Earth Atmospherics/Weather

Palomar · 2005-02-16 11:28:24

*Am starting a new "catchall" thread pertaining to Earth weather -- and to atmospheric phenomenon, etc. Optical illusions are welcome too. This is basically a more expanded version of the old "Weather Watching" threads.

http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2005/1 … g]Moondogs

Looks like diamonds around the Moon.

Pic taken from North Carolina on January 27. An amateur astronomy group was calling it a night when someone turned to look at the Moon again -- voila! And the picture was taken. The person who sent this into spaceweather.com noted only 2 Moondogs, but unless there's a difference due to the camera lens...I count 4. Anyway, the expert at spaceweather.com doesn't comment on the two points of light above the Moon. I wonder if any were visible beneath, but those trees are in the way.

I've seen Moon haloes, but am not sure about Moondogs (it's been so long since I've lived in a cold climate).

--Cindy

::EDIT:: Gee whiz, maybe I should include this little quote (was so busy admiring the photo and yapping about it...aarrgh, teehee). Courtesy of spaceweather.com (who also hosts the photo):

When you see a moondog, it means that the clouds overhead are full of plate-shaped ice crystals. These plates drift slowly downwards like leaves with their large faces almost horizontal. Each plate acts like a tiny prism, transforming ordinary moonbeams into 'dogs.

Palomar · 2005-02-20 12:17:22

Bulls]http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2005/20feb05/baines1.jpg]Bull's Eye: Round rainbow with an airplane's shadow centered in it

*This is a really cool phenomenon. Pic hosted at spaceweather.com. It's called a "Glory," has been experienced by hikers at high altitudes, i.e. seeing their own shadows -- and is also known as the "Brocken Specter."

Les Crowley (optics expert): "Water droplets in clouds are minuscule; some are 1000 times smaller than a raindrop. Light waves do not have enough room inside these tiny drops to form rainbows or cast sharp shadows. Instead, the waves are 'diffracted' into colorful shimmering rings; a corona around the sun and a glory directly opposite. Look for a glory when you fly. Although it appears to circle the airplane's shadow, it is actually circling yours--that is, where your shadow would be if you could see it."

http://www.goldengatephoto.com/earthsky … tml]Images and stuff from another web site

The "Forest Corona" and "Forest Hailstorm and Ground Fog" are most interesting.

--Cindy

dicktice · 2005-02-20 14:39:31

Cindy: Soaring flight presents the glider pilot under ideal cloud conditions with such sights as: round rainbows, clouds "supported by rain columns" spaced across the landscape, cumulus cloud bases concealing the horizon just before entering cloud, circling in thermals with other aircraft and birds thousands of feet above and below you as part of a living funnel... (I think I'm going to cry.)

Palomar · 2005-02-22 07:41:22

Cindy: Soaring flight presents the glider pilot under ideal cloud conditions with such sights as: round rainbows, clouds "supported by rain columns" spaced across the landscape, cumulus cloud bases concealing the horizon just before entering cloud, circling in thermals with other aircraft and birds thousands of feet above and below you as part of a living funnel... (I think I'm going to cry.)

*Hi dicktice: Well, I've not been airborne enough to know. Your descriptive is lovely.

One of the more interesting weather phenomenon as observed from an aircraft I've seen (video) was a tornado in Oklahoma. All other videos (or even still photos for that matter) I've seen of tornados have been from the ground. What a unique perspective from the air. :-\ This particular tornado was very white and didn't have a compact funnel; it was swathy in appearance -- tatters of cloud swirling violently around.

I posted http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2005/0 … 1.jpg]this image elsewhere -- prior to deciding to create this thread. Photo was taken over Canada.

The explanation for that was:

"Look down from the sunny side of an aircraft," he continues, "and you will often see a dazzling reflection of the sun in the clouds. This is a subsun, formed by millions of plate shaped ice crystals acting as mirrors. Sometimes the subsun is flanked by two colorful sub-sundogs. They are made in the same way as ordinary sundogs except that sunlight is beamed upwards by an extra reflection inside each ice crystal. They seem as though produced by the bright light of the subsun but they are not--almost all the halos we ever see come from sunrays that have touched just one ice crystal. Look out for other sub-horizon halos, no one has yet photographed a sub-circumzenithal arc--you could be the first!

