Hurricane Harbor

A writer and a tropical muse. A funky Lubavitcher who enjoys watching the weather, hurricanes, listening to music while enjoying life with a sense of humor and trying to make sense of it all!

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Snow on Mt Shasta.... Hurricane Season Almost Over..







Mt. Shasta forecast... this was put up on Twitter by Reed Timmer. Cute how that rhymes...
Anyway.... he's right that's a snow forecast ;)
Daytime accumulations of 33 to 39 inches and that's just this afternoon...
I'm not sure I can easily in my head do the math on just how much snow that is by




To put this into perspective. Mt Shasta is up in the Cascade Mountains of California... this is the image on Google and that is snow from their link... not a haarp ring ;)


Mt. Shasta has great history and there is so much to read about it..you have to pick your priorities. 
New Age types have this whole crystal thing with Mt. Shasta. It's one of those places ...

http://www.crystalinks.com/mtshasta.html

http://theoraclestar.com/2010/08/mt-shasta-history/

Picture here comes from the link below, check out that link it has some great places to stay nearby.


It is rather high up and used to having snow on it. I mean it's Google Image looks like marshmallow running down the sides of a chocolate cake...



Great link with tons of history...
http://www.siskiyous.edu/shasta/his/index.htm

Officially it's a stratovolcano but let's not mess up the romance with scientific fact here ;)


As for the tropics tonight... my friend Phil put this up on Facebook... he does such a great job with words and images. Check him out... Says it all




Check out Phil on Twitter or Facebook... he posts images like this all the time as well as hard core weather discussion and analysis :)


So, that just about says it all. 

We never made it to We never made it to Valerie...

Oh well... 

Sweet Tropical Dreams... this Miami gal is gonna settle down and watch Burn Notice and am wishing I could see snow sometimes soon. I like snow. I like real weather. 

Besos Bobbi

Ps Can you imagine if during the days of the Donner Party they could look at a Weather App how they would feel when they were out there going west.... they never saw it coming..........  Give thanks for the National Weather Service ;)

http://www.legendsofamerica.com/ca-donnerparty.html






Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Quiet Respite Over Most of the Country



Not a lot of weather to talk about today. Not of the precipitous kind anyway... storm moving into the NW and talk of high snow totals on Mt. Shasta.

Enjoy as once that storm in the Pacific starts moving it's going to be messy again.

A quiet period for now...

Tropics predictably quiet.


As there is nothing big going on currently, everyone is still Monday Morning Quarterbacking Sandy.

I'll post this link that is going around in online meteorological circles and leave you to decide if you agree, disagree or have your own thoughts.

http://digitalmeteorologist.wordpress.com/2012/11/28/assessing-sandy-warnings-and-the-weather-enterprise/

Sweet Tropical Dreams, 

BobbiStorm

Ps... Did you know that the State Attorney in Miami called for an investigation on the Sonny Liston/Cassius Clay fight to make sure there was no funny business when Liston's shoulder was out of place. Senate investigations have been going on forever .... this controversy will go on and on and on like the Titanic song.


and by the way.... Liston looked way older than 30 in that fight and Clay looked younger than 22..
just saying.................


Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Snow Falling in NY... 2nd Snow Event This November...







It's not going to be a big snowfall, but it's making a statement before December even begins. If all you want for Christmas is snow... you might just get what you are wishing for this year.

Notice how the front is reinforced with several lows as it moves across the country... cold, dry air moving in behind it. And, oh...what is that up by Montana and Minnesota? More cold weather coming down from Canada.

A glimpse around SpaghettiWeather shows us what is going on and not going on this 27th day of November.


Nothing tropical going on.............

 

35°F | °CTueWedThuFri
SnowMostly SunnyClearMostly Sunny
Light Snow
Wind: N at 4 mph
Humidity: 94%
Staten Island, NY

Snow in the NE is coming down across Pa, NJ and NY... moving through slowly and sprinkling snow on the region as people look up at the sky and down at the cars being covered in fresh snow and remembering the winters of 2009 and 2010... 2011 a distant memory at the moment.

