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 30, 2019
Subtropical Storm Rebekah in N Atlantic - Fires in California - Power Company Turns Power Off - Rain in the SE. Hot Water in the Caribbean As We Move Into November
Subtropical storm #Rebekah has formed over the north Atlantic ocean. It will become a non-tropical system in 24-36 hours as it heads toward the Azores. #scwx#ncwxpic.twitter.com/HFGXRemnBU
A press release with info was sent out.... the NHC site had this info below. And I expected the NHC went ahead and upgraded 99L to Rebekah because well .... that's what they do in 2019. I'm sure I'll give my thoughts on this later at some point but for now I'm sharing the data and the information and that's the way it goes today. Next name up Sebastien...
NHC will initiate advisories on Subtropical Storm Rebekah, located over the northern Atlantic at 5pm
While waiting for the advisory to come out I just wanted to point out President Reagan's Library in Simi Valley is in danger from the fire there being whipped by hurricane force "Devil Winds" known also as Santa Ana Winds. I know that area well as it's just North of where my Ex-husband's family home was and we'd drive up there on Sunday's for a nice ride out in the country. For Baby Boomers that grew up watching old Westerns it's where many a Western Shoot Out was filmed. Beautiful area that became filled with a suburban paradise that oozed past the San Fernando Valley when they ran out of room there. A beautiful part of the world... but not today.
Turn the sound up if you want to hear my thoughts while watching the broadcast, very crazy...
I did a video earlier talking while watching the coverage online live of the fire. As someone who has asthma (mild) whose kids had asthma that often wasn't mild and that used a Nebulizer to keep them out of the hospital and manage their asthma ...especially when there was a fire out in the Everglades and the smell of smoke spread East over Miami making kids with asthma extremely sick. The thought that I would have 3 options... 1) grab my kid and leave town 2) go to the hospital and sit in the waiting room to be safe or 3) take my chances without any power because the Power company cut the power is intolerable to think on yet to have to deal with as many are today. Many use machines to breathe or help them for various medical conditions and this cutting the grid off doesn't seem right. Fire Season in California happens every year, some years worse than others... there should be a better plan. It's like not preparing for Hurricane Season in South Florida and to be fair someone in California gets a fire every year yet Florida can go for years
without a real landfall ...yet we work them into our overall way of life.
Something seriously wrong with this situation....
Simi Valley used to be and still is in some part Horse Country and I do so love horses.
Snow in LA County... Santa Monica Freeway ... Malibu! Happens More Than You Realize. 1980 Similar Winter Storm in the SW. Wondering on the 2019 Hurricane Season
Look how pretty!
Like Kansas or Iowa or maybe New Jersey.
But it's snow in LA county.
Kind of jerky video but it's real and tells the story.
Actually if you look at the date.......
......you'll see it's not yesterday but a few years back.
Usually it snows up in the Mountains.
I lived in LA in the 1980s.
I loved to stare up at the mountains at the snow.
So close and yet so far away.
But it always framed the view so perfectly!
In truth despite what you hear on line...
It used to snow more often in LA ...
Check it out in the Roaring 20s in LA!
Model T Fords!!
In 2016 this article was written....
..asking why it doesn't snow anymore.
Good question.
Easy to say Global Warming.
But I'm wondering if there is more to the story.
Perhaps the heavy traffic in LA over time...
.... created small heat islands of sorts as in Atlanta?
Did Lex Luthor finally figure out how to control the weather?
Maybe it will snow on the Oscars?
Can you imagine winter coats over those beautiful gowns?
I don't think there will be a snowy ending like in the movies.
But there has been much speculation on the recent snow.
Maybe snow is back in style?
Hey it snowed in Burbank in 2011!
February, same timing as this year.
"Never seen snow"
No...not really true but it sounds good.
Snow happens.
It seems it used to happen more often.
And there were less people there to see it in 1913!
So don't believe everything you read.
I lived in LA a long time.
I never saw snow.
My friends in Torrance near Rolling Hills saw some.
(higher elevation in Rolling Hills than LA Basin)
Malibu has mountains.
LA is a basin... flat, surrounded by mountains.
