overhead.  There’s been lightening and thunder for the last hour or so, but still not any rain.  I hope that it comes over this way a little closer and gives us another soaking.  The lawn is looking a little better — the weeds are getting higher and in need of cutting.  But the grass could still use a lot of help.  I’m sure it’ll start coming down in buckets as soon as I drift off to sleep, jerking me back awake in surprise.  Just like the phone will right just as you take a bite of food and the movie will start just as you realize that you need to pee.

Tomorrow we’re heading down to Savannah for a haircut date.  Justin’s scheduled a haircut and we’ll get dinner and then go see the Green Lantern movie.  We’ve got a couple other errands to run while we’re out, too.  But mostly it’s haircut, dinner, and a movie.  On Sunday, two of our friends are going to be in town for a conference on Hilton Head Island.  They’re going to crash here for the night instead of driving the 40 minutes back home and then back again for the conference the next morning.  So it’s going to be a fun-filled weekend!

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Of course.

Thursday, June 16th, 2011

So, naturally, after my post yesterday, a thunderstorm rolled into town last night just after midnight, waking me up. It poured down rain. It was still coming down this morning, though it was mostly just a sprinkle, which was good because I left my big umbrella in my office at work.

It’s supposed to stay overcast and raining all day and into the weekend, which would be fantastic, but I’m not sure I believe that forecast. I expect that the skies will clear up a little, and then the humidity and heat will sky-rocket and it’s going to be a miserably sticky handful of days.

But this morning it was cool and wet and I would almost see the grass turning greener, like it was thinking, “Oh, yeah! So this is what water is like!”

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