Category Archives: Weather

April 9, 2015 · 20:21

Ominous Dawn

Still traveling, still just a bit scrambled. The good news is that our luggage got here. Yeah!

I’ve long been bored by Los Angeles’ standard “late night, early morning low clouds, high in the mid 70’s, low tonight in the 60’s.” Sometimes it seems that they can repeat that verbatim about 360 days of the year and no one would know the difference. So I prefer to see a bit of “real” weather. Rain is OK, thunderstorms are great!

The morning dawned in a wonderfully ominous mood:

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It managed to clear up (drat!) for most of the day while we were driving around and sightseeing, and by evening it was actually looking calm. I was disappointed.

While we were eating dinner some big, black clouds started to roll in from the west, and most of the evening it’s been raining, along with occasional lighting and thunder. Most of the big boomers have been off a couple of miles, but we had one nice cell go right over us and rattle the windows real well a couple of times.

I approve!

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Filed under Photography, Travel, Weather

March 2, 2015 · 22:22

Weather 1, ‘Fifi’ 0

The plan was for the CAF’s ‘Fifi’, the world’s only flying B-29, to fly from Phoenix (where it spent the weekend) to Camarillo today.

Aren’t plans wonderful? Do you hear the gods laughing?

IMG_7382Since airlines were grounding their modern, new, advance tech commercial jets in Phoenix this morning, it didn’t seem wise to try to take off in an irreplaceable 70-year-old WWII bomber. Aside from all of those CAF rules and all of that, there’s common sense to consider.

IMG_7383Even if Phoenix had been clear, they would have had to somehow get through all of these dark green and yellow and pink splotches to get to the big blue dot on the far left. Again, flying anything into a thunderstorm is contraindicated, and it’s contraindicated^10 for B-29s. (I think it’s phrased exactly that way in the original B-29 user’s manual.)

IMG_7385Meanwhile, about the time that we were expecting ‘Fifi’ in Camarillo, the clouds were broken directly overhead, but getting darker.

IMG_7391Two hours later it was still ugly over the mountains and getting worse, with that blotch at the bottom heading for us with hail, strong winds, and heavy rain. (Google for pictures of the pier in Huntington Beach covered in hail today, covered to the point where it looks like they got a couple inches of snow.) There were also some heavy rains back over our house.

IMG_7396Looking off toward all of those big, dark green blotches, it was again not a good sky to be flying through.

Discretion being the better part of valor, ‘Fifi’ and her crew stayed in Phoenix and will come out to Camarillo tomorrow. The forecast for the whole area looks beautiful. It will be great to see ‘Fifi’ flying in again with some of our fighters providing the escort.

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Filed under CAF, Flying, Weather

February 26, 2015 · 23:21

Spring’s Forward Scout

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A barren tree, a wintery blue sky and a few whispy clouds. Could be winter in Minnesota, Maine, or Mississippi.

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With a few days of rain and wind in the last couple of weeks, the last of the leaves are gone from most of the leafy trees.

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But the winters are mild and short in Southern California. There’s no snow on the ground, and it’s closer to 70°F than to 20°F.

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The branches won’t be bare for long.

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99.9% of the branches are tipped with buds, ready to burst, like popcorn kernels that are so close to going off.

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Someone’s got to be first, and this particular branch tip decided to jump the gun. Go big or go home!

A harbinger of better times to come? Or an unembarrassed and unabashed overachiever? Maybe we’re just seeing spring’s advance scout, checking to make sure the bees are ready to come out and play.

{{Note — It’s Flash Fiction Thursday, but I’m still writing my piece and there’s no way it’s done by midnight, so I’ll post it tomorrow.}}

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Filed under Flowers, Photography, Weather

January 27, 2015 · 22:05

Panoramas: Spring Is Coming

Lest all of my friends in Boston and Massachusetts (Hi, Peter! Hi, Debbie!) despair of ever finding the bottom of the snow drifts that have them marooned in their own homes, so that they don’t all think that Eddard Stark was the one true prophet, here’s a picture from today at Camarillo Airport following yesterday’s “relentless drizzle”:

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SPRING IS COMING!

By the way, have I mentioned how much I like the “pano” feature on the new iPhones? It’s fast, easy, intuitive, and you save all the time of having to stitch together individual photo frames. You can then immediately email it, post it, or upload it.

