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!
Wednesday, October 31, 2018
Updated. Tornado Warning Sugar Land Texas... Storm System Headed Towards Houston Now Tornado Watch UP---. Halloween and Wicked Weather in the South Coming to Your State Soon ... What's Your Favorite Candy? What's Your Favorite Costume? Twister Movies... And Hollywood Inspiration
Really feels like some sick joke.
A Tornado Warning in Sugar Land Texas on Halloween.
Lot's of tricks Mother Nature has up her sleeve.
This storm is moving towards the Houston area now.
As for me I spent the day at the Mall.
Very early holiday shopping.
Big family....gotta start early!
I may go as an Angel for Halloween ;)
Oh and I voted
* * *
This is foreshadowing..........
But this post is really about Halloween.
Halloween and the movies...
And weather... of course.
A kind of cult classic. You either love it or hate it. But everyone loves to be scared by movies with tornadoes in them. People who won't watch "thriller movies" will sit spellbound through movies with mean tornadoes that rain down hail or metal and as long as the twister is spinning people are mesmerized.
Why I don't know. Don't blame it on Twister, blame it on the Wizard of Oz that held a generation spellbound and then held their children spellbound as well. Was it the "yellow brick road" or the "bluebirds flying?" or the "wicked witch of the west" an iconic forever symbol of a wicked witch. Of course Glinda is always the good witch, but that's not how most people dress up for Halloween.
In vivid color and ruby shoes Dorothy and Toto entered a world where they were protected by the Scarecrow and her other friends from the Wicked Witch of the West.
In 1996 a movie was made with special effects that made the sounds of the Twister come alive and with some comedy, romance and a measure of terror audiences were held spellbound once again. And thousands of kids went online into weather chat rooms looking to be meteorologists. True too. Most didn't but some did and the legacy continues. Listen to that Twister growl... sounds you would normally hear in an old classic like "The Birds" but this was Mother Nature showing her mean side.
Red inside is green is NOT good.
This coming week Mother Nature may once again show her mean side along the Deep South and along the Gulf of Mexico states as warm air rushes up to meet a cold front. It won't have a "name" but it may produce tornadoes and severe weather and in some places it's possible it will come in the dark of the night.
Wouldn't it be lovely if Superman could save the day and protect us from Mother Nature when she's in a bitchy, witchy mood the way he saved us time and again from Lex Luthor? Lex Luthor always trying to control the weather, because he knew if you could control the weather it gives you the ultimate edge.
In truth Weather People try to save you all the time, but until the sky begins to get dark, the wind starts to blow and your App or WhatsApp goes crazy no one takes them seriously :(
One thing I learned in North Carolina is that for some odd reason.... nighttime tornadoes happen in Raleigh more than any other time of the day. Kind of the reverse of in Camelot where it only rains at Midnight. And in parts of the South severe weather could be a big problem, yet everyone is thinking on Hurricane Season leaving us and Winter arriving soon on the scene. This Autumn may end up being the Twister Season that went whoosh with the wind this past Spring when they usually appear out on the Plains. But in the Fall that happens also, as warm Gulf of Mexico air rushes up towards diving fronts and when there is a strong Southern Jet setting up .... get ready because we may have an Autumn to remember with dangerous weather.
Hurricanes don't work as well in most movies as do Earthquakes and Tornadoes.
Watch the weather carefully this Autumn and while you are watching perhaps the 2018 Hurricane Season will squeeze out one last storm somewhere.
Something to think on while eating candy or drinking punchy drinks or dressed up as your favorite Super Hero. Does anyone dress up as Kryptonite I wonder? Isn't it funny that it's green like the Emerald City? And the planet probably blew up when some bad guy like Darth Vader who hit Alderan with the Death Star that actually was green and then the planet exploded in a million pieces.
Where would Halloween be without Hollywood and candy?
Have a wonderful time wherever you are and whatever you do even if you sit up at home watching old movies or listening to broadcasts of the War of the Worlds. Really the day before Halloween and no one wondered on that? Hmnnn It was a different world. The biggest "fake news story" of them all.
Whatever world you are in today and tonight enjoy it. And watch out for severe weather approaching as it will. Oscar is off to see the Wizard faster than a speeding bullet and wicked weather is coming to the South over the next few days. Be prepared for it. Party today, prepare tomorrow!
Besos BobbiStorm
Ps ... as for me... maybe a flapper or maybe Cat Ballou. Lord knows the shoe fits :) Would anyone realize I was Cat Ballou? Yeah, someone would. Either way it's about having fun. Fun is good. There's another things in the world that are not fun. Today is a good day to have fun. 50 seconds or so in one of my favorite scenes... iconic! Ha!