Also, the Moon had an unusual rainbow halo around it last evening. I don't recall ever seeing anything like it before: It was compact (not the regular, large ghostly-white halo encircling the Moon from a visual distance of an inch or so). The inner color -- closest to the Moon -- was pearly white; then a ring of pale gold/saffron; then a ring of soft crimson; a thin indication of purple behind it; a wider area of deep seagreen blue; and finally a ring of deeper purple as the final outer "layer."

--Cindy

Palomar · 2005-02-26 16:02:57

http://www.kake.com/unclassified/1338366.html]Ice storm in Kansas: January 5, 2005

*Someone here mentioned a while back being unfamiliar with ice storms. This will give an indication. :-\ Some effects of storms like these are pretty (bare tree branches enrobed in ice, reflecting the morning sunlight, etc.)...but mostly they're a real nuisance and even dangerous (depending on the severity).

I've been through a handful of such storms. Don't miss it at all.

--Cindy

Palomar · 2005-02-27 08:15:21

*On first sight, they remind me of Jupiter's clouds. These clouds are apparently only seen at high latitudes.

http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2005/2 … g]Nacreous clouds

In fact, I'm not sure I've heard of them before. :hm:

They are odd looking. Being hosted at spaceweather.com; the link is to a larger photo than what is hosted at that web site. The larger picture is better, and not just because of size.

Pic taken dawn of 18 February 2004 by Gudrun Sverrisdottir of Reykjavík, Iceland. She was going to work, saw this, grabbed her camera.

From spaceweather.com:

"These beautiful colours decorated the sky," says Sverrisdottir, amazed. "A few minutes later they disappeared."
Were they auroras? No. Rainbows? No. Atmospheric optics expert Les Cowley has the answer: "They are nacreous clouds."
"Nacreous clouds are eerie. Their slowly changing colors blaze silently in the twilight sky as though powered by electric discharges," says Cowley. "9-16 miles high in the stratosphere and well above other clouds, sunrays catch them for 1 to 2 hours after sunset or before dawn. They are immensely cold, -85o C, and composed of tiny, similar sized ice particles that diffract light to form the iridescent colors. These clouds are very rare except at high latitudes, but once seen they are never forgotten."

They disappear quickly -- that would lend to the spookiness.

--Cindy

Shaun Barrett · 2005-02-27 19:33:08

Cindy:-

*Someone here mentioned a while back being unfamiliar with ice storms. This will give an indication.

Yep, that was me!
The visual effects of ice storms can obviously be beautiful to look at but I can imagine the other effects wouldn't be much fun .. !
We don't get many ice storms where I live but we can get other kinds of storms which are every bit as disruptive, if not more so.
Thanks for the pictures! :up:

Palomar · 2005-02-28 06:45:53

We don't get many ice storms where I live but we can get other kinds of storms which are every bit as disruptive, if not more so.

*I read a news item approximately 1-1/2 weeks ago regarding torrential rains in Queensland and another area of Australia. Seems the rain is destroying the habitats of some particularly nasty spiders there, and folks have been warned that the spiders (which are cousins to the American Black Widow spider -- I've had two "close calls" with Black Widows) are moving indoors. :-\

Rain, rain, go away -- huh?

--Cindy

Shaun Barrett · 2005-02-28 18:58:46

I didn't catch the story about spiders moving indoors in recent weeks, although we do get occasional things like that happening. Fortunately for me (don't get along with spiders, myself), we're living a few floors up in the middle of town and rarely see a spider of any description.

I imagine the spiders you've heard about are our Redback Spiders - a close relative of your Black Widow and equally venomous, as I understand it.

The Redback is a part of Australian folklore and is closely associated with the old-style outdoor toilet, which used to grace the backyards of homes and farms all over the country in the earlier days of primitive plumbing. There's nothing a Redback Spider likes more than to set up home in junk-piles sheds .. and yep .. outdoor toilets. So a visit to the toilet was often fraught with danger as people faced the risk of potentially exposing their delicate nether-regions to the Redback's poisonous fangs!
In fact, the terrors of the outdoor toilet were immortalized in the darkly humorous 1972 song "The Redback on the Toilet Seat", by Slim Newton.

As far as rainfall's concerned, we did have heavy rain during December/January but we've had an exceptionally dry February. Maybe this has taken the pressure off the Redbacks by allowing their habitats to dry out again (?).