The only negative I’ve found so far is that you can’t do a full 360° panorama. Plus, stitching together a ton of high-resolution individual photo frames will give you a MUCH more detailed panorama.

However, the trade-off for speed and ease is worth it. Plus, of course, I also had my “good” camera with me and took the frames I need for that full-sized panorama.

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iPhone panorama (top) is 6816 x 1479 (10.1 megapixels). This version is slightly “smoother”, for example, if you look at the far edge of the taxiway in front of me.

Panorama from nine frames of 3888 x 2592 (10.0 megapixels) each combine to an image of 13,386 x 2,290 (30.6 megapixels).  This version has much better dynamic range (items in shadow show up much better) and viewed full-sized (click on either image) it’s a much more detailed picture.

Both are great for what they do and what their strong points are. Neither is perfect.

But the bottom picture does have that fantastic Socata TBM 700 taxiing by at the far left. (And the resolution to be able to read the N-number!)  NICE plane!

Chin up, Southern New England!

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Filed under CAF, Panorama, Photography, Weather

January 24, 2015 · 23:20

Wind

The Santa Ana winds are blowing.

Anyone who has lived in Southern California know what that means. High pressure over Nevada, strong offshore winds, adiabatic heating, and the wind funneling through canyons and mountain passes speeds up as it’s squeezed through.

It was starting to kick up when I left for the CAF hanger this morning.

Out in Camarillo, near the ocean, near the edge of a large plain to the south of many of those aforementioned canyons and mountain passes, it was blowing a steady 20 to 30 knots, occasionally getting up to 35 knots steady, with gusts on and off to 50+ knots. Many of us there (most of us pilots) thought that might be a low value for some of the more severe gusts.

Planes have a tendency to blow about in such winds, but we made it through the day with just a couple of worrisome moments, no actual emergencies or damage. But it kept everyone hopping. The rides we had scheduled for the day got re-scheduled, obviously. Gusts of 20 to 25 knots are “exciting” in a small plane. Gusts of 40 to 50 knots can be downright dangerous. Let the business jets and commercial airliners have the skies today.

It also turns the huge hangers (like where I spend most of my days) into drums as the thin metal siding rattles and vibrates. Even more attention-getting, when you get a gust that REALLY howls past, some of the little holes in the structure (around doors, where wiring and pipes enter the building, etc) can act like wind instruments, giving off some truly ungodly howls.

Jessie loves it when it blows like this.

We suspect that it’s because there are so many new and interesting smells coming from far away. To us it just means allergies and sandpaper dry skin — to her it’s a cornucopia of sensations that we can’t even imagine. Her nose twitches a mile a minute, her head swivels to listen to the wind in the trees and catch the next exotic scent. For a few minutes, she’s a puppy again and the whole world is hers to explore.

The Santa Ana winds are blowing.

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Filed under CAF, Dogs, Los Angeles, Weather

January 17, 2015 · 21:02

I Wonder Where They’re Going

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To meet up with someone they love? To reunite and celebrate, or to say goodbye?

To follow their dreams? Or home, after seeing their dreams crushed?

To try to make that big deal that will define their career? To try to find the job they desperately need?

To a long overdue vacation? To catch up on the work that’s piled up on their desk while they’ve been gone?

To meet a grandchild for the first time? To see a grandparent for the last time?

To report for duty and start a military career? To see home at last after a long deployment?

I wonder where they’re going.

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Filed under Flying, Photography, Travel, Weather

January 8, 2015 · 23:43

Juicy Chunks O’ Wisdom For Thursday, January 8th

‘Cause it’s cloudy and I can’t go comet hunting tonight, that’s why.