Hurricane Oscar Out in the Middle of the Atlantic Dancing with the Front, Going Out to Sea. High Surf for Bermuda. 105 MPH - Cat 2. Wicked Weather in South Tomorrow Again... Tropics and Halloween.
Hurricane Oscar Our October Surprise in the Tropical Atlantic. 8th Hurricane of the 2018 Hurricane Season. Oh....and RED SOX WON THE WORLD SERIES!!
Hurricane Oscar formed tonight a bit ahead of the original forecast and has been doing what it wants most of the day. Moving fast to the West, though that is expected to be halted at some point down the road before being swung back out to sea. It is also forecast to become a 100 MPH Hurricane and personally I think that may be conservative but as always time will tell. The advisory is below along with some discussion worth noting and the ever popular "cone" that shows the track. To be honest this was a done deal since earlier this evening. I've had one eye on Oscar and one eye on the Red Sox the last few hours. Oscar became very photogenic after a difficult beginning as it evolved into a hurricane.
UPDATED! Tropical Storm ---Subtropical Storm Oscar in the Atlantic Forecast to be Tropical Storm Oscar Anger & Hate, Mail Bombers, Pittsburgh Shooting. October...
Quick Midnight Update.
Red Sox beat the Dodgers.
Oh you probably knew that.
What you probably don't know is...
...I had an Uncle named Oscar.
And he was one of my all time favorite people..
I find it a big amusing to have a Tropical Storm Oscar.
My uncle Oscar gave me a strong sense of myself and more so a belief in my own abilities. He insisted I could do anything I wanted. I was smart and beautiful and anything I wanted to achieve I could. He was basically a 2nd father as we lived next door to my Aunt, Uncle, Grandmother and partner in crime my cousin Brian. Wow did we get in trouble when we were little. Good times. Uncle Oscar could play the guitar, sing beautifully and talk on history and politics. He was a successful lawyer, head of the steering committee for the Democratic Party (so I grew up literally in political meetings being babysat) and he just had the best essence of almost anyone I knew growing up though I was also a bit partial to my Aunt Ada. He was an Old Florida Boy meaning he went to the University of Florida but more so he knew weather in an intrinsic way as he went fishing, grew tomatoes and knew when the wind was going to blow like a hurricane. He was a small child in the 1926 hurricane and remembered how they clustered together waiting out the storm. The story I tell of the people who rode out the 1926 Hurricane in a Funeral Home built up on on a hill (yes a hill in Miami... it wasn't much of a hill but it had elevation) and people made it through the storm safe. Except the few who insisted in driving across the bridge into downtown to check on businesses and friends who were swept away in a storm surge. Old Florida boys know hurricanes have a second act... an eye but most of the newcomers to Florida didn't know that. When Uncle Oscar told a story you could hear the wind blowing the way it did in a hurricane. He and his father were President of Beth David Synagogue in Miami; some of my earliest memories are watching him in the Synagogue speaking on stage. In my darkest moments when life seemed impossible and there was no way out of bad situations I could always hear Uncle Oscar telling me that I could do anything I really wanted to... if only I could turn back time. But alas time marches on but the memories remain.
He'd sing Granada ... the UF Fight Song and he'd sing Blue Spanish Eyes..
So congratulations Tropical Storm Oscar for becoming a real Tropical Storm.
Most of all I remember when he came back from a case in New York excited because he saw Zero Mostel in Fiddler on the Roof. He bought the soundtrack and he'd sing and move in my mind way better than anyone named Zero could ever sing. Years later I found out on some DNA website I'm distantly related to Sholom Aleichem which makes total sense in ways I don't want to explain here and now. So here's to Uncle Oscar... and the beauty of music to transcend any sad news or bad times.
If I could use a time machine he's one of the few people I'd want to go back to... a few others.
Update tomorrow on Tropical Storm Oscar and worth mentioning that... the flow from the GOM is still strong so if any front flops out and falls apart it needs to be watched.
* * *
Cone...
Discussion interesting.
It treats the quick Westward movement as an oddity.
I'm glad to be able to write about Subtropical Storm Oscar out in the Atlantic not threatening anyone but threatening to become Tropical Storm Oscar soon. He's fun to watch out there spinning, evolving as all the atmospheric powers that be fight for control in the Atlantic in October. Cold fronts are on the move and yet the tropics aren't finished. When you add tropical heat into an explosive set up you end up with sometimes larger than expected hurricanes in odd places or Cold Fronts that have tropical moist energy connecting from the Gulf of Mexico across the Gulf Stream and up into New England. In a little while I'm going to watch the World Series. Kind of happy to have missed last night's 18 Inning Game I'd have been exhausted. I was offline for the Jewish Sabbath, asleep in my bed dreaming of hurricanes and snowstorms. I'm teasing. I rarely dream of hurricanes; sometimes but rarely.
