Asteroids - Volcanoes - Coronal Mass Ejections CMEs and Other Natural Disasters That Can Happen on Any Given Day But Usually We Get Lucky. How Long Will Our Luck Last?

 

My Caribbean satellite image of the day above.

The non tropical kind as we are all about geology today!

Caught in the wind flow.... 

2 sides of a natural disaster.

Gray, caustic ash covering everything...

..beautiful colorful satellite imagery.

What do you focus on?

I took this picture years ago storm chasing.

It was the place to be....

...TWC was there as were all the media and chasers.

Not the worst storm but fun to be out in...

Most people look at the palm trees.

To me the wild part was the water.

In South Florida it only gets that nasty color...

...when a bad storm is brewing.

Where do you focus?

On the colorful imagery from the volcano?

Or the gritty natural disaster the residents are facing?

And many had to evacuate.

Those cruise ships are busy now!

Link to Weatherboy's article below.

Kudos to their help in evacuations!

Yesterday there was an odd incident.

What looked like a meteor or asteroid fell to the Earth.

Looked like a scene out of Starman to me.

Asteroids happen. Meteorites fall.

But what was that shooting star like glow on the horizon?

Looked a lot like the scene in Starman.

Great movie ...by the way.

Maybe NetFlix?

Apparently it was expected but.........

....it came much closer than expected.

Well THAT happened!

What would you think if you saw that?

Aliens or Asteroids?

As I wrote in the previous blog about our Caribbean volcano ... sometimes those things you worry on happening actually do and the list is long for what could happen, yet blessedly does not happen very often. It was predicted that asteroid would come close to earth (close being a matter of perspective, close as in "you won't see a thing" vs "oh my gosh WHAT IS THAT???!!!") and it does make some wonder what would happen had it been worse! Well, the good news is the partying on South Beach is still going on (good or bad from your perspective) and no dinosaurs were killed off in this encounter of the close kind. Years back part of the Caribbean was carved out... rearranged by a large asteroid credited with getting rid of those huge previously mentioned dinosaurs. And that begs the reminder that if it happened once, it could in theory happen again.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/we-finally-know-how-much-dino-killing-asteroid-reshaped-earth-180958222/ Excellent article. If you want to know what it was like before the asteroid and you're in LA may I suggest you go to the La Brea Tarpits, not in the depth of summer mind you but otherwise a wonderful educational, peaceful attraction near where I once lived!

Open again... with precautions.

Seems the dinosaurs had more to fear than the plague!

Who knew an asteroid would knock out their world??

Do you ever worry or wonder on rare natural disasters?

I know many of you do while obsessing on hurricanes.

Many meteorologists are obsessed with the Northern Lights.

We watch the sky, we study the atmosphere.

It's on everyone's bucket list.

Some also obsess on a possibility of a CME.

Why you ask?

Read below.

Like Volcanoes they can be mesmerizing.

Yet they can also be disastrous!

Yet people Google them all the time...

...or watch them on YouTube.

Some volcanoes are bright and colorful.

Others gray and gloomy.

And yes it's still erupting in the Caribbean.

(on it's anniversary....

..astrologers must be having a field day!)

Anyway read on about CMEs and see....

...why so many obsess on them especially today.

Imagine........

Not even being able to go online to see if 
#FACEBOOKDOWN 

You want to complain and Twitter is down too!

It's all down.........

Hmnn.

Then again my husband ....

...will be able to read his paper by the glow!

Well on the balcony anyway... keep reading.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington_Event

The devil IS in the details. Can you imagine reading the paper by the glow from the Northern Lights? Can you imagine all you might be able to read is old newspapers, because IF such an event happened today it would be hard to go online and get your breaking news. We could be thrown back into the past if such an event occurred until everyone could get back online and how long would that take I wonder. Read the details... down to Havana Cuba ... click on that link and read the many details not shown below that came from such a natural event that rarely happens. First there were sun spots... then telegraphs didn't work and back then that was the main form of communication. Does your latest iPhone or Galaxy have an App to stay online in the case of a Coronal Mass Ejection aka CME?  I wonder...

The truth is whether it's an asteroid from outer space or a volcano rearranging your trip to the Great Northwest or the Caribbean or a rare Cat 5 Hurricane slams into Jacksonville Florida where they rarely see hurricanes and yet these events can happen. CMEs aren't just for the paranoid but then again if you have never checked them out you may never know what happened to your phone, internet and possibly what caused your power outage which obviously would be freaky not to be able to go online and find out why your lights were out. Yes, it could shut down not just cable but Roku and NetFlix... "oh my!" 

This also begs the question would you prefer aliens to an asteroid? Personally unless I knew if they were good aliens or bad aliens I might prefer Mother Nature problems to those of the other kind. 