It's raining light in the Carolinas... gray, misty looking winter day. I had oatmeal for brunch... really that says something as I am NOT an oatmeal person.

Strong storms in Pensacola and Savannah and Charleston as the front moves through.

So, just marking the point that Bastardi made the other day that the last year to have two measurable snowfalls in NYC was 1938 and if that is right... I'd look carefully at what kind of winter 1938/39 was..

Been a bit busy doing research on a project I am working on and lost in the 1960s and the reality that the early 60s were indeed VERY cold and chilly in the Miami area. Nice to know that's not a mixed up memory of a little weather obsessed child who remembers it as being in the 30s frequently.

The more things change, the more things stay the same... 




People complained after Donna that there was not enough warning and forecasting was poor and yet for days the Miami News covered that storm. The following year they shot up the Tiros "WEATHER SATELLITE" to give forecasters a better eye in the sky. I find it interesting that the story to the left of it...that would be "west" if this was a hurricane advisory mind you... was about Nikita Kruschev :) which makes me wonder.... did they use the weather as an excuse to more carefully watch other places as well... like Cuba and well you get the idea.. 


Either way .... it was great to have those eyes in the sky as the next several years were filled with the names Cleo, Dora, Betsy, Flora, Ginny and some others you barely remember. 

As for the discussion on Sandy and her exact title... I think they were wrong and they should have not been so left brain (in place of another word that comes to mind..) and they should have issued Hurricane Warnings. Truth is... people pay attention better and in reality she was still transitioning and who makes the call as to when she was or wasn't a hurricane vs an extra tropical. There is a sliding scale that seems to change constantly and it can be manipulated in any given year one way or the other. Better to err on the side of caution and consistency and reality and issue a Hurricane Warning. People on DID have sustained hurricane conditions for long enough to suffice the use of the name.

But, hind sight is 20/20 as they say and it's easier to study history from looking back then when you are in the middle of it.

Working on a book on Miami History and it's amazing what you find when you look back with the knowledge of what we know today vs yesterday. 

Either way ... the end of the 2012 Atlantic Hurricane Season is coming to an end officially in a few days. Now is the time to think on what you will need for next year.

Because pretty soon we will be asking... Are You Ready?


Besos Bobbi ;)

Ps.................personally at the moment........I SOOO WANT SNOW ............









Sunday, November 25, 2012

Cold Sunday... Football, Leftovers & Thoughts on Winter

Note that weather is back across the top half of the nation today. Everything is moving West to East as cold air funnels south from Canada. All of that equates to "snow" not rain and obviously nothing tropical going on today.




Maybe the top third... wondering how far south the precept gets and if  the kids in Iowa get snow or not.



It's always been my experience when the forecasters start to change the forecast it's going colder than they want to say. Last week it said it would be 32 this morning in Raleigh. Then, they changed it, and it was forecast to be 29 or 28 depending on the source. Then it showed 27 on the 2 day out forecast. Last night it was updated to a very vague "Mid 20s" and I woke up this morning to 24 degrees. If you see a trend in a 5 day weather forecast going down.. you can always rely on the trend. It's colder this morning in North Carolina than it is in Ames, Iowa and that just makes no sense. Then again.. it's going to get way colder out there gang...sooner rather than later.


Often forecasters just don't want to go with a forecast they can't rely on when the models show the possibility.  In which case it's usually  more extreme and more unusual. 

How this plays out in the short term I am not sure really sure. Enjoying watching the models fight their way through winter the way they did the hurricane season. Peace will come to the Middle East faster than the GFS and the EURO ever coming into agreement on a brewing storm system.


That is...by the way...snow further south than the Mason Dixie Line, so this isn't just a NE-NY/NJ event about to occur. 

Ryan Mauve of  puts out the most beautiful visual forecasts that are often worthy of printing out and putting up on the wall for Weather Christmas Decorations!!



They are doing a good job over at Weather Bell and he provides a good complimentary to Bastardi's long verbal discussions. 

http://www.weatherbell.com/  Always love listening to Bastardi talk as he thinks like me in ways.. at times at least with regard to weather. One point he makes about the snow that is coming to the NE and the NYC area is that it is the first time since 1938 that there will have been two appreciable snowfalls in that area and any hurricane fanatic has to smile, nod and go ... uh huh. I know I did when I saw it was going to happen.