Kids drive up to Frazier Park usually to see snow.
It's beautiful there.
Arrowhead is also beautiful.
In Palm Springs you can sunbathe by the pool...
...or take a ride up to the ski resorts covered in snow.
It's not like it's snowing in Key West...
But West Hollywood saw snowflakes...
..and the Valley towns of Northridge and Thousand Oaks.
In 1980 below there was snow near Crowley Lake.
Great picture, very Ansel Adams.
But Crowley Lake is upstate.
But it was 1980.
So in 1980 I lived in Long Beach California. My husband and my best friend's husband took the students from the Chabad School in Westminster on a weekend trip to Phoenix for Shabbos (the Jewish Sabbath on Saturday) and then to the Grand Canyon on Sunday. That was the plan. My best friend Pesha and I had both had little girls the summer before so we decided to have one long Slumber Party and hang out and talk life, football and motherhood as we usually did when together. It became a memorable trip for the students but one long weekend in hell for the parents in those days before kids having beepers or cell phones. They safely got to Chabad of Phoenix and set up for Shabbos without any problem. However, KTLA was running stories nonstop on the news about severe flooding in Phoenix and in those days before you could look on Twitter to see where the flooding was or put on The Weather Channel basically every parent called us both twice hysterical asking if the kids were okay. Yes, they were okay... a different part of Phoenix, I was assured they were fine and having fun and safe.
Moving along they packed up and headed off in a huge Winnebago that one of the parents had lent the two young Rabbis to take the class to the Grand Canyon. In a few hours the calls began again as the same parents who heard on the news that there was some sort of blizzard near the Grand Canyon and roads were closed and motorists were stranded. My ex husband called me deliriously happy because they had gotten to the Grand Canyon and it was covered in fresh snow looking more beautiful than he had ever seen it and being a LA kid he had been to the Grand Canyon often. I asked if the kids were okay? He said they were "thrilled it was snowing and many had not seen snow in their lives" and then babbled on again about the layers of snow shining in the sunlight and the blue skies and how he wished I could see it. No Facetime then or Facebook Live huh? It looked a lot like this scene below:
I posted that picture the other day.
Beautiful isn't it?
Because this year it also snowed there as it did in 1980.
So because the roads were closed behind them rather than sticking to the plan they decided to drive up through Vegas (not stopping just driving through) which the school had said they didn't want them to do but hey the roads behind them were closed so it seemed like a good idea. I told each parent that called that they were safe from the blizzard just as they were safe from the flooding in Phoenix. It was one hell of a winter storm. My best friend and I sat by the heater at night (which is what she said they do in Buffalo) as it was really cold in LA and we had fun and were happy the parents had stopped calling to check and the babies were asleep and life was good.
Then the storm assaulted the High Desert to the North of LA and the road into LA was closed due to snow, high winds and they shut down the Grapevine and every other road down to LA. The parents called again.... and I told them again the boys were fine they had spent the night in a motel on the other side of the mountain pass that was shut down to any high profile vehicles and let me tell you it was a big winnebago so it wasn't going anywhere! On the 2nd day of being stranded there they decided to take the kids to a ghost town similar to this but possibly this ghost town; the kids had a blast. The parents were frustrated, worried and mind you LA also was hit with extremely bad weather and it seemed those kids were never coming home. Finally on the 2nd night there they decided to book them passage in the morning on AMTRAK at the nearest point they could get on the train and may I say that to this day one of the most exciting things about the trip they took was that they got to go on a train... a real train. In those days LA kids didn't take subways or trains much and well... it was a surprise and they loved it. Memorable trip. So memorable I can never forget how bad the weather was in February of 1980 in all the same places the winter weather has been nuts in February of 2019!
My best friend and I and our babies were fine. The husbands were fine, though probably tired of being with their Middle School students for days. The parents were happy to see their long, lost sons. The kids were excited because those LA kids got to see SNOW, they drove through SNOW and they saw the Grand Canyon covered in SNOW and they drove through Las Vegas and saw all the bright lights and then they went to a Ghost Town and then they got to go on a train. Finally someone drove up and carefully drove the Winnebago back despite high winds but legally and LA continued to have crazy weather the rest of 1980.