Some thoughts on what happened today in Pittsburgh and the Mail Bomber from Miami. Several people have asked me on my thoughts so these are my thoughts. Feel free to ignore them and check back tomorrow when I'll be talking on weather again.
* * *
On a personal level obviously I am Jewish and I did hear about an "Active Shooter in Pittsburgh" today as I left the house to walk over to the synagogue. My first thought was the Rabbi in our synagogue who is from Pittsburgh would probably be upset when he heard as he has many family members there and he is one of the world's biggest Pittsburgh Steeler fans. Much later in the day I found out from someone that the shooting had been at a synagogue during a Bris where a baby is named and I didn't mention it to my husband so he could keep his peace of calm mind until sundown and the news would come on and we'd hear the details. A bris for a family is what a Christening is to most people who are Christian and have that custom; it is one of the biggest, happiest moments in the family's life regarding a newborn, baby boy. Girl's have their own naming in a synagogue and then a big party is held to celebrate the new life. So there were so many layers of horror to this story beyond just the regular hate filled man who runs into a church or a synagogue thinking he's taking matters into his hands and decides to kill. As horrible as it was in Charleston for me to think of people sitting at a table in a bible class with a stranger they let in and welcomed and then he turned his anger onto them using a gun. In Pittsburgh the bris was in process, the family gathered around a newborn baby swaddled in blankets to be entered officially into the covenant of the Jewish People and some Nazi loving, Jew hating man runs in with hate and a gun.
This is not about guns. I'm sorry but it's about hate. I studied history in depth and a whole lot of depressing Jewish history though my degree is in International Relations which sadly is rife with hate and way before they had rifles they took Jews and chased them into the town's synagogue with torches and set the the synagogue on fire burning down the synagogue and the Jews both babies and their grandparents. Be it blood libels or the Crusades or just some Cossacks who got drunk and decided to go have "fun" with the Jews and start a Pogrom. Hate isn't just about Jews as Belfast Ireland was rocked for years with hate between religious groups and Americans systematically killed off the Native Americans to move across the nation and make it their own nation. Sorry to get political here but it's true; yes I know they fought back but as we know from F Troop the White Man eventually beat out the Indians. In Africa and China and every country on the Planet someone has fought someone from another tribe for whatever reason be it access to the better farmland or to kill off their young warriors. Hate and anger kill.
And this is NOT a Pro Trump comment but he was ostracized for saying there should be guns or a guard but in many synagogues I know there are men who are designated gun carriers in case there is a problem. And kudos to the police who got to the Temple in ONE MINUTE. Wow.
What bothers me most is that 3 days ago in Cary North Carolina a suburb not far from Raleigh someone plasted a neighborhood with flyers from a Nazi group looking for new recruits and specifically mentioning "immigrants" and the Jews and apparently the shooter was obsessed with that exact language over the last few days before deciding to take matters into his own hands. I find it hard to believe it's a coincidence and not a fire that was flamed with hate by materials read online by this same organization pushing their agenda under the guise of Freedom of Speech.
So sorry for a political discussion tonight but many of my friends have asked me on my thoughts. My daughter's best friend recently moved to Pittsburgh and his niece's teacher was going to the Bris and they had thought of joining her. They heard before they left about the shooting. My Rabbi who grew up 2 blocks from that synagogue is probably in shock and heartbroken. My daughter who has been there says it's one of the most beautiful synagogues she's ever been in and she's been in a lot. Yes, I'm Jewish. My daughter-in-law Kristin is not Jewish and we are close and we talk a lot. We actually talked quietly once on the reality that my beautiful granddaughter Olivia could be in danger if some synagogue or Jewish school was attacked as it was just after some terrorist attack at a Jewish place for no other reason than.. it was a Jewish place. She expressed the fact that it had occurred to her in a sad tone that inherent threat is always there. Scary huh? To have to think on these things. Sad but true. A part of life. I'm not shocked, but I'm sad and I'd rather write on weather and Oscar.
The green by Mar-Len is NMB High School.
His house was by the r in Mar.
The house he grew up in...
Most crazy is that the mail bomber in Miami was raised and grew up in a house directly across the street from my best friend, actually both my best friends lived on that block. I know that house, that block like the back of my hand. He played soccer on the field at the end of the block by the high school. He attended North Miami Beach High School where one of my son's graduated from and several of my kids attended as he did JFK Middle School where four of my kids attended school before I moved them back to a Jewish Day School on Miami beach that after 911 kept a police car outside in front of the school all year as the school was seen as a target. The mail bomb suspect attended elementary school in the elementary school where I used to substitute teach Sabal Palm Elementary. You can see all the schools I mentioned there. In Miami we joke that all stories have a Florida angle. Not sure if the one in Pittsburgh does but the mail bomber story did for sure and it was very close to home for me.
Why are some people so filled with hate?
Hate comes in Pro Trump and Anti Trump packages.
Hate comes in liberal venues and conservative venues.
Hate is projected at people for color, race, religion and political persuasion.
I'm tired of hate.
Study International Relations .......trust me it's all about hate. Or about the desire to have better farming regions or a warm water port.
Glad I'm obsessed with weather and sports and astrology and dance and music and all the things that keep my world spinning. And, yeah a break once a week on the Jewish Sabbath is always nice but sadly when that bubble is broken you often come out to hear about something not so happy. Years ago I'd always be afraid to turn on CNN just after Shabbos to see if a plane fell out of a sky or an earthquake destroyed California while I was in my happy bubble of calm and peace.
Today people celebrating a baby's birth in a place of worship in what should have been a peaceful, happy bubble had their peace destroyed. I was in the Synagogue with friends celebrating a friend's birthday together with others.
Hope and pray your world is not shattered by crazy mail bombers or people grabbing a gun to shoot your loved ones and may you be safe from crazy, hate filled people who decide to drive over people with a truck at a carnival or a bike rally. Stay safe, safe well and stay happy.
Besos Bobbistorm
@bobbistorm on Twitter.
Ps. Yes I am Jewish but I'm actually a Jewish Conch as my family lived in Key West back in the late 1800s. We go way back in Florida before the City of Miami even existed. So I'll leave this with their favorite saying.
Stormy Weather. World Series. Stock Market Crazy. Mystery Bomber with Fake Bombs. Does Feel Like October. Where's Oscar?
Covered with clouds but...
...a circulation down there nevertheless
Note the wording below.
This is our possible storm.
At 90/90 chances someone should be naming it soon.
Today's a day when it seems there are so many mysteries going on in the news. Who is the "bomber" sending the bombs around the country. What will New England and the Mid Atlantic really see from a storm without a name. When will the NHC name the storm out in the Atlantic that has to have fulfilled the standards for Tropical Depression status. What will Winter really be like and what happened to Autumn that seems to have gone whoosh with the Autumn Leaves falling off trees before truly turning colors. Who will win the World Series? So many questions. So few answers. So much hype on TWC and CNN, MSNBC and FOX are in full hype mode as well and yet there seem to be few answers.
Nice closed system above.
Wind pilling in from all sides below.
Our satellite image that shows little.
Well cold rain is misery like in itself.
Lots of color out by 95L
Oddly waves keep rolling off of Africa.
Low riders but moving West.
Note below the tropical warm energy in the GOM
rushing into the Nor'easter with no real snow
Much tropical energy for 95L/Oscar
Models for Oscar....
Show him out there a while.
Like Leslie.
But it could get trapped moving West.
Waiting to be picked up.
Fronts are on the move so...
..that shouldn't be a problem eventually.
One thing that is a known is that it's apparent that fronts are on the move and taking up residence across the United States. Even if the weather warms up some in early November as some long range models show the cold will win out in the end. As for the Caribbean watching out for a November Storm of some kind is possible between dying out fronts dipping low and tropical waves Westbound low. This is the way of the world, the tropical world...the weather world..the winter world. It's the way it goes. Nothing that unusual. So stay tuned.
I'll update on Oscar when the NHC takes the time to name it and write advisories. As the storm evolves today on it's way up through the Southeast and Carolinas where everyone is wearing furry boots with leggings and men are wearing leather jackets it's looking very fashionably winter not Fall. That I can say. But it's the World Series time so Play Ball and hopefully they will catch a break in the investigation and catch whoever it is that seems to be taunting us all sending out fake bombs with excessive postage and names spelled wrong trying to send some sort of message... but for now it's still a mystery.
Seems perfect for October. Oh and if you are dabbling in the Stock Market... good luck. It's October.
Location: Miami, Raleigh, Crown Heights, Florida, United States
Weather Historian. Studied meteorology and geography at FIU. Been quoted in Wall Street Journal, Washington Post & everywhere else... Lecturer, stormchaser, writer, dancer. If it's tropical it's topical ... covering the weather & musing on life. Follow me on Twitter @ https://twitter.com/#!/BobbiStorm