From far away volcanoes are beautiful, but close up they are deadly at worst and difficult at best. 

I'll take hurricanes you can track for days and models sometimes properly predict ten days out to something sudden that comes out of nowhere and you aren't sure what hit you! Again, everyone made fun of the models that showed the Houston area getting epic amounts of rain and then Harvey did even worse than the models predicted! Go figure the models won that one though Houston lost the ongoing battle with the bayous creeping up across the concrete landscape where people live good lives except for when a Harvey comes to visit!

Stay tuned....... 2021 just started kicking.... one can only wonder what else Mother Nature has up her sleeve this year! Maybe it's a good surprise!!! You know like everyone can see the Northern Lights without having to go to Norway and our power grid stays on so we can share videos and talk about it!

And thanks to Sandman for always reminding me about things I forget from "the year without summer" to what could happen if a CME hits!

Sweet Tropical Dreams,

Besos BobbiStorm

@bobbistorm on Twitter and Instagram

Ps I used so many Google images today to remind y'all how reliant we have become on being able to quickly Google anything from asteroids to volcanoes!! 

https://weatherboy.com/explosive-eruption-occurs-at-la-soufriere-volcano-in-caribbean/

Remembering Hurricane Andrew. Hurricane Lane. Invest 95C Very Close to Lane. And a Tropical Wave with Low Chances For Development NOW but Can Things to Change Down the Road Close to SE Coast?

Warning a long blog today.

When I have something to write about in the Atlantic...

.. I can't write long or muse.

Today I'm musing.

Scroll down and find something you like.

Today we remember Hurricane Andrew.

First named storm of the 1992 Hurricane Season.

Slow season.

Tropical Storm Andrew barely survived.

But it did.

Then we barely survived.

The image I have on my wall above my computer.

Good Tweet below.

The last image after the radar blew away at the NHC.

Strong gust...

Today is that day when everyone remembers Andrew.

Well if you lived in Miami you do that's for sure.

Hurricane Andrew.

1992

(Same year Hawaii got hit with Iniki)

I feel like so much began in 1992.

But that's another story I'm not telling here.

Everything changed.

Like some huge meteorological earthquake.

What a storm.

Landfall.

Almost direct hit on Miami... 

... it bobbled just a bit to the South.

Slammed into Homestead and the suburbs.

Spared downtown that direct hit.

But we all struggled through the night together.

And we listened to Bryan Norcross in the dark.

On the radio.........

.......the battery operated radio.

Before the electric went out

...it looked a lot like this:

You know we live in parts of Hurricane Country and we know a hurricane can come and visit in any given year and yet whether it's Florida, the Carolinas or Hawaii life goes on until we have something aiming directly at us and then we all go into Hurricane Prep mode and do what we've got to do. If we are newcomers to an area and not familiar with hurricanes we do what everyone else does. We grab the water, the beer and batteries. And, in places like Key West that rarely gets hit we wonder on the magic that we barely ever get a direct hit and light candles and pray at the Hurricane Grotto and give thanks when the hurricane makes landfall somewhere else. People keep thinking it's odd that Hawaii doesn't get impacted more than it does and rarely does it ever get a direct hit. It's a rock in a huge ocean and it's not hard to hit a rock as the people in Key West can tell you but even then the stubborn WNW bound Hurricane Georges found a way. Lane is finding a way to bring tropical weather to Hawaii today. In the Atlantic we are remembering Hurricane Andrew and relieved there is nothing out there like Harvey or Irma or Maria as everyone is still a bit shell shocked from last year. 

Zero Percent changes for the next 5 days.

Something to watch though down the road.

A possible Home Grown problem?

Still watching the Wave Train...

...and this wave as well.

www.spaghettimodels.com 

Collage above shows today's story.

Lane in the Pacific.

Nothing much in the Atlantic.

Yellow X just off Africa with very low odds.

But we are watching it.

Cold front with another disturbance behind it.

If the wave only looked as strong as that disturbance...

...over land, inland over the US.

... it would keep it's yellow circle longer.

Been this way all summer and continuing...

...as we slide slowly from Summer to Fall.

If you don't believe me my windows are open.

My AC is resting for a few hours... 

There's a breeze coming in from the windows.

Loving it.

Back to Lane and the ongoing coverage.

Why is everyone worried about Hawaii?

"It's not a Cat 5 anymore" people say...

It's getting a rare bit of really tropical weather.

That means flooding, fires and landslides so far.

Also models show different solutions.

Most slide it on by Hawaii....

...as a weaker storm but with much rain.

Time will tell what happens.

There are many models.

Spaghetti Models show many scenarios.

We err on the side of caution always.

You don't need a Cat 3 to have serious damage..

...or loss of life.

Mike explains what's going on in a summary below.