I have to wonder on what the parallel is with the this coming hurricane season to the similar winter of 1980 in the desert Southwest that included snow, flooding, high winds and if I remember right fires and mudslides.
Very busy year.
Wild wicked Hurricane Allen.
Taking up the Caribbean Sea...
...down near the Yucatan.
Made a beeline for the desert SW kind of...
The season started late....
...it was very busy deep into November.
It was considered a Neutral Year.
Coming off a weak El Nino based on some sites.
Something to wonder on...
As for today.
It's still February.
It's still winter.
We still only got real snow in November.
Seattle has been stealing the show.
Minneapolis has gotten it's fair share.
And Vegas saw snow on two different occasions.
Keep watching.
Winter ain't over.
Yes there are wild whispers online of wicked winter weather coming.
Some will most likely say "unprecedented" or "historic"
Someone online said a hurricane like winter storm was forming.
Isn't clickbait grand?
We have only officially been collecting weather data since the 1800s.
The history of Earth is what climate is all about.
The 1700s and 1800s produced wicked Caribbean Hurricanes.
Jamaica got trounced.
And back before man began settling the LA Basin...
...it seems to have snowed more than it does now.
Have a great weekend!
It's rainy here in Raleigh...
...though warming up into the low 70s on Sunday.
Then it dives down again into colder weather.
It's the way of the world.
It's the way weather works.
And often parallels exist...
We learn from weather patterns of the past.
Will 1980 be someone's analog year?
Who knows.
We are a month of two away from those early forecasts.
But just remember.........
........last year they said cooler temperatures in the Atlantic...
could bring a quieter hurricane season.
Then the temperatures warmed up.
Anyone who went through Florence or Michael....
...will tell you it was a Hurricane Season from hell.
OH MY GOODNESS.... WINTER GOING TO COME BACK !!! Happy MLK Day on the Real Day Not the Weekend.
This basically began yesterday in ernest.
Headlines on Twitter showing SNOW and ICY weather coming!
The Polar Vortex is being unleashed!!
Yeah........ Winter is back!
My AC is off and my heat is back on!!
The beach a week ago was nice........
.... I didn't go outside today in Raleigh. Brrr...
Tonight's blog is a prelude to real discussion.
I want to show a variety of news and tweets.
The real news today was in California...
Dabuh knew that!
If there's a beach he's watching the surf.
And the weather.... he's a great weather watcher!
Prayers indeed as you will see deeper down in the blog.
Weather is locational and whether you live in Maine or Miami you have different priorities with regard to what you wish for...... and in this case be careful what you wish for.... Note the REAL storm is going on NOW in California but the East Coast, as always, thinks this is all about them and whether NYC or Boston gets Snow. The South looks longingly at the snow models wishing the system would take the more Southern track so that we could see some snow flakes falling and dusting our Carolina Pines. There is a middle part of the country, though to be fair they got the last snow storm AND Jim Cantore so they have plenty of stories to tell of the Winter of 2019!
I gotta warn you there's a lot of hype going on right now, because that's all we have is hype and models and watching the satellite loops. Speaking of models the Canadian is really on to something or just being the Canadian over amping every system and bringing snow to Cuba. It's worth noting it DID snow in Cuba in 1857 so I suppose it's not impossible. The EURO and the GFS (choose your version of it) do not show snow for Havana or Miami so you can breathe a bit and get out your favorite boots for weather diving down for one night into the 40s!
And the usual mets are having fun with this because to be honest we had one wild winter storm in November, a January thaw in December and now in January winter is showing up again on the models. And it seems this one will really do the trick and usher in some Arctic Air down into the US all the way down to .... Key West and do NOT laugh as Key West is an island in the middle of the Florida Straits and when a cold front breezes in across the water it gets down right chilly!
Yoda knows....
In truth though California IS having WEATHER NOW!
Yet you wouldn't know it from my feed ....
...that is heavily weighted to the Hurricane cities & Seattle.
There's a Blizzard warning up for the Sierras!
California is like the song....
I've lived there....
First comes fire and then the rain comes....
...and the mud runs down the hills.
It's one disaster after another...