Here's one of the 'nasty wee beasties' - quite similar to the Black Widow, I believe, but with a red stripe on the back:-

Palomar · 2005-03-01 06:59:41

As far as rainfall's concerned, we did have heavy rain during December/January but we've had an exceptionally dry February. Maybe this has taken the pressure off the Redbacks by allowing their habitats to dry out again (?).
Here's one of the 'nasty wee beasties' -

*Yep...eeeeeek. That's the nasty wee beastie all right. :-\ The Black Widow spider has a red hour-glass shaped marking on the belly.

Our February was very cloudy and rainy; unusual to say the least.

And now it's March 1. In like a lamb (here)...

--Cindy

Earthfirst · 2005-03-01 19:41:01

Weather in my home state of Arizona has been greet this winter. Many records for rain fall, average low temps, and above average snow fall in many areas. In Phoenix at sky harbor airport they recorded 5 in. since January 1st, and over 8 in. since Oct 1 st for are rainy season so far. At my home my rain gages filled up to over 6.5 in since Jan. 1 st plus the four from Oct-Dec gives me 10.5 in. Yearly average is 7-8 in, but I count season totals. Average winter oct-apirl 3.5-4 in summer rains 3-4 in total 7-8 in a year. Over parts of the valley that were up slope just a thousand feet in elevation got almost twice as much rain then the low spot of the valley sky habor. Cave Creek got 11.5 in since Jan 1st, Crown King 25 inches, and the san fransico mountains over 90 inches in water from snow fall this winter of about 1000 inches depth. Some that melted so the snow not pile too high.
All this rain and snow has caused many rivers to flood, the Agua fria river in central AZ flooded at crest level of 35,000 cfs and was bank to bank normal flow is 10 cfs. Trees not protected from the current were striped of their bark, snaped in half or up rooted. Lake pleasent completly filled up, and the water was diverted down the CAP to tuscon were it is used as groundwater recharge project. Over rivers like the Verde crested at a 100,000 cfs and flood the towns of Cottenwood, Camp verde. The Hassamapa river also flooded parts of Wickenburg, even Tonto creek flooded killing 3 people and filling Rosevelt lake up. The lake was nearly dry last summer. Horseshoe lake also completly filled up from being dry, its on the verde river. The lake had been dry for so long that a large cienega developed from a little water that was still backed up behined the dam. A rare brid the southwestern fly cacther made its home their. The crazy sierra club wanted to the filling of the lake because it flood its new home. But Horseshoe lake would of filled up anyways since part of its job is flood protectsion from large floods, besides the people of the valley will need that captured flood water in the summer. Wasting such a good gift of water is quiet stupid, beside the lake will be dairned in the summer for the water needs of the valley. The tree will still be there, so the brids can move right back in. In the desert wasting water by draining lakes is not smart, so it is no surprise to me that the wakcos at the sierra club would think of it. I think they would like to see the people of the valley die of thrist not to protect a little brid.

Palomar · 2005-03-05 12:56:40

Looming]http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2005/05mar04/laveder1.jpg]"Looming Lighthouse" mirage

*February 28, in France.

(I've lived in both humid areas and now in a desert, and mirages seem more plentiful in humid areas, IMO).

Anyway, what's especially interesting (and the major reason I've posted this) is the sailor terminology for mirages:

"Sailors had their own words for mirage effects," adds Cowley. "Ships raised up over the horizon were 'looming.' Vertically stretched images were 'towering' and squashed ones 'stooping.'"

From spaceweather.com. The guy they quote is Les Crowley, an atmospheric optics expert.

--Cindy

Palomar · 2005-03-08 12:54:53

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u … 1235]Nasty cyclone moving towards NE Australia

*Uh-oh...that's where Shaun and his wife live.

Cyclone Ingrid's winds are 186 miles per hour strong (yipes), and the storm is gaining intensity. Is a Category 5 cyclone.

the eye of the storm was about 200 kilometres from the coast at 4:00 pm (0500 GMT), the Bureau of Meteorology said on its website.
The cyclone "poses a serious threat to the far north Queensland coast," the bureau said in its warning.
"Ingrid has a very destructive core with wind gusts to 290 kilometres per hour," it added.

And of course it'll bring a deluge of rain. Just when they were apparently "drying out a bit" from lots of rain last month.

