Weather Chit Chat

When all else fails and the feeling persists that everything has already been said a million times over and there is nothing new under the sun here on earth to write or think about, the weather is usually an endless topic of interest because it’s constantly changing and we have instant access to weather reports from all over the world.  Snow in Africa, floods in Wales and Britain, floods in Chicago and Texas and the coldest day in June somewhere in Australia are some of today’s headlines.  I wonder how my Wales friend is faring. 

The outside thermometer reads 95 degrees but I just took a dip in the pool up on the hill and that felt very nice.  I will likely return later when the heat really feels oppressive in the late afternoon and early evening if we don’t have any thunderstorms by then.  Some clouds are building up but we shall see.  A downpour would be nice for the gardens and lawns.

Here is a look at water vapor over Northern and Central America.  You can see the intensity of power which was unleashed over Texas in the current loop of 6-27.  ( Note:  link no longer leads to 6-27-07 loop.):

http://www.weather.unisys.com/satellite/sat_wv_hem_loop-12.html

Dolphins Biting Hands That Feed Them?

A big Hmmm.  Wild dolphins biting people?

http://www.local6.com/news/13542250/detail.html

(Link found at www.drudgereport.com )

This is odd.  As I was posting this entry my body became very hot and my face flushed.  It could be coincidental but…

Mom and Spiders Dream

My mom, who is deceased, was dying all over again in a dream this morning.  She was very ill.  There were lots of spiders in this dream as well.  We were at her house.  She and I kept finding spiders and we killed them.  There was a whole bunch of them in one corner and there was a large spider eating the smaller spiders.  There were even spiders in her purse.  Then my mother had to leave to go to the hospital to die and I was left with the job of killing the rest of the spiders.  I woke up crying about my mom passing.

From the Edgar Cayce Readings Dream Dictionary:

Spider menacing-warning about a threat from certain other people who would attempt to take things from the dreamer (i.e., perhaps, in the sense of being caught in their web) (2671-.5). Other possibilities: entrapping, smothering behavior (often but not always associated with a mother or other feminine figure).

Edgar Cayce Dream Dictionary:

http://www.edgarcayce.org/dreams/dream_dictionary.asp

 

 

Magic in the Skies – Irridescent Clouds

This is a very interesting website if you like “unusual” clouds.

http://www.atoptics.co.uk/droplets/iridim0.htm

The above link came from www.spaceweather.com

Space Weather has some pictures today of irridescent clouds taken June 18th in Missouri at the Heart of America Star Party.

http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2007/20jun07/Martinez3.jpg

http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2007/20jun07/Martinez1.jpg

In a time not so long ago the appearance of the skies I witnessed was more predictable.  Is that a good way to describe it?

A Bear Makes an Appearance!

We had a visitor last night, a large one.  A black bear pulled my big sunflower seed feeder down from the spruce tree and was enjoying a snack.  Fortunately for him I had just filled the feeder before dark.  The long, manufactured, double hook the feeder hangs from is not flimsy by any stretch of the imagination.  My buddy had taken the dog out and the dog headed straight for the tree.  He flies out the door and over to that tree during the day to scare the squirrels, chipmunks and birds as if it is his job.  I really think the dog is nearsighted.  He would have trotted right up to the bear to sniff him. 

My buddy saw the bear, just a shadow because there were no outside lights on, and frantically started calling the dog back.  Luckily, at that same moment, I went out to put a bag of trash in my buddy’s truck and when I realized what was happening, started calling the dog, too.  We rushed the dog into the house using our voices.  What a panic!  Lol!

Meanwhile, all of the ruckus frightened the bear and he climbed up the tree.  My buddy came in, grabbed a big flashlight and we returned to the porch to watch the bear after he came back down the tree to continue eating seeds.  He was not aggressive at all.  He was about 3-4 years old and while standing on his hind legs he looked close to five feet tall.  What a beautiful and potentially dangerous animal!  I’m going to have to take all of the feeders in at night so that he does not become used to being here.  He needs to retain his fear of humans.

