January's Daily Weather, Gleðilegt nýtt ár! Happy New Year!

What is with this weather??

*looking around to make sure I'm still in IOWA!!!*

mg

MySharona I agree. I'm in Swift Current right now but MG back home it's now 41 F and I'm how many miles north of you!?!

on dh's blackberry right now so can't type too much now

This message was edited Jan 3, 2007 4:33 PM

Ok 63.1°(F) porch (label says shed), 71.1°(F) shed (no label), 38% RH - but since the sensor w/the RH reading is now in the shed I would not trust it too much.

Bright sunlight - gotta go try to fix a bad battery connection on the Metro before it gets "Dark".

Hey, Dyson, my Metro just needed a battery connection fixed, too! How weird is that? LOL

Sidney, if you are stuck at the Houston airport for too long, call me!! It's been several hours since you posted, though, so hopefully you are practically home.

It's supposed to rain tonight and all day tomorrow. It is grey and gloomy out there now, but it hasn't rained yet.

Observation for Houston, TX (KSGR) as of 2:53pm CST (46 min ago)
Temperature 52 °F 11 °C
Dew Point 43 °F 6 °C
Humidity 71%
Pressure 30.20 in 1022.7 mb
Wind Speed 10 MPH 9 kts
Wind Dir E 80°
Ceiling 2800 ft 853 m
Visibility 10 mi 16.1 km
Current Conditions Cloudy
Remarks 6 hour min temperature ending 11:53am CST : 43.0°F / 6.1°C
3 hour precipitation ending 2:53pm CST : Trace

Last year was a *nothing* year as far as El Nino (tho it was starting to form) or La Nina was concerned and Canada still recorded the warmest winter and spring on record and the second-warmest summer.

This year we have a El Nino influencing the temperatures/weather but we are still much warmer (and for longer periods) than we have been during previous winters influenced by an El Nino.

I took a trip with DH (he had business calls) and I can't remember an El Nino winter here where huge areas of the province are without snow (and the cold temperatures here just lasted for 10 days.......since then we've been around, and well above, 32 F)........

Picture taken today

This message was edited Jan 3, 2007 4:03 PM

Lilypon, Is 1"of rain = 10" of snow? If that's the case, aren't you all low on surface water?


I haven't done anything, but play!
Joey

Two years ago we got a lot of rain in the fall and it brought up our underground water levels (thank goodness) but yes our surface moisture will be gone unless we get a good spring rain. From Texas (and including Georgia and northern Florida I believe) right up the plains of North America are in trouble. We get rains but they tend to be fast and hard (climate change again).......not the gentle soaking in rains that are needed for growing crops or feeding cattle. We've been (and are) in a drought that's worse then the dirty thirties (Georgia I know is the same I'm not sure about how long Texas etc. been having troubles).......only farmers know a lot more now like leaving the stalks standing in the field so that the wind doesn't blow all the top soil away.

As temperatures keep rising the North America food supply will be in a lot of trouble.



This message was edited Jan 3, 2007 4:21 PM

MySharona I apologize I missed that it was you who posted above (I corrected my post). Those little tiny blackberries don't let you see anything when the typing screen comes up.

Another risk of climate change is that Canada's Boreal Forest (that keeps North America's temperatures more moderate) will be dying from high temperatures and bug infestation (never mind how much we will lose now to fires because of dryness).

Lilypon - I like that photo - it's so flat!!! Is that typical of your surroundings?? Or are all the mountains on the other side? lol It is strange how warm this winter has been over there - here on the other hand it's been rather cold at least colder than the last 2 ...... I'm hoping that'll mean a good summer. I'm ever hopeful ...... I think it's time for a good one this year - we've had two bad ones so the next two should be good. It seems to roughly work that way here in my observation at least ....

Joey - that is a nice effect! Pretty cool photo! Those ferns are so pretty.

It's typical Rannvieg tho off the TransCanada highway Saskatchewan does have some very interesting scenery (that even most Canadians are unaware of. ;) My elevation is due to the rockies (tho they are still another province away).....earlier today, as we drove to Swift Current, we were driving up hill (but the mountains still weren't in sight). Gotta be just outside Calgary, Alberta for the first sight of them.