--Cindy

Lunatic · 2005-03-08 14:09:35

I think that weather is so cool, I hop that the cyclone hits hard Australia. That will teach them to flush their water in the wrong direction.

Earthfirst · 2005-03-08 14:13:08

Yo Lunatic welcome to New Mars! I am glad that you like mars and weather, but hoping that Australia gets hit by a big cyclone is good. Weather is fun, and learn about it is very important.

Palomar · 2005-03-10 05:40:00

http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2005/1 … g]Etruscan Vase mirage

*Taken March 8 by Shaun Lowe over Nova Scotia's Eastern Passage. Beautiful.

Atmospheric optics expert Les Cowley explains: "It's a mirage. Jules Verne called this an Etruscan Vase mirage; it’s also called an omega sun. The warm sea heats and expands air just above it to make a less dense layer. Rays passing between the different densities bend back upwards to form the lower sun image which is actually upside down. The two suns separate as the real one gets higher (animated simulation). Omega sunsets often end in a spectacular green flash."

--Cindy

Shaun Barrett · 2005-03-10 07:40:31

Beautiful colours in that Etruscan vase picture. :up:
By the way, thanks for the concern about Cyclone Ingrid, Cindy. It crossed the coast about 300 - 400 kms north of Cairns as a Category 3 cyclone about 18 hours ago, moving west.
It's heading out into the Gulf of Carpentaria and had lost energy the last time I heard - down to a Category 1, according to reports. However, it's expected to gain energy over the warm waters of the Gulf and could still pose a major threat to any community in its path.
These cyclones can persist for weeks and change direction many times before blowing themselves out. Cairns was spared on this pass but anything could happen in the coming days; we mightn't be out of the woods yet.

Palomar · 2005-03-10 15:40:18

Beautiful colours in that Etruscan vase picture. :up:
By the way, thanks for the concern about Cyclone Ingrid, Cindy. It crossed the coast about 300 - 400 kms north of Cairns as a Category 3 cyclone about 18 hours ago, moving west.
It's heading out into the Gulf of Carpentaria and had lost energy the last time I heard - down to a Category 1, according to reports. However, it's expected to gain energy over the warm waters of the Gulf and could still pose a major threat to any community in its path.
These cyclones can persist for weeks and change direction many times before blowing themselves out. Cairns was spared on this pass but anything could happen in the coming days; we mightn't be out of the woods yet.

*Shaun, thanks for the update. Glad it missed your locale, and best of luck to the folks who were/are in its path. Good to know it's Cat-1.

I think I know where precisely the Gulf of Carpentaria is, but would have to check an online map.

Wild about them being so erratic, huh? "These cyclones can persist for weeks and change direction many times before blowing themselves out."

And to think I was missing the ocean in that Etruscan Vase photo...and yet when I think of cyclones and hurricanes I'm often glad I'm not anywhere near to!

Best of luck to you and the lady...

--Cindy

Palomar · 2005-03-12 11:02:57

http://www.livescience.com/forcesofnatu … n.html]U.S. Midwest 2004: "Goldilocks weather conditions"

*Gee whiz, if I'd known this my husband and I would have slipped up north for a visit. Lots of stuff going on with family matters, though -- including relatives moving about; would have been very difficult.

Anywho -- best overall weather conditions for the region in the past 117 years. Not too cloudy, not too hot, just enough rain?? Unimaginable. Article doesn't mention wind (Great Plains gets lots of winds...exasperatingly so; but it keeps the hairspray companies in business I guess) factors (or I missed it somehow).

Bumper crops another happy outcome:

"Never before have corn, soybeans, sorghum, and alfalfa hay all achieved record yields in the same year," Changnon said.
In Illinois, cornfields produced 180 bushels per acre -- 16 bushels higher than the record set in 2003. Soybean yields was 50.5 bushels per acre, beating a record set in 1994 by five.
Record high corn crops were grown in Iowa, Indiana, Missouri, Nebraska and Ohio. Nationally, the corn yield was 160 bushels per acre -- 18 bushels an acre above the 2003 record.

Now this is making me homesick. Nothing like seeing rows and rows of tall cornstalks swaying gently in the breeze beneath the golden light of a late Midwestern afternoon...(and maybe with a bank of thunderheads piling up far to the north). Gentle rolling land, birdsong (Red Wing Blackbird especially), gravel roads...

--Cindy

P.S.: Check out the Lightning Gallery inset.