Also, note for the coming cold winter you may have to practice saying North Atlantic Oscillation as you are going to hear NAO over and over and over by meteorologists who love using all those weather abbreviations. 

NAO talk = cold.

Otherwise in the world I think it's worth noting there have been a lot of small earthquakes in California over the last few days. Alaska, California and even Hawaii had some action. After living there so long it catches my eye when I see the map. I had to do something...no tropical weather so I studied earthquakes and California weather. Note, I was watching because I heard there was a small quake in Tennessee which I was curious on as there have been a few lately and not sure that is an active fault line or a whole lot of fracking going on.. 


Notice how quiet the fault lines are in Europe and Africa. 
Mind you sometimes small quakes let off energy which is good.
Sometimes, they are a foreshadow of things to come ...which is not good.

As for me.. enjoying the cold weather from the inside looking out this morning.



One of the better things about my bay window in the kitchen is it gives me a great seat to watch the sunrise in the early winter while sipping hot coffee. Trust me...this looked a lot prettier through the window than through the screens and my not great camera, but you get the idea. The leaves are gone and at sunrise the sun rises over that fence and a few minutes later it lights up whatever is left of the golden leaves and a few minutes later it hits the church steeple to the south and it's really purty... from inside cause I ain't going out there until the sun gets a whole lot higher ;)

To the south I have this massive expanse of a "natural area" which  means "WOODS" to me and "just some trees" to my husband who was raised way up north before moving south to North Carolina. Apparently they are only "woods" if you can't see through them..  In the summer they are woods, but in the winter you can see the houses and rooftops off in the distance and I can tell if there is a breeze by the way the brown leaves fall to the ground. This morning they fall slowly, fluttering a bit back and forth and then straight down like a rock. Cold, not too windy... and there is frost I think on the spider webs but I'm not going out there to get a closer look. And, the reason the leaves are falling when there is no wind??? Squirrels..racing around, overactive the last week or two it seems and every time a squirrel leaps from one branch to another the leaves rain down to the muli-colored, leaf covered ground. He's not a Southerner or he'd be out there blowing them every morning... I like them this way, it looks like Autumn Gift wrapping paper covering the grass..



Watched the Gators win last night on TV :) and the Noles lose :) and Notre Dame win :( 

Today is perfect football weather in this neck of the woods. Leftovers and football games and working on my writing and enjoying the moment. 

And, fondly remembering Larry Hagman more for I Dream of Jeannie than for Dallas. In Miami when we were young a TV show taking place in Cocoa Beach (or pretending to take place in Cocoa Beach) was about as close to home as we could get. That and the Jackie Gleason show made us feel really cool. And, as Dallas was on Friday Nights I really didn't watch... to me he's always Roger's pal begging Jeannie to bring Roger back from Greenland or wherever she sent him off to with the bob of her pony tail. 

Nice memories of a happy childhood growing up in South Florida :)

Besos Bobbi

Ps...that island where he finds her in her bottle always looked to us like the spill islands in Biscayne Bay :)






Friday, November 23, 2012

Black Friday Sale on Cold Weather


Mother Nature is having a Black Friday Sale on Winter Weather... it's almost free and it will arrive in about a week or so brought to you by opening your front door.. no shipping fees... just there...

So, go out and buy a coat.. buy boots.. buy anything you need or want, because winter won't be a no show like it was last year this year. Cold and getting colder is my forecast.



If you see me round town I'll be wearing these :)



Hey, as a Coral Park Graduate.. it's always hard for me to pass up a deal on shoes by Rampage :)

And, while dealing with the colder temps I'd like everyone to remember to watch the wind chills.

This great page is posted on www.spaghettiweather.com a site for all seasons..

It's important to factor in the wind when the weather gets cold...




Wind Chills should be watched often as people will look at the temperature on their app and not factor in wind chill. The colder it gets the bigger the wind chill factor is, as when it's 80 in Miami you feel a nice breeze but it doesn't make the temperature drop down to 70. When a front comes through wind chill can take a temperature well below freezing and the app may say 40 degrees.