Photos of Noctilucent Clouds

Something is going on (as usual) because the reports of noctilucent clouds have increased.  Thanks, Space Weather!  I think the atmosphere is being made more and more electrified.

http://spaceweather.com/nlcs/gallery2007_page2.htm

Strange Cloud Over Iran

Oh, my stars and garters!  (Where did that dumb saying come from?)  Take a look at the picture link below from www.spaceweather.com

http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2007/16jun07/Tafreshi1.jpg

Here is the text (not all embedded links in text will work):

IRANIAN MYSTERY CLOUD: On June 15th, sky watchers around Iran witnessed a strange and luminous cloud in the night sky. “I have never experienced a similar phenomena,” reports veteran astronomer Babak A. Tafreshi of Tehran. Observing alongside two other astronomers, Oshin Zakarian and Pouria Nazemi, he took this picture.

The object started out patchy, shapeless and dim; it quickly brightened and formed a blue-tinted cone with a nose of magnitude -2 or -3,” he says. The cloud raced across the sky “moving about 20 degrees per minute.” More images: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6.

“It was shining blue and moving fast,” agrees Amir Hossein Abolfath, another witness from Tehran, who snapped this picture. “Twenty minutes after I saw it, my friend Asghar Kabiri saw the same cloud 900 km away from Tehran in Sa’adat shahr.”

Mystery solved? The following explanation is probably correct, but uncertain because of the classified nature of yesterday’s rocket launch:

On June 15th at 11:12 am EDT, an Atlas V rocket launched from Cape Canaveral; its payload was a pair of National Reconnaissance Office ocean surveillance satellites. After the satellites were deployed–into the wrong orbit, according to media reports–the rocket’s malfunctioning Centaur upper stage vented excess fuel, producing the Iranian cloud. The dumping of excess fuel is standard practice for Centaur-boosted launches, and this event is probably unrelated to the Centaur’s reported malfunction.

The info above will only be there temporarily.

I wonder if this is a BlueBeam Project trial or is what the text at Space Weather suggests.  Whatever its source, it is a trigger of sorts first and foremost  Thanks, Space Weather!  You receive such marvelous pictures from around the world and beyond.

[ "Oh, my stars and garters" explanation:  http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-sta5.htm ]

Dolphin Shooting in CA

I am posting this article about four long-beaked common dolphins being shot and their bodies washing ashore in California because it’s like four people were shot to death at sea.  Doesn’t the article sound that way?  It is reported that fisherman usually shoot dolphins because the dolphins were eating the fish they want to catch but it is not known yet who shot these dolphins.

I reward has been offered “for information on the slayings.”

(Note:  links no longer viable.)

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070616/D8PPLC0O0.html

Picture:

http://apnews.myway.com/image/20070615/Slaughtered_Dolphins.sff_LA108_20070615160043.html?date=20070616&docid=D8PPLC0O0

A Honeybee or Not?

Well!  I think I just saw a honeybee!  Gasp!  I bent down to have a closer look at this bee to make sure it actually was a honeybee gathering nectar from a daisy and it flew off.  I’ve been looking for them when I am outside and this is the first one I have seen, if it really was a honeybee.  If it was, I will see another.  There seems to be a dearth of many kinds of insects so far this year and here it is mid-June already.

The bluebirds eat many insects so they could have put a dent in the populations of insect numbers in the yard.  I’ve seen them fly-catching; something they have been doing more of this year than last.

The Gloomies

I woke up to cool, rainy weather and an oppressive, gloomy feel in the surrounding energy.  I wept when I sat up in bed.  The jet stream flow is very strange over the Midwest and East.  Some fighter jets flew low over the house a little while ago, then came back over, and not long after I began to develop another headache.  We are in the dark of the moon and I can tell from reading on the Internet, those susceptable and don’t realize it are feeling that sense of doom and imminent strife which inevitably accompanies this moon phase.  The sky is beginning to brighten a bit right now and we are supposed to see some sun this afternoon.  That might be helpful.

The above image captured from this web page:

http://weather.unisys.com/satellite/sat_ir_rad_loop-12.html

In the image there are fronts pushing to the east in the middle section of country and there are highs building in the northeast pushing towards the west and in between is a void of sorts.  Of course, this is not weather terminology and I am not a meteorologist but I find this pattern very odd.

(So much for the sun coming out today.  It is cloudy, windy and very cool, like a Fall day.)