Sharon, Your dad's a smart man! And a Scientist to Boot! :D
Yes, Garrett was threatened (not by me) to act normal....What ever that means! But I got some more good ones, too. And like I said...I've been playing.

The temp is 45* & getting dark. I don't have all the thingy's Dyson & others have. I'm into plain & simple. And besides, Dyson, sounds like you've been running your legs off just to get the readings. :-)

Thanx, Rann. Love my ferns! :D

Joey

Love your ferns too Joey (too busy looking for pics/links) and very nice to meet you! :)

Here's northern SasK (one of my fav places to visit).......not sure if I posted it here before: http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/519711/


and we have badlands too where dinosaur bones are found:

a pic entering the badlands:

(edited to say these pictures weren't taken in the last two years)

This message was edited Jan 3, 2007 5:06 PM

Sorry, Lilypon, but that's DS (aka-Garrett). :D ~ I don't have pix of myself, as I am usually the one taking the pix.
And those pix really Do look like the Badlands! Looks like Brutal Cold!

Joey

Here's a pic of Em (DD)

I was wondering........what lovely children you have!!! Ü

That day I believe we were at -45 F ........ more like it should be. ;)

Yep, that's what I call BRUTAL! But I know what you mean....Way too warm.

Wow - those are some awesome photos! Love the look of those badlands - looks horribly cold though! -45°F!!!!!!! Yikes!

Thanks for the link - really neat photos - enjoyed them a lot. I was going to say that you didn't have many trees up there - but there certainly were plenty of trees on that canoe trip!

rannveig

Lilypon, I never knew there were badlands way up there. I can easily imagine a dinosaur bone poking out of that hillside.

It's another clear night here after a beautiful sunny near 50º day. More sun and 50º tomorrow too. This has been one strange winter.

About that mystery photo I posted earlier in the thread. It's a very common item. You have all seen it many times. In fact I'm sure most of you had it in your hands on Christmas day.

early_bloomer

E_B: Is it some sort of glass? A wine glass or something? (Not that I necessarily had a wine glass in my hand on Christmas Day. !) ;)
Deb

Oh, nearly forgot: Low tonight 55!!! Unbelievable.

This message was edited Jan 3, 2007 7:35 PM

It’s raining, I’m happy as we still need quite a bit.

Sidney – did you make it back?
Lilypon – my DH just got a blackberry, it’s become his new appendage and thinks it makes him look like a stud!! I just found you on google earth, I see you’re above Montana. Love your pictures. I never realized how flat it is there, but, oh so beautiful! And the pictures from the camping trip are great, especially the eyebrow plucking), that is so ME!! They had a blast. I dind’t know about the Boreal Forest, something I’ll have to read up on. –45 degrees, I’m clueless as to how cold that really is…
Dyson – is it dark yet?
Joey – I love what your doing with your time while on vacation! The stitching pictures are great, how are you getting that 3-d effect?

When I was growing up in Bellaire (TX) it used to rain for days, this slow drizzly stuff that we hated as kids. We wanted to go out and play, but couldn’t. It was a wonderful “soaker”. I have seen rain like that rarely in the last 15 odd years. It just doesn’t rain like that any more. No thunder or lightening, just slow rain. Most of the time the weather we get is very volatile. We get thunderstorms, lightening storms, or 3” in an hour. Things have changed.

Sunrise at the beach around 8:30 this morning (on the way to work)

E-B - ribbon? bow? wrapping paper?

yep it is dark (not an official forecast but reliable at this location)

LOL!!! Yep Dyson, you are soooo funny! :D
Sharon, all I know is that I have a 3D sellection thingy. I need a break hear.... This is the 1st day that I've messed with it (for any length of time).
My guess has changed to ribbon (on the thing that E_B is wanting us to guess)

Gotta get off & do something constructive. Like wash supper dishes...

Joey

Thank you to those who liked my oak tree picture.

40% chance of rain tomorrow. Guess I better do a rain dance.