In Santa Barbara there was crazy wind damage.
High Surf Warnings up the coast of California.
If you live in LA.........
........don't let your garbage cans float away!
But on the East Coast everyone is ready!!!
North Carolina and Virginia are waiting...
NC won the November storm lotto...
VA stole last week's storm.
What will be with this next storm?
Allan Huffman is as reliable as it gets.
He's watching the models and we are listening.
In my mind it's going to Carolina......
No it's not really going to Carolina, not this week's storm.
But I'm driving North for the cold, frigid week down the road.
So I know I'll see snow one way or the other soon...
You heard about the 10 year challenge on Facebook?
Yes Weather Twitter is a buzz and buzzing louder than transformers or swarms of freezing bees. What do I think? What do I know? When you have a period of warm weather deep in December you have to know that winter is going to come back with a vengeance. It's like during hurricane season when it's slow and early waves give it up to Saharan Dust and Shear at the Gateway of the Caribbean and you think there won't be any hurricanes and then Mother Nature is back with a bite and Twitter begins buzzing with innuendo and rumors and people act as if the world is coming to an end and on air news people say things like "unprecedented Arctic Invasion as the Polar Vortex is blasting it's way down into Florida" and you worry Aquaman is going to freeze and Lex Luthor finally discovered a weather machine that will control Earth's weather and then you remember Spring will come again. Kids enjoy the snow, parents shiver and shovel the snow and someone gets sleet which is about as annoying as rainy days and Mondays. So as for me I'm going to enjoy whatever we get this week and wonder on what weather I'll see in New York City next week as I'm scheduled to be there then. There's highs and lows near zero if the extremists are right and if it moderates in the teens... time will tell. As for tonight, enjoy this song and know I love it...... really as much as the oldie goldies are great this song is perfect and note .... he uses weather because how can you show a love song without some kind of weather??
Besos BobbiStorm
@bobbistorm on Twitter
Ps... Don't say I didn't blog and as always I hoping you get the weather you dream about!
I'll be back with real hard data on what to expect from the storm after this storm and how frigid the temperature will be and just how low that freeze line will go. I suggest you familiarize yourself with the winter links on Mike's fantastic www.spaghettimodels.com as he's a guy for all seasons ;)
Orange Area in the Atlantic 40% Moves Close to Bahamas Later in the Week - Tropics November. Fires Califnoria. El Nino Winning...
This will be a short post as I'm up north in Upstate New York where it snowed briefly today. Not very tropical like... but the Hurricane Season lasts until November 30th so we are still watching the tropics. The NHC has designated an area to be watched for possible development and it is not yet an Invest. So we watch it and it's worth remembering that as fronts are on the move a front is expected to catch this system before it makes landfall. However some effects could be felt if it develops and moves West, especially in the Bahamas and possibly later something for Bermuda to pay attention to...
This is the position of the Low pressure area.
Not the weak stalled out front.
Note more fronts moving South.
It's that time of year.
This is a long range map for this coming week.
At some point tomorrow (Sunday) I'll update the blog and we are all watching the models. But for now it's just an area that can develop and it's within the frame work of past storms that have formed in November. Many form, most are swept out to sea.
Again as I said on Thursday Night with El Nino in play and the current weather pattern we are having Fire Storms in California that are typical during such patterns but this particular fire is devastating and if Fires were rated the way hurricanes would be this would be a Major Hurricane. I lived in LA in the 80s and drove along fires on the side of the highway where the warmth could be felt the fire lit up the sky. Friends lost homes and there was little warning or a chance to prepare the way we do in hurricanes. They are horrible. It may be "fun" and exciting to watch "fire tornadoes" on social media but they are destructive, horrific and something from the devil. Pray for those people and pray they get the fires under control.
Lastly, I complained on the blog on Thursday about the ongoing mess in parts of South Florida especially Broward County though there are problems in other towns within the general region. Let me explain why this bothers me so much.