I'm still watching the tropics, however I had to admit watching it more out of curiosity as the moisture that keeps showing up works it's way west into the Caribbean and then links up with dipping fronts and lows forming in the Gulf or off the coast of South Florida and it enhances the moisture and energy of the cold fronts bring down cold weather. The more moisture, the more chance of snow or ice in the SE at some point this winter.  Throw in that the possibility of a Southern Jet setting up and you have a real linkage between moisture in the tropics and cold air flowing across the Nation. I know long run on sentence before, but my coffee hasn't kicked in and the heater is drying out my head making me get that "winter headache" I get up north unless I am in Crown Heights where someone still uses steam heat. Got to tell you...steam heat works much better for people with sinus...   anyways..........

Reason I am going "here" is because the cold air "up there" by Canada is coming this way, fusing with fronts moving in from the Pacific and this is not going to be a winter like the last. If you gave your coat away thinking that Global Warming was on it's way... you better go out today for sales on Black Friday and buy a new heavy, winter coat you are going to need it this winter! Mittens, socks, scarves...toe warmers if you do Yoga.

Nice website that shows you the styles for this winter and the best places to buy:

http://www.thebudgetfashionista.com/archive/ten-great-winter-coats-under-100/



Take a look at this image of weather a week from now. That's a double barrel High across the whole of the East Coast all the way down to South Florida... so you might want to get your cute boots and whatever winter clothes you have and keep them ready.. you will have lots of chances to use them this winter.


Brrrr.....

So....mozey on over to Pinterest or Instagram and pick out the coat you want and then splurge this Black Friday on the one you like... because you'll need to keep it handy..  



Or...wait until Cyber Monday where I got good buys last year and didn't have to put on a coat or worry on the wind chill...  telling you no matter what they tell you .... they put out good sales and usually throw shipping and handling in for free... easy..

Besos Bobbi

Ps..Going shopping for those last few things I need to cook a Thanksgiving dinner for Shabbos.

Yesterday we had a small, nice mini meal with lots of side dishes and a little Turkey ;)

Apple Pumpkin Curry Soup
Turkey medallions breaded with onion rings crushed up into flour :)
Collard Greens
String Beans in a "lite" sauce ...kind of casserole
Sweet Potatoes with Marshmallow fluff
Mashed Potatoes with Tofutti Sour Cream and Chives 
Fresh Cranberry Sauce made with Wine and Fig Preserves
Salad with Sweet Tea Vinaigrette 
Chestnut Cornbread Stuffing
Pumpkin Vanilla Rice Pudding.

Had pumpkin pie tartlets with coffee for breakfast and a vanilla pumpkin WW shake for lunch

In a few days I'll be pumpkin out... but very, very cold... except for when I am wearing my winter coat!





Thursday, November 22, 2012

Thanksgiving.. Calm Before Winter Storm





Today is a beautiful day in most parts of the country. There is some snow in Northern Minnesota, but hey it IS Minnesota.

A look towards Sunday... or 60 hours from now shes a strong cold front moving down through the State of Florida and cold Canadian Air pouring down on the back side of the Low to the East and the High to the West.


Gonna get chilly fast....

An example would be in Raleigh they changed the forecast from the low 30s..
to the mid 20s... 

Cold.............moving South...

Weather for Raleigh, NC

59°F | °CThuFriSatSun
ClearMostly SunnyClearClear
Clear
Wind: N at 7 mph
Humidity: 28%61°32°64°37°50°25°52°30°


Enjoy your Turkey or whatever it is you eat today... 

Give Thanks...

Give Charity

And, have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!


Besos Bobbi


Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Whispers of Winter & Turkey Hawk Ballet in South Florida




The image below shows us what we already know... winter is on the way. She is whispering sweet love notes to us in pumpkin and maple flavors as maple leaves fall through the air and trees go bare and snow becomes a part of the radar scene. Pink is peaking through the green and yellow and it indicates frozen forms of precipitation. Can Eggnog Lattes be far away? Maybe I'll get a Praline Mocha Latte for my birthday, which isn't so far away unless the Mayans get their way in which case I'm not getting any older...

