Watcher's Blog

Not sure if news or weather is right for this, but....

On the morning of 3/10/08 between 6-6:40 am, I was out taking pictures with my telescope of Jupiter in the e-se skies.  At one point I looked up to the south and a BIG red fireball crossed the southern sky, coming from the west on a downward angle, probably into the Atlantic ocean.  It burn an eerie red and did not burn out.

Does anyone know if this was a natural or manmade fireball?  I heard that there was a sattelite coming down and wondered if this was it?

This morning I received a call from two of my sisters who came down here from Erie, Pa. last week for an early Christmas with family in Florida.  They flew out of Orlando Sunday morning with a stop over in Detroit, then on to Erie. 

They arrived in Detroit on time, had a 1 hour layover and then TWICE the plane(s)  they boarded was turned back (one in the air, one while taxing!) because of the ice and snow storms with the winds.

Right now they are being told that the first flight from Detroit to Erie will be on Tuesday.  They called me this Monday morning to let me know they are trying to get a shorter flight to Cleveland, then have someone drive there to pick them up.

Both are seriously thinking about moving to Florida now....or never leaving home after December 1st again if they stay!

It was cool seeing my old hometown of Erie, Pa. on the news last night-usually for the same thing-lake effect snow.  Growing up in the snowbelt area the storms that would dump literally several feet of the white stuff in a day or two seemed normal.

Heck, I'm turning on the heat at 50 now!  And won't swim unless the pool is 85+ degrees!

Florida, ya spoiled me!

About 6:30 last night, the 20th, I filmed a rotating cloud that became the twister in Lake county around 9:45pm.  It was the same cell and the footage is amateur, but awesome to watch the rotation until it pulled back into the cloud.  I sent the footage to Jim Van Fleet, hopefully it can be used for a cool look at the weather!

If anyone has been inundated by the afternoon storms and looking for a dry spot to stand at nights, my lawn seems to be a rain repellant so feel free to stay dry!

Without fail, year after year, there is a system that is almost foolproof for predicting rainfall-where it will fall and how much and for how long!!

I received news yesterday that my inlaws were on their way to central Florida from Erie, Pa.  No connection?  Oh yes, for my father-in-law has NEVER been able to take a vacation ANYWHERE in the United States without the gloom of rain following him.  This is legendary within the family and many have learned to take their vacations at times when he is not.

They are due to arrive Thursday morning and will leave Sunday sometime.  When we learned of the surprise visit the other day, rain clouds gathered in preparation and so far two days of drizzle have prepared his coming.

Expect rain or cold throughout his stay, followed by beautiful weather afterwards.  He's never missed a bad vacation, weather-wise!  LOL 

 

 

Call me nutty and a lot do....

I have some questions about what to do to a banana tree here in Orlando.  My orange tree will handle the cold snap and I know about flowers, bushes, etc. but does a banana tree need covering or a heat lamp at all?

It was planted a year and a half ago and is doing wee.  I just don't want to kill it off.

WEATHER BULLETIN--DENVER



Up here, in the "Mile-Hi City", we just recovered from an Historic event---may I even say a "Weather Event" of "Biblical Proportions" --- with an historic blizzard of up to 44" inches of snow and winds to 90 MPH that broke trees in half, knocked down utility poles, stranded hundreds of motorists in lethal snow banks, closed ALL roads, isolated scores of communities and cut power to 10's of thousands.

FYI:

George Bush did not come.

FEMA did nothing.

No one howled for the government.

No one blamed the government.

No one even uttered an expletive on TV.

Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton did not visit.

Our Mayor did not blame Bush or anyone else.

Our Governor did not blame Bush or anyone else, either.

CNN, ABC, CBS, FOX or NBC did not visit - or report on this category 5 snowstorm. Nobody demanded $2,000 debit cards.

No one asked for a FEMA Trailer House.

No one looted.

Nobody - I mean Nobody demanded the government do something.

Nobody expected the government to do anything, either.

No Larry King, No Bill O'Rielly, No Oprah, No Chris Mathews and No Geraldo Rivera.

No Shaun Penn, No Barbara Striesand, No Hollywood types to be found.

Nope, we just melted the snow for water.

Sent out caravans of SUV's to pluck people out of snow engulfed cars.

The truck drivers pulled people out of snow banks and didn't ask for a penny.

Local restaurants made food and the police and fire departments delivered it to the snowbound families.

Families took in the stranded people - total strangers.

We fired up wood stoves, broke out coal oil lanterns or Coleman lanterns.

We put on extra layers of clothes because up here it is "Work or Die".

We did not wait for some affirmative action government to get us out of a mess created by being immobilized by a welfare program that trades votes for 'sittin at home' checks.

Even though a Category "5" blizzard of this scale has never fallen this early, we know it can happen and how to deal with it ourselves.

"In my many travels, I have noticed that once one gets north of about 48 degrees North Latitude, 90% of the world's social problems evaporate."

It does seem that way, at least to me.

I hope this gets passed on.

Maybe SOME people (Like New Orleans and Wash. DC freeloaders) will get the message. The world does Not owe you a living. The Government and Tax $ are not your insurance company."

For those of you who've seen this act of mother nature's sense of humor, it's both beautiful and frustrating.

Lake effect is a term used when cold air from Canada passes over the warmer waters of the Great Lakes and as it does, picks up the moisture before dumping it inland, usually as a foot or more of snow.

The same thing happens with cooler air passing over any body of water, one reason we had a little snowfall a few weeks back on the coast.

Now for anyone who has lived on the eastern/southern side of lake Erie, Ontario or one of the others, you know what it's like.

First the warnings go up for a *winter storm watch* This means that by morning you will not be able to open your front door until you climb out a window and shovel a nine foot snowdrift away. When you're able to find which lump of snow is your car, you'll find a nice shiny coating of ice under the snow that nothing shy of a blowtorch will remove.

Your car's battery is D.O.A. and it's just a matter of time before you and several neighbors (all carrying jumper cables) find that lone vehicle still running to get a jump from.

After clearing 3 feet of heavy, wet snow off of your sidewalk, you go inside to warm up and hear about several heart attack victims from shoveling heavy, wet snow on the morning news.

Next: why we move south...

You've got to hand it to the weather staff here in Central Florida. I've lived and been to many places and nowhere else have I've seen an area that is subject to the whims of mother nature like Orlando and the surrounding areas.

Take an area like Buffalo, N.Y. Most winds come from the west or northwest, so, you look at Chicago's weather and given the wind speed, that'll be Buffalo's soon.

Seriously, so many variables here aside from wind direction, which at times seems to come from several points at once (watch the clouds some day) like sea breezes, a peninsula that heats rapidly and allows for a cold front to change things in a matter of hours!

I don't really expect a true to life 3 or 5 day forecast to hold true except for the temperature, but it's good to know when severe weather happens, we have the best meteorologists right on top of things!

Watching the clouds go 3 ways at once...