Updated: 4:51 PM PST on January 03, 2007
Observed at: Van Nuys, California
Elevation: 797 ft / 243 m
63 °F / 17 °C
Clear
Humidity: 40%
Dew Point: 38 °F / 3 °C
Wind: 7 mph / 11 km/h / 3.1 m/s from the SSE
Pressure: 30.04 in / 1017 hPa
Visibility: 10.0 miles / 16.1 kilometers


Picture taken last week - San Luis Obispo County (not far from Hearst Castle). Having never lived on a farm or even in the country, I'm sure I have a totally romantic and idealistic idea of what it would be like, but to me, this place looks like almost Heaven.

The same picture without anything cropped out. I like the cropped version better.

MySharona.........You got it! It's wrapping paper--the kind with the holographic designs imprinted on it. I received a gift wrapped in that paper and as I was watching the light reflect off it it occured to me that I might be able to get some neat effects if I photographed it. Now I'm always looking for new patterns.

early_bloomer



Here's another example.........

Joey........that last one looks like an alien! Those are a couple of sharp looking kids you have there.

Kelli, Love all the shades of green in that scene. I think I prefer the cropped version too.

8:23 pm........still dark


early_bloomer

ROFLMBO Dyson you are a man of few words but you do keep us chuckling. :)

Early_Bloomer I'm going to have to wand up and find that pic! I find it too hard to keep up with the posts daily but I usually find time to scan here. :) Saskatchewan's Badlands contained a T-Rex http://www.dinocountry.com/t-rex_center.html but Alberta's (not too far away from the above) has Canada's mother load: http://westerncanadatravel.com/alberta.dinosaur.park.htm

MySharona -45 F feels like sticking your hand in a glass of cold water with ice cubes and leaving it there. Hands exposed start freezing within a minute or two of unprotected exposure to those temps. It is a deadly cold that burns deep and quick. re the Blackberry DH, I think, felt that way about his too (but now he finds it a pain.....since there is no escaping it). He misses the days of no cell phones.

Thanks guys re Saskatchewan's scenery. I find people other love it or hate it.....many find the wide openness of it tooooo overwhelming (and boring;). Others however find it and our sunsets, that seem to curve around the earth, totally amazing ...no trees to get in the way (except up north ;). There is beauty everywhere but here it is much more subtle......SK scenery is a lot like the location used for the movie Dances With Wolves.

Joey what is in your picture?????





This message was edited Jan 3, 2007 7:50 PM

Kelli that is gorgeous :) and Saskatchewan has a few places that look almost like that (and almost that hilly ;).

Early Bloomer Now I remember seeing that picture (but much, much smaller earlier today :)

MySharona here's a link re the Boreal Forest: http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/site/english/learningresources/theme_modules/borealforest/index.html


I apologize for the length of this but it's off the library's subscription to Infotrac:

'One degree and we're done for': the vast sub-Arctic forests and bogs may be just 1[degrees]C away from a disastrous and unstoppable thaw.(This week: Boreal meltdown). Fred Pearce.
New Scientist 191.2571 (Sept 30, 2006): p8(2).


Subjects

Full Text :COPYRIGHT 2006 For more science news and comments see [HYPERLINK@www.newscientist.com.]

"FURTHER global warming of 1[degrees]C defines a critical threshold. Beyond that we will likely see changes that make Earth a different planet than the one we know."

So says Jim Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. Hansen and colleagues have analysed global temperature records and found that surface temperatures have been increasing by an average of 0.2[degrees]C every decade for the past 30 years. Warming is greatest in the high latitudes of the northern hemisphere, particularly in the sub-Arctic boreal forests of Siberia and North America. Here the melting of ice and snow is exposing darker surfaces that absorb more sunlight and increase warming, creating a positive feedback.

Earth is already as warm as at any time in the last 10,000 years, and is within 1[degrees]C of being its hottest for a million years, says Hansen's team. Another decade of business-as-usual carbon emissions will probably make it too late to prevent the ecosystems of the north from triggering runaway climate change, the study concludes (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol 103, p 14288).

The analysis reinforces a series of recent findings on accelerating environmental disruption in Siberia, northern Canada and Alaska, underlining a growing scientific consensus that these regions are pivotal to climate change. Earlier this month, NASA scientists reported that climate change was speeding up the melting of Arctic sea ice. Permanent sea ice has contracted by 14 per cent in the past two years (Geophysical Research Letters, vol 33, L17501). However, warming and melting have been just as dramatic on land in the far north.