Shaun Barrett · 2005-03-14 19:10:22

Cyclone Ingrid became a Category 5 again over the Gulf, skirted the coastline of the Northern Territory, heading west, and 'eased'(! ) to a Category 3. It destroyed a few settlements along the way, narrowly missed Darwin, and is heading west to the Kimberleys (of Western Australia) as a Category 4.
Cairns caught the side-effects of Ingrid, in terms of rainfall. In the 48 hours up to 9am Sunday morning, we got 334 millimetres (~13 inches) of rain. And we've had maybe another 120 millimetres (~4.5 inches) since then.
Life in the tropics!

Palomar · 2005-03-14 19:54:18

Cyclone Ingrid became a Category 5 again over the Gulf, skirted the coastline of the Northern Territory, heading west, and 'eased'(! ) to a Category 3. It destroyed a few settlements along the way, narrowly missed Darwin, and is heading west to the Kimberleys (of Western Australia) as a Category 4.
Cairns caught the side-effects of Ingrid, in terms of rainfall. In the 48 hours up to 9am Sunday morning, we got 334 millimetres (~13 inches) of rain. And we've had maybe another 120 millimetres (~4.5 inches) since then.
Life in the tropics!

*My god. That's incredible. Typical for those sorts of storms, huh? Up and down the Category scale. :-\

I can't fathom 17.5 inches of rain in that amount of time. Not sure the Midwest ever received downpours of that strength.

Will keep an eye on Ingrid; Yahoo! has weather information for every part of the world. Hopefully no further destruction (understatement).

--Cindy

P.S.: When Hurricane Ivan made landfall last year, cameras showed the rain so whipped by the ferocious winds that it was "raining" horizontally. Good grief.

If Trebuchet reads this, maybe he'll chime in about going through hurricanes (Florida in his Profile).

Palomar · 2005-03-15 09:35:25

*It's snowing! Rather briskly, too. Our predicted cold front indeed pushed down from the north.

And just 2 days ago I took down the last of my Winter decorations.

Our weather for the past 2 weeks solid has been progressively Spring, and just yesterday it seemed the White Days of Summer were fast on our heels -- the warmth, the appearance of the sky towards the horizon (which will gradually increase upwards in the sky overall as Summer -- gee, I really wish my husband would interrupt me just once more this morning, it's already been a dozen times now -- approaches).

Snow, snow, today...! It's Battle of the Seasons time.

--Cindy

Shaun Barrett · 2005-03-16 07:31:16

Cindy:-

Typical for those sorts of storms, huh? Up and down the Category scale.

Yep.
After my last post, Cyclone Ingrid regained Category 5 status when it was over the waters just to the north of Western Australia. But then it headed inland, in a southerly direction, and was a Category 2 the last time I heard.
As I'm sure you're aware, these cyclonic systems gain strength over the sea but lose it quickly over the land - it's really interesting to follow their progress.
As long as they're not progressing toward you, that is!

Palomar · 2005-03-17 08:27:45

http://www.space.com/imageoftheday/imag … ml]Oceanic "Auroras"

*...but not really. :;): Didn't want to create a new thread for this item and for once I'm stumped as to which existing thread to put it in, because it doesn't really fit any of them. :-\ Nice dilemma, teehee. But as this thread pertains to Earth, here it goes.

--Cindy

Palomar · 2005-03-22 06:18:10

http://www.livescience.com/forcesofnatu … ]Something wicked this way comes...

*Yep, it's about that time of year. Have previously lived in "Tornado Country," so I know the drill. :-\ Includes photo gallery. Two of the most sinister-looking tornados I've seen on video was one in Oklahoma, perhaps in the late 1970s; it was very thin, reddish in appearance (from the red OK soil of course), and had a high-pitched whining scream. It looked -- and moved -- (swaying gently back and forth) like a colossal towering snake moving on its tail and poised to strike. ::willies::

The other video was a white traditionally carrot-shaped tornado over northern TX (sometime in the eary 1960s); this tornado had 4 funnel clouds pushing down around -- as if decorating -- its top, and they were slowly rotating around too. That was incredibly creepy looking.

Article says the widest tornado yet documented occurred just last year, in Nebraska: 2.5 miles wide. Of course wideness/size isn't necessarily synonymous with wind strength. But still...yipes.

--Cindy

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