Love his honesty :)

"(which means nothing lol)"

Note even tho NHC gives it low odds.

Something is there.

Will it form there?

Or closer to here?

As in close in to the SE coast?

Inquiring tropical minds are wondering.

Note the yellow closer to the islands below.

Inquiring minds are discussing it.

God I love his maps.

His intelligence is a thing of beauty.

Knowledge of weather history.

Student of the pattern.... 

... as the pattern is what gets you there in the end.

I'm musing here.

Did I mention the cicadas are crazy noisy today??

Above is our African Yellow Area.

It started to come off Red and Purple.

And then it went yellow.

Then it went poofish as seen below.

It kind of shot off at a high latitude.

North of the ITCZ

Maybe it heard this was the Year of the Subtropical?

It's all a process as a pattern sets up.

Wave train suppressed South by a Strong High.

Waves have been flaring up further West.

Keep watching.

Note the lead old wave.

Yeah not much to look at.

But give it a few days.

Time does tell.

I'll always remember when I was a little girl sitting on my father's lap watching the Ed Sullivan show and Peggy Lee came on singing "Is that all there is?" and he said....."I've always liked her." It was an odd moment. She was old, not very beautiful in a traditional way but a voice kind of like a husky angel. Didn't look anything like my mother who often had to take in size 2 gowns to wear to family events. A few years later he showed told me he always thought Anne Miller was wonderful and I began to see a trend here. Either way they were both older and not what I thought of as classically beautiful, yet they were classic great song stylists who obviously had quite a bit of sex appeal in their time.

When looking at the latest wave to roll off the coast of Africa and seem to fizzle fast as it hits the water I wonder to myself, "Is that all there is?"

As for Hurricane Lane that isn't wall there is .... there's always some surprise with Lane, currently Invest 95C in it's Eastern bands........

Cat 2 Lane to the left.

Strong area of convection with a tiny tail is Invest 95C.

Good thoughts on Invest 95C above.

A summary of Hurricane Lane below.

Mind you no one in Hawaii is singing that tune "Is that all there is?" They have been dealing for months with a volcano and it's deadly, destructive lava flow taking out who neighborhoods on it's way down hill to the water where it crackled and put on a whole bigger show than the last few African waves that fizzled when they hit the water. Now they have a hurricane with an odd tag along Invest behind it and a fire has broken out on Maui obviously stirred up fast with stronger than normal winds. No one wants to know what comes next. Landslides and on the Invest behind Lane that might change or rearrange the flow of moisture towards a part of the Islands not expected to get such a strong piece of Lane. Time will tell.

Remember when....

That was May.

A few months back.

Cantore posed the question earlier on TWC during their ongoing coverage as to how the two might interact. Could there be the tiniest subsidence issue holding back the moisture from the hurricane? Could the rain from the hurricane hitting the hot lava......(fill in the blank with your own question) make a difference or ???   Seriously for a real scientist the list could go on forever as rarely do you have two such Earth Science events happen in the same area. Skeptics would just laugh it off and say the hurricane is going to fizzle by the time it "hits Hawaii" and just be a bunch of rain and wind and the usual flooding that occurs from such rain will happen and nothing more. I'm pretty sure that person isn't in Hawaii.  Many geologists love to follow meteorology, but always deny the weather can affect geology in any way; most are what I call closest meteorologists for the obvious reason as they watch weather message boards and slurk around on Reddit. Some question whether heavy rain can help trigger small earthquakes, many say it isn't true but when I lived in California the government was studying an area out in the High Dessert that is always shaking and sometimes gets high rain fall amounts during the very short rainy season to see if there was an increase or decrease in the ongoing tremors. Then there is the whole fracking debate, but I'm not going there. Obviously I'm a closet geologists. Don't tell anyone. (Especially my favorite geologist...)

What is really interesting is that after Lane has fallen apart and the people of Hawaii try to clean up from whatever Lane dished out then Lane will be studied over time by meteorologists to see why this storm was so unique that it took a road many have not taken. It also has that friend known as Invest 95C that formed in it's wake and is being "investigated" to see "what the heck it's doing and how did it get there?" as usually a slow moving tropical system has some upwelling (it's moving slow) and the outflow makes it hard for anything nearby to spin (it has a huge outflow) and yet it's there. It's actually very reminiscent of the second center of convection of Matthew, but that was a part of the actual system not a system in it's tail with it's own designation on NRL. It would be like a small comet showing up in the tail of Hailey's Comet. Yeah, I like astronomy too. Things like this will be studied over time under the greater umbrellas of "Hurricane Lane" and as always we learn and we getting better as knowledge is power.

Lane with the little area of strong convection in it's tail.

Matthew with it's odd larger double center.

It wasn't really a "center"

It was a second area of deep convection.