  • But there was a break in the clouds at sunset and I was at a location where I had a good view of the western horizon. Venus and Mercury are only 1° apart and while I could clearly see Venus of course (REALLY STINKIN’ BRIGHT!) I could not see Mercury.
  • How did people playing poker become a television “sport” complete with breathless color commentary? And why does it have to come on after the hockey game so that I have to either stop what I’m doing to change the channel or just put up with it? (Yeah, #FirstWorldProblem!)
  • There’s no “Flash Fiction” tonight (or last week) because our Grand High Phoobah Chuck Wendig hasn’t given us new assignments. Probably a holiday break sort of thing. And I didn’t participate two weeks ago just because it was about 23:30 before I realized that it was Thursday…
  • So that’s another “next clear night” thing – get the binoculars (and camera, of course), get to someplace with a good western horizon (the hill at Pierce College sounds good) and go hunting for Mercury.
  • A thing going around The Intranets today showed where it was colder here (mainly northern tier states, New England, and 99.9999% of Canada) than it was on Mars. Cool meme (yeah, I passed it on) but the “spin” on the facts that makes it true(ish) is that we’re comparing high temps for the sol on Mars to low temps for the day on Earth. The lows on Mars (apples to apples) was about -75°. Plus there’s that whole total lack of a breathable atmosphere thing.
  • Re: not realizing that it’s Thursday until 23:30 – I might have a rotten brain. Or I might just be trying to stuff ten pounds of thinking and stress into a five-pound brain pan. (That old figure of speech got mangled pretty badly there, didn’t it?)
  • In thinking about a good local place with a slightly darker sky (to do it right I would need to drive up into the San Bernadino mountains, or better yet, out to someplace like Joshua Tree, but that’s four hours each way) I realized that there’s a “wilderness” park up in the canyons near our home, between LA County and Ventura County. It’s listed as “closed at dusk” but I called, got some administrative dude, and got told that I “probably” would be fine going there after dark with a camera and/or telescope. A ranger or cop might see me, but they “probably” would leave me alone once I explained why I was there. And I was “unlikely” to have anyone close the gate and lock me in for the night. But I did need to be cautious about the coyotes. And rattlesnakes. And possibly mountain lions. And skunks, especially skunks…
  • Bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch!
  • I’m going to check out that park and see if there’s a gate to be locked. If not, it might be critter time!

Remember, “There are two types of people in this world – 1) Those who can extrapolate from incomplete data”

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Filed under Astronomy, Juicy Chunks, Space, Sports, Weather, Writing

January 2, 2015 · 18:58

Frost

Proof that it was below freezing here last night, one of the (maybe!) one or two days a year it happens. Your brass monkey would have been safe, but it made the grass and car look pretty. Even at 9:22 it was just getting up to 33°. I took these pictures while letting Jessie out – as we got into the car a few minutes later, The Long-Suffering Wife asked if I had taken pictures of the frost…

It’s like she doesn’t even KNOW me!

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Filed under Photography, Weather

December 30, 2014 · 22:16

The Approaching Cold Front

(Late editing note: OK, I was just going to post two really, really cool pictures I took today, but then I got into this whole THING, but if you just want the cool pictures, they’re still there at the bottom. Sorry. *not sorry*)

It does get cold cold here occasionally in La-La Land (not just that wussy cold) and the next couple of days fall into that category. It won’t be too bad down by the beaches (that whole huge body of water heat-sink thing) but here in the valleys it’s expected to get down into the low 30’s and upper 20’s. (I know, my New England friends and family, you go whole months of the year praying for that as your high for the day, but I said “cold cold,” not “HOLY CRAP cold.”)

The timing of this “cold snap” means that the usual New Year’s Day message from the Pasadena Chamber of Commerce (otherwise known as the Rose Parade) won’t be, “Look at how great it is in SoCal where it’s in the 80’s and we’re walking around in shorts and Hawaiian shirts!” Watch for it, there are going to be some very chilly folks in those sleeping bags along Colorado Boulevard come Thursday morning.

A bit further outside of SoCal, they’re expecting a couple of inches of snow in Las Vegas??!! Not only is that going to make New Year’s Eve celebrations there more “interesting” than normal, but the millions of people going and coming from Lost Wages either by air or by I-15 over the mountains will have a whole new adventure to remember. It’s going to be a world-class mess, so stay at home like we are, pull up a comfy chair, pop some popcorn, and watch the chaos.

For the record, the current, “New Year’s Eve Eve” conditions on that I-15 Cajon Pass traffic link look like this:

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That’s soooooooooo much red for sooooooooo many miles – I don’t even want to imagine.

While we almost always get some snow in the local mountains (which go up to 8,000 and 9,000 feet, thus the ski resorts just a two-hour drive from downtown LA) and on the I-5 “Grapevine” (which goes up to 4,160 feet) heading north to Sacramento and San Francisco, but it’s really rare to see snow down on the ground in the LA basin or any of the major valleys.

I’ve seen it once, when we were living in Granada Hills, at about 1,000 feet elevation, back in about 1988 or 1989. We got maybe a half-inch, I made a “snowman” in the front yard that was about the size of three marshmallows.

This storm probably won’t drop snow here (we’re now at about 770 feet) but it will bring snow down to about 2,000 feet, which means that the hills around the valleys will get a dusting.

Meanwhile, we’re also getting ferocious winds, currently 14 to 34 knots in the area, with gusts even higher. So I had better get this posted quickly, before the power goes out!

As Bill Cosby said, “I told you that story so that I could tell you this one.”

This cold front and storm was just coming down from the north as I was leaving the CAF hanger in Camarillo this afternoon and it looked really cool:

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(Remember to click to see the full-sized panorama.)

But as cool as that was out on the ramp, when I got out to the parking lot on the south side, I saw this, which may be one of the best pictures I’ve ever taken:

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And THAT’s why I’m not out looking for Comet Lovejoy tonight!

 

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Filed under Los Angeles, Panorama, Photography, Weather

December 29, 2014 · 22:45

Comet Lovejoy For The New Year

In case you haven’t heard, there’s a “new” comet that’s just now brightening to the point where it can be seen (in a dark sky) by the naked eye, and should be visible in binoculars even from the city.

Comet Lovejoy is visible over pretty much all of the Northern Hemisphere. If you can see Orion (one of the brightest and most easily distinguished constellations in the sky) you will probably be able to see Comet Lovejoy over the next couple of weeks.

Right now it’s down “below” Orion’s feet, but it will be coming up past Orion, Taurus, and the Pleiades during January. It should brighten even more over the next week or so before starting to fade. You can find plenty of sites out there with maps and suggestions on spotting it – try the Sky & Telescope page for starters.

Tonight Comet Lovejoy went right past the globular cluster M79. All over the web tonight there have been popping up some truly spectacular pictures, such as this one from  Chris & Dawn Schur. (Trust me, open that picture up!) It was taken from Payson, Arizona, which is out a long way from any city lights, about eighty miles northeast of Phoenix.

While the S&T article says that they were able to see Comet Lovejoy from their light-polluted location (in the Boston area), I wasn’t so lucky tonight. I went out a couple of times and kept coming back in to check the star charts to figure out where I was looking and where the comet was. It’s pretty easy to “star hop” from Rigel (the really bright star that’s Orion’s right foot) down into the bright stars of the constellation Lepus.

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From IAU and Sky & Telescope magazine (Roger Sinnott & Rick Fienberg)

Using binoculars, you can find that pattern of bright stars that make up the body of Lepus pretty easily, particularly the top row of stars (θ, η, ξ, α, μ, λ, κ) that by themselves look like a mini-sized Big Dipper. (No, this isn’t the Little Dipper either – it just looks sort of dipper-esque to me!) From there it’s pretty easy to see where β and ε are, and from there it’s a piece of cake to see where M79 is.

Over the next few nights, Comet Lovejoy will be moving toward the upper right corner and past Orion, but tonight it was right by M79, so if I could spot M79…

No joy. We’ve got some high haze moving in as the front of a cold storm that’s going to last a couple of days (they’re expecting SNOW in Las Vegas for New Year’s!). That haze, combined with the bright quarter moon, combined with the normal Los Angeles mega-ultra-gonzo light pollution levels, didn’t let me positively identify either M79 or Comet Lovejoy.

It should have been right there… I could spot all of the stars I was using for guidelines and even the next dimmer layer of stars that aren’t shown on the chart above, but I never did see the dimmer, more diffuse comet or globular cluster.

It’s well known in observing that the best low-light detection in the eye is off to the sides. It’s called “averted vision” and you use it by looking just a bit off to one side, then concentrating on what you see at the corner or side of your field of view. Doing that I thought that I might have just barely, kinda sorta seen two fuzzy patches where they were supposed to be — but not enough so that I would swear to it in court.

Oh, well. It’s too late and too cold to disassemble the big 8″ scope, haul it out into the front yard, set it up, then reverse the process. Maybe after this next batch of clouds clears toward the weekend, if I can’t see it yet in the binoculars, I’ll haul out the big scope and/or head toward darker skies.

How about you? Now that I’ve given you the road map and clues, is anyone else spotting Comet Lovejoy yet?

Let me know if you do, and I’ll keep you updated on my progress.

 

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Filed under Astronomy, Space, Weather