A meeting on Siberian climate change held in Leicester, UK, last week confirmed that Siberia has become a hotspot of global climate change. Geographer Heiko Balzter, of the University of Leicester, said central Siberia has warmed by almost 2[degrees]C since 1970--that's three times the global average.

Meanwhile, Stuart Chapin of the University of Alaska Fairbanks this week reported that air temperatures in the Alaskan interior have risen by 2[degrees]C since 1950, and permafrost temperatures have risen by 2.5[degrees]C (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0606955103).

In Siberia the warming is especially pronounced in winter. "It has caused the onset of spring to advance by as much as one day a year since satellite observations began in 1982," says Balzter. Similarly, Alaskan springs now arrive two weeks earlier than in 1950, according to Chapin.

The Leicester meeting heard that the rising temperatures are causing ecological changes in the forests that ratchet up the warming still further. Vladimir Petko from the Russian Academy of Sciences Forest Research Institute in Krasnoyarsk says warm springs are triggering plagues of moths. "They can eat the needles of entire forest regions in one summer," he says. The trees die and then usually succumb to forest fires that in turn destroy soft vegetation and accelerate the melting of permafrost, Petko says.

In 2003 Siberia saw a record number of forest fires, losing 40,000 square kilometres according to Balzter, who has analysed remote sensing images of the region. Similar changes are occurring in Alaska. According to Chapin, warming there has shortened the life cycle of the bark beetle from two years to one, causing huge infestations and subsequent fires, which destroyed huge areas of forest in 2004. "The current boreal forest zone could be so dried out by 2090 that the trees will die off and be replaced by steppe," says Nadezhda Tchebakova, also at the institute in Krasnoyarsk.

Melting permafrost in the boreal forests and further north in the Arctic tundra is also triggering the release of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, from thick layers of thawing peat. First reports published exclusively in New Scientist last year (13 August 2005, p 12) were recently confirmed by US scientists (Nature, vol 443, p71).

"Large amounts of greenhouse gases are currently locked in the permafrost and if released could accelerate the greenhouse effect," says Balzter. Hansen's paper concludes that the effects of this positive feedback could be huge. "In past eras, the release of methane from melting permafrost and destabilised sediments on continental shelves has probably been responsible for some of the largest warmings in the Earth's history," he says.

We could be close to unleashing similar events in the 21st century, Hansen argues. Although the feedbacks should remain modest as long as global temperatures remain within the range of recent interglacial periods of the past million years, outside that range--beyond a further warming of about 1 [degrees]C--the feedbacks could accelerate. Such changes may become inevitable if the world does not begin to curb greenhouse gas emissions within the next decade, Hansen says.

Meanwhile, another new study underlines that the boreal peat bogs, permafrost and pine forests are not just vital to the planet as a whole, they are major economic assets for the countries that host them. A detailed study of the northern boreal forests by environmental consultant Mark Anielski of Edmonton, Canada, puts the value of their "ecosystem services" at $250 billion a year, or $160 per hectare.

These benefits include flood control, water purification and pest control provided by forest birds, plus income from wilderness tourism and meat from wildlife such as caribou. Anielski presented his findings to Canada's National Forest Congress in Gatineau-Ottawa earlier this week.

The value of these ecosystem services is more than twice that of conventional resources taken from the region each year, such as timber, minerals, oil and hydroelectricity, Anielski says. "If they were counted in Canadian inventories of assets, they would amount to roughly 9 per cent of our gross domestic product--similar in value to our health and social services."

You can add to that figure the value of having such a huge volmne of carbon locked away. "The boreal region is like a giant carbon bank account," he says. "At current prices in the European carbon emissions trading system, Canada's stored carbon alone would be worth $3.7 trillion."

And if Hansen is right that the carbon and methane stored in the boreal regions has the potential to transform the world into "another planet", then the boreal region may be worth a great deal more than that.