One year I walked over to a polling place near my house on Miami Beach and presented by voter card, told them my name and waited for the really sweet gray haired lady to find my ballot so I could vote. It's awesome people give their time to do this, actually my mother did for a while. It was Early Voting and I wanted to get the voting out of the way as I was expecting a baby any day. I sign for the ballot to vote and realized she gave me my brother's ballot. My brother was out of the country and probably would have voted in that election differently from me.. he may have done so absentee. I told her that was my brother, he had a guys name I have a girl's name and I was 9 months pregnant. She asked me .."are you sure?" Um, yeah... I was sure. The baby kicked as if annoyed as if to say "let's get this show on the road" so she spent a good ten minutes checking with someone and found my ballot. Mind you if I was the devious type I could have taken my brother's ballot, voted for whoever I wanted to be President and then gone down to the other nearby Early Voting location and voted again using my name. No one would have known the difference. The reality that happened was to be bizarre but as I was leaving a guy walked over to me and quietly said "she gave me my father's ballot" which really surprised me. He said..."his father had been dead for 4 years" but apparently no one notified the bureau of elections. I said naively, "wow what did you do?" He smiled kind of jerky like and said "Oh I voted for my father... figured he'd be happy he still got a vote" and walked away laughing. No words. Really no words.
The next election I was voting in Aventura... I was voting for Kerry to be honest and waiting in line as some man came at me with a sign for the other candidate and asked me if I was voting for Bush I believe... I said "not really" and he got angry and started yelling me in Spanish as I suppose I look Spanish?? and he spoke Spanish and I walked slowly away and he followed me way onto the area where they are not allowed to do that. I mentioned it inside, they said "he had been warned but they don't want to start up with him" and told me they had a problem with another guy pushing people to vote for Kerry. ... It was a zoo, people were afraid to walk into the polling place. When I asked as I was leaving if there was a receipt or something I was told that after the "hanging chad" problem they fixed it so that they can't do a recount and they don't give receipts. Understand you can't walk out of Walmart without showing a receipt but there was no way I could get a receipt and there was no way to recheck the ballots. Seriously?
Then the next election there were voting inconsistencies in Broward and after much discussion they insisted they would fix the problem and find new ways to make voting easier, faster, safer and get results in a timely fashion. A good 10 years or so down the line we are still dealing with the same problems. That's just wrong. It's not about being a blue voter or a red voter.. it's about the security of each person's vote and those votes being registered in a timely way so as not to make people feel that one party or the other or one candidate or one person is trying to "throw an election" or perhaps just laziness.
My issue is not with Broward County who by the way has one of the better Library Systems in the State but with whoever runs the election process. Broward County is beautiful, it's people are wonderful as people in Miami and Palm Beach but there is an ongoing pattern of having problems and other big cities across the US have far less problems. I hope it's resolved and fixed. It's not about the beaches or the people who live there it's about the people who are put in place to preserve the integrity of our votes.
So maybe that clears up my thought process. Not sure if the guy went and voted for himself at another polling place or just figured he's let his Dead Dad get a chance to vote. No words.
I've lived in LA, NYC, Carolina, Minnesota and voted in those places and of course the Miami area and the only place where there has been consistently a problem is in the South Florida area and often Broward "finds ballot bags" or boxes which really is against the laws in place. Perhaps the people need to vote again and they need to hold the results and they need to try and watch the voting process there to get it right this time and in the future. And 12 sides of ballots mostly on referendums is crazy. I lived in NYC and had less pages on my ballot than the most recent ballot in Broward County. Makes for long lines in the hot sun waiting to get in and vote for the person you wish to have as Governor or Senator be a long, exhausting process. I spoke to a few people who told me they had to go home and feed their kids and it was impossible to even finish voting. In 2018 we need to get that better so everyone's vote counts.
So it's an issue that particularly bugs me as if something isn't broken it shouldn't be fixed but if something is broken it needs to be fixed.
Thanks for reading.
If you live in Florida it doesn't hurt to keep your eyes on the area just in case but most likely you are praying for a cold front. I'll be back in Carolina later this week but the weather will follow me there. Miami will be a welcome burst of warm weather next time I'm in town. I vote in Raleigh these days.
Sorry for any typos.
My daughter lives out in the country.
Service is weak and I have to sit on one spot on the sofa..
All the way to the left and not move or I lose service :)
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