See that cold air and several forms of cold precipitation up there? It is getting ready to down load onto us down here in the lower 48.. 


Keep watching this Jet Stream as an indication of when change is about to occur:


http://images.intellicast.com/WxImages/JetStream/conus.jpg

Let's take a look at the city of Buffalo, as they are slated to begin to get "lake effect snow" sooner rather than later.  As systems race down across the Lakes... they get snow the way we in Miami get a good thunderstorm in the summer as storms drift in from the Everglades. 



Note the snow falling with the temperatures at the end game and no trick snow plow on the field is going to make this year's snow go away.

Note: Find your city on the list and use it to check your regional weather.. good look around all the stats fast.

What is a bit odd about this pattern is that in Miami this week the weather is on par with many places to the north. Nice, mild weather making the natives feel that St. Nick is definitely on his way along with the other snow birds... 

Today
Cloudy
Cloudy

Hi 69 °F
Tonight
Mostly Cloudy
Mostly
Cloudy
Lo 63 °F
Wednesday
Mostly Sunny
Mostly
Sunny
Hi 74 °F
Wednesday
Night

Partly Cloudy
Partly
Cloudy
Lo 58 °F
Thanksgiving
Day

Breezy
Breezy

Hi 73 °F
Thursday
Night

Mostly Clear
Mostly
Clear
Lo 57 °F
Friday
Sunny
Sunny

Hi 73 °F
Friday
Night

Clear
Clear

Lo 58 °F
Saturday
Sunny
Sunny

Hi 73 °F


Today: Cloudy, with a high near 69. North wind around 11 mph.

Tonight: Mostly cloudy, with a low around 63. Northwest wind around 11 mph.

Wednesday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 74. North wind 11 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 20 mph.

Wednesday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 58. North wind around 14 mph, with gusts as high as 18 mph.

Thanksgiving Day: Mostly sunny, with a high near 73. Breezy, with a north wind 14 to 16 mph, with gusts as high as 21 mph.

Thursday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 57. North wind 10 to 14 mph, with gusts as high as 18 mph.

Friday: Sunny, with a high near 73. North wind 9 to 11 mph.

Friday Night: Clear, with a low around 58. Northwest wind 7 to 9 mph.

Saturday: Sunny, with a high near 73. North wind 8 to 10 mph.

Saturday Night: Clear, with a low around 60.

Sunday: Sunny, with a high near 75.

Sunday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 63.

Monday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 75.



Not an 80 in sight anywhere and lows in the 50s. Wow. That's time to get out the cute boots and wear them with short skirts and enjoy an illusion of winter while palm fronds fritter beneath a moon lit sky. Oh my.. Sweet.
One last thing on this note... on TWC they always use the term "crashing" with regard to a wave of fronts moving across the country from the NW. May I suggest... the term should be "careening" not crashing. A wave crashes onto the shore... a series of cold fronts careen westward bring cold, damp misery to people in their path not sea foam or seashells. Just saying...

I'll make a prediction for the Winter Solstice here and now. Lots and lots and lots of stories on the End of Civilization as we know it because of the Mayan Calendar.



You heard it here first...

Snow falling in the cities on the south side of the Great Lakes. Cooler than normal temps in Miami.
Cold weather across the prairie. Slow sales, a nervous stock market and talk on the Mayan Calendar.

Note that is not the Dade County Courthouse where the buzzards are returning to take up their posts as I type this.



When you see a Turkey Hawk in South Florida.. you know Winter has arrived and so will the other snow birds.

Keep watching.. I'll be here... at least until the Mayan Calendar ends and probably way after that :)

Besos Bobbi

Ps... Yes Virginia.. the Egyptian Mayan theme was big in the 20s when the Miami and LA courthouse were built.
A Mayan theme neighborhood in Miami out near the Tamiami Trail never got off the ground, too little too late for
Mirador as they were slow to get in on the boom before the bust occurred.

And, oh... yes there was a small quake in Texas last night! See...Twitter is never wrong ;)

http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2012/11/20/small-quake-rattles-north-texas/