Source Citation: Pearce, Fred. "'One degree and we're done for': the vast sub-Arctic forests and bogs may be just 1[degrees]C away from a disastrous and unstoppable thaw.(This week: Boreal meltdown)." New Scientist 191.2571 (Sept 30, 2006): 8(2). Expanded Academic ASAP. Thomson Gale. SASKATCHEWAN PROVINCIAL LIBRARY. 26 Nov. 2006
.Thomson Gale Document Number: A152327213

Cool picture, Early_Bloomer. I like the Sask. pictures, too. There was a time when I would have thought that a treeless place would be boring, but now that I have actually been to some, I don't think that is the case. If anything, they are friendly - there's nothing for anything dangerous to hide behind.

It's hardly ever mentioned, but China is becoming a major polluter. They are rapidly industrializing but don't have the environmental controls that the western world has and Chinese air pollution does reach North America. Because of that and because the treatment of some workers, I try to avoid buying non-necessities made in China. All those inexpensive goods are coming with a price. (BTW, Hong Kong and Macau are parts of China.) O.K., enough of the soapbox.

It's hard to notice in the photo and was more noticable in real life, but what I think is quaint (if that is the right word) about the farm in my picture is the palm tree (at about 5:00 to the center of the photo). There is still enough Pennsylvanian left in me that I still find palm trees exotic and it just kills me to have pull up the volunteer ones that come up in our yard.

This is pretty simple-minded compared to what some of you can do, but I just discovered that if I take the saturation all the way to the left in the photo editor, I come up with a black and white photo. (My camera has a black and white setting but I never use it.) I love colors, but this is kind of fun, at least for this evening.

Keli why does that walkway look so familiar?

The Badlands are great!
I was there about 30 years ago. It's some really tough but beautiful country.
We were there for the bones.

The 'seeds' in the picture I posted above have been ID'd by OldNed down in FL.
They are actually Propagules of the Avicennia germinans (Black Mangrove).
We now have 7 of them. So we may get a Mangrove Grove going.

Currently 43° and a beautiful Moonlit night.
Rains moving in tomorrow afternoon.

Ric

Hey! (waving) Thanx E_B, nope, not an alien. It's a mirror image of a macro view. I took a macro pic of a fern frond for ID & just thought that I'd play with it.
Kelli, I like the cropped pic better, too. Looks like a neat place to get-a-way to. :) The B&W is Really Neat!
Lilypon, in my Biol. that isn't the only place the methane is coming from. Vast amounts are coming from the ocean, especially during El Nino. And the Pacific isn't the only body of water releasing it, but it's the major one.
Yep, I can see it now ~ Mangrove Grove growing in Ohio! :D (been to the hot tub yet?:)

This is the pic before I messed with it...
Joey

Ric, that pier looks like any number of CA piers but this is the one at William Randolph Hearst State Beach.

Heading out in a few minutes Joey..
We grew Red Mangrove here for a few years.
Sent them back South when they got too big.

Really like all these photo affects here lately!!
Ric

Ric give them a hundred years (or so;) and maybe you will........tho with the birth and growth of the Rockies I'm not sure if the Bearpaw Sea will make a comeback. :S



re tough that it is.........a couple of years ago (when people were dying of high temps in Paris) we went to Dinosaur Provincial Park again. On the prairie flatlands the temps were 112 degrees F but in the valley it was 140 degrees F. The white walls there reflected the suns heat and the valley trapped it. We slept about 2 hours that night (in a tent trailer) and pulled out very early in the morning. We headed off to GORGEOUS COOL Cypress Hills Provincial Park http://www.cypresshills.com/cypresshillssask.html (in Saskatchewan) whose elevation is 1,392 metres/4,567 feet http://www.summitsofcanada.ca/canatrek/summits/sask.html which made it about 20 degrees cooler than the low lying surrounding flatlands in the day and it was 30 degrees cooler at night).

What a cool pic Joey.....it really amazes me what those programs (and owners) can do. :)

Kelli your pics are always amazing.........when I have time I often check out your "Guess where this place is" thread. :)

I've lost my edits for the day so that's why so many posts from me .......... Joey your right the ocean is another source as is the humidity it releases (the high humidity that normally dry locations have been getting is also a sign of climate change).

Such interesting reading/pictures...seeing and learning more about all the plants "out" there, is very interesting...
It's 7:30 pm, deep deep snow, dark, quiet and a freshness of air/scent that is just indescribile. Temperature to go below zero and the deep freeze is complete...nothing quite like it for absoulute beauty.
kiska