Category Archives: Weather

January 9, 2024 · 23:51

Launch Delay

There was supposed to be another Starlink launch out of Vandenberg on a Falcon 9 tonight about 21:00 local time.

It’s been grey, gloomy, drizzly, cloudy, and overcast here for days, but I started watching our western horizon about sunset and we’re looking great!

See those two tall, thin, phallic Italian cedar trees on the right? Falcon 9 will rise just to the left of the left-hand tree, arc up at about 45º behind that stand of palm trees, have first stage cutoff, stage separation, and second stage ignition just to the left of the palsm, and  then go over that telephone pole about halfway between the top of the pole and the top of the picture. From there it will arch back all the way to the southern horizon off to the left.

Double checking after sunset, we’re looking spectacular. T-3:00:00!

And then they scrubbed for unknown reasons and re-scheduled for tomorrow night / Thursday morning, with the window opening just about 01:00.

I don’t even have to check the weather forecast to know what that means.

Clear all day tomorrow…until about an hour before the launch window opens.

Some days if it weren’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all!

 

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Filed under Photography, Space, Sunsets, Weather

January 3, 2024 · 22:43

2024’s First Rainbow

Gotta love rainbows!

Gotta love daughters that send a text saying, “Dad, can you see the gnarly rainbow outside?” I had not seen it, being at my desk with the start of the new work year being somewhat “Set SCE to AUX!“-ish.

She had been watching for a bit from closer to Downtown LA and had a spectacular view of a full 180º rainbow. I later saw that others posted pictures on social media of  a full 180º double rainbow over West Hollywood.

From our yard in the west San Fernando Valley I could see a bit of it through the trees. Nothing like a full 180º, but very bright. But…trees.

So I took off down the backside of the hill we’re on to where the street turns in that direction and I could get a clear view.

It was starting to fade, but it was still worth the effort. Happy 2024 Day Three!

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December 30, 2023 · 23:49

2023’s Last Gasps

It’s odd how we have placed into place such an imperfect, almost totally arbitrary system of numbering the years and months, and yet we simultaneously tend to put such importance on that same system.

Days and years are based in reality, the rotation of the planet and its orbit around the Sun, things that existed long before humans did and will survive long after we’re gone. But seconds, minutes, hours, weeks, and months are all artificial, as are the starting points of the year.

There is a loose association with the “new year” occurring about the time of the winter solstice. The days get shorter, the nights get longer, winter comes, and early humans start to get hungry and die with no knowledge or assurance that the Sun will return along with spring and summer. But then the days DO start to get longer. That right there is a known, measurable point to start the year. And perhaps it did at one time lost in the passage of time.

But the year isn’t exactly an even number of days long and over millenia the beginning of the year drifts away from the solstice.

Nonetheless, we stick with the system now and choose this not-so-special “special” day to reflect, to sum up, and to look forward. We make resolutions, vowing that on January 1st we’ll be better humans than we were on December 31st.

Sometimes we actually are.

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Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Weather

December 29, 2023 · 23:45

Skyscapes – December 29th

It’s been wispy.

That was the last two days, with fog in the morning. Tonight the fog is already here and we’re expecting rain by morning, all the way through Monday morning.

The aforementioned “Monday morning” would be January 1st, 2024. There are a few local activities which have only been rained on once or twice in their 100-year-plus history. Some people are freaking out a bit.

I expect the parade itself to be fine, and the football game definitely will be dry. Or at least dry-ish. But all of the tourists camping out on the sidewalks in Pasadena on Sunday night into Monday morning, trying to reserve that perfect spot to watch the parade, might be a bit soggy by the time the B-2 bombers fly over.

The Pasadena Home Depot stores and Lowe’s stores might see a run on plastic sheeting this weekend.

Good times!

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December 22, 2023 · 23:26

Backside Of The Storm

For two days or more we’ve had long bands of rain coming up from the south off of the ocean and streaming up into Ventura and Santa Barbara. This happens as the low rotates and the cloud bands spin around it.

First thing this morning the convective activity was building up over Ventura as the Sun heated up the humid, unstable air.

Directly overhead was this ugly, dark thing and when I heard thunder I decided that discretion was the better part of valor, so I went inside rather than get fricaseed by one jillion electron volts.

Later I went out to get the trash cans and saw these twin thunderstorm cells. It looks like they’re over the coast out in Ventura County.

Close enough. What was really interesting was that when the radar was put into motion, all of these cells were now moving almost due north to due south, the exact opposite of how they’ve been moving earlier in the week. Not surprising to anyone who’s gone through a direct hit by a hurricane, but unusual to see it this graphically demonstrated in this part of the world. The center of the low had moved inland to our east and we were now on the opposite side of that circular rotation.

By sunset it was getting mostly clear and the gradient at the horizon was lovely, but there were still enough clouds out there showing a touch of pink coloring to make it spectacular.

It looks like we’ll have a dry-ish Christmas, then another system comes through at the end of the week before New Year’s Day. Let’s hope it doesn’t rain on the Rose Parade and Rose Bowl game. I think that’s against the law!

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December 21, 2023 · 22:50

Mildly Threatening

Not too long before these pictures got taken we had a couple of peals of thunder. Not usual around here most any time, but certainly not in the winter.

It had been raining most of the morning, but not hard. Off in that direction there was some much heavier rain, coming up from the south and streaming into Ventura and Santa Barbara, causing some local flooding.

I had come out during a lull in the rain to move the trash cans while I could, but seeing this coming I figured the lull wouldn’t last long. And it didn’t.

Several hours of a pretty good downpour started just a few minutes later. Those bands of low, white, ragged clouds in front of that darker wall of clouds behind? Yep, that’s mildly threatening, to say the least.

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December 19, 2023 · 23:43

Cloud Butts

The first storm of December has rolled in, a solid cloud deck yesterday that gave us mist and petrichor, but not a lot of measurable precipitation.

What we did get visually was a grand view of “cloud butts” from horizon to horizon.

Whatever was going on up top, the bottoms of the cloud deck was turbulent and bubbly, the signs of a cold, active system.

With luck we’ll get some lightning and thunder tomorrow and Thursday, but the chances of that have gone down significantly since yesterday. Pity.

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December 16, 2023 · 22:51

Skyscapes – December 16th

I like how, near sunset, there are layers of clouds over to the west that are making the lower band of clouds in the lower right be in their shadow, causing it to be darker than the still brightly lit cloud bands above it.

Contrasts, For The Win! They keep the world from being bland and boring.

A week ago we were at “A Christmas Story – The Musical” at the Ahmanson. You know the story, it’s been 40 years since the movie came out and these days there are multiple cable channels that show it 24 hours a day for a day or two around Christmas weekend. Ralphie, the BB gun he wants, the bullies at school, his friend who gets his tongue stuck to the flagpole, his dad swearing at the balky furnace, the “glowing sex” leg lamp that dad wins as a major prize in a sweepstakes, everyone telling him “you’ll shoot your eye out!” A dozen other gags and scenes that are legendary, all rolled into one.

At the intermission, a woman sitting with a group of friends in the row in front of us, got up and left. She was upset and couldn’t stay for the second act of a production that celebrated giving a child a gun. She didn’t make a big scene, but she was quite emphatic to her friends about her objections and clear that she would NOT. BE. BACK.

I have questions…

I can, in theory, understand her objection, even if I don’t necessarily agree with it. We definitely live in different times than when the movie was made, and MUCH different times that the era (early 1950’s) that was portrayed in the story.

But how in the world can ANYONE come in to this production and not be at least passingly familiar with the fundamental plot line?

I’m not saying that everyone there needs to be able to quote every line in the movie, especially their favorites (“Daddy’s going to kill Ralphie!” in case anyone was wondering), but to be a member of this society in the last forty years and be totally unfamiliar with “A Christmas Story,” or to be unable to figure out that “A Christmas Story – The Musical” was related to it?

(She probably wouldn’t get this one either!)

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Filed under Entertainment, Photography, Sunsets, Weather

November 29, 2023 · 23:51

Not NaNoWriMo, 11/29/2023

Yet another day with a bit more chaos than I had anticipated. And yet, good things have been accomplished.

I took a quick break and discovered that we had a passing shower overhead, but with the sun behind us, there was a dim but beautiful rainbow off to the northeast. Can you see it?

What I failed to see wandering around looking for a good view of the rainbow was the honkin’ freakin’ HUGE orb weaver spider that was about six inches from my head. (To be fair, while it was a large spider and scary looking, it was also harmless to me. Just get my monkey brain stem to figure that out.) I will refrain from sharing the pictures.

There’s today’s lesson. Beauty and fear, side by side. both with the ability to catch us by surprise.

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November 17, 2023 · 23:08

Not NaNoWriMo, 11/17/2023

What, I “need” to get up in five hours to watch SpaceX try to launch Starship?

The Rocky Mountains are impressive, and you can get some dramatic weather as well. From our Colorado trip in 2008.

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