Not the same but we remember Matthew well.

As for Lane.... 

Category 2, 110 MPH moving North very slowly at 5 MPH as of 11 AM on Friday morning. As for me I'm going to shut the window soon if the cicadas don't stop singing. I'm not a fan. But loving the last cooler days of Summertime before the heat returns later this weekend. I'm chilled, resting a bit, writing while the eggplant is cooking in the oven for Baba Ganoush and enjoying just musing a bit. The only cones in my part of the world have frozen yogurt in them. Nothing I need to convey but somethings I want to convey.

My mother loved Lena Horne. My parents obviously had different tastes in both music and pretty much everything else. They had a long marriage and a good sense of humor that probably kept them together. That and my mother made various eggplant dishes for my father every Shabbos as it was his favorite vegetable. My mother was a singer when she was younger doing appearing as a featured coloratura soprano and sometimes sneaking out to sing with a Band when she was way underage but dressed up with lots of make up. She loved music. 

As for me I'm waiting for the leaves to start to fall and turn colors and it's not too cold to go out and the heat has evaporated by the progression of time and seasons moving swiftly in this region from one season to another. Fall in the Carolinas is a long, beautiful season even if you are not a fan or orange, red or Peter Yellow. (Yeah in a mood today) but it's still so beautiful. 

Have a very wonderful weekend.

Not sure yet what I'm doing.

Going with the flow....

Seeing what feels right.

Some weather and some football... 

And listening to music. 

A song I love and can't stop dancing too.

Besos BobbiStorm
@bobbistorm on Twitter


Ps...    The Bottom Line here is that Hurricane Lane like Peggy Lee when I saw her singing on that show isn't as photogenic as she was a few days ago. The shape of a Category 5 hurricane is gone and yet the dangers that Hawaii faces from fire and rain are very present. The ever changing images of Hurricane Lane are still beautiful even if far away in a different ocean.  Yet this particular beautiful Pacific hurricane is endangering the lives of people in the State of Hawaii not missing the islands as most of them do. So just because it weakened as predicted and will take a track away from the islands most likely - it has inherent dangers still present that people in Hawaii that present a clear and present danger. Being repetitive here on purpose. No laughing matter. Meanwhile I'll be looping while I cook tonight's Friday night Sabbath dinner and dancing around in the kitchen to the music. Music from today and yesterday, but mostly today.

http://tropic.ssec.wisc.edu/real-time/mimic-tpw/natl/anim/latest72hrs.gif

Aletta Forming in the EPAC? Could Alberto Be Far Behind? 2018 Hurricane Season Starting Early... TWC Goes into Tropical Update Mode

Up close shown above.

Wider picture below.

Link on www.spaghettimodels.com

The NHC has their own way of doing things and we wait to see what they may or may not say later today. Why aren't they saying something earlier? It's very far away, actually, over a thousand miles off the coast of Mexico and the sun has not even begun to rise on that part of the world yet. Not your normal early May Epac storm that forms close in off the coast of Panama.

Luckily we have many ways to see 90E

Water gets colder out there. 

It has a small window for development.

More on that later.

Closer to the East Coast.

This area isn't going away anytime soon.

Always watch the tail end of fronts.

Always but especially in May.

Pic above yesterday.

Below today.

So true.

Stalled out and hanging around.

A set up for possible trouble.

Names for the 2018 Atlantic Season below.

Down below watching swirls.

Just for fun.

It's May I'm allowed to be funny..

..and just enjoy a weather loop.

Cute little swirl I'm watching.

Like great wall art....

Sub Polar Something.

There are now 12 fissures.

This is not a lava flow down the side of a volcano as much as fissures suddenly forming beneath a random home and oozing up lava that pushes and melts everything in it's path. Trees explode as they are heated to some of the highest temperatures on earth that are moving the way a strong Haboob moves across the desert, a dust storm in Oklahoma except here they are sometimes called "curtains of fire" on the move...... 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fissure_vent

And to add to the geological discussion here a 4.5 earthquake occurred in California today. Seems Mother Nature is rocking and rolling this year. 

On a lighter note.

Beautiful food art and recipes here below.

https://www.instagram.com/weather_foodie/

When waking up for the 5 AM advisory package...

...my day starts early during the Hurricane Season.

Always looking for ideas.

On the fashion front it seems ...

...Schiaparelli Pink is in this year!

Pretty sure if women were in charge of the colors at the NHC we'd get a bit more creative and less boring than yellow, orange and red. Nice little Hi Low Hemline dress Stephanie Abrams was wearing today. Kind of looked like an updated Can Can dress made for Tomorrow Land at Disney which should really have a Weather World...   

Besos BobbiStorm

@bobbistorm on Twitter

Ps Lightening this dark volcanic discussion with some music for Mike: