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unixronin: Galen the technomage, from Babylon 5: Crusade (Default)
Unixronin

December 2012

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unixronin: Front view of the Caer in winter (House Winter)
Monday, December 22nd, 2008 06:13 pm

Before the blizzard that started on Friday, our decks were clear and there were no icicles on the gutters.  The snow began around noon and continued all through Friday ... and Friday night ... and Saturday ... and Saturday night ... and Sunday ... and most of Sunday night, finally petering out sometime early Monday morning.  During the course of the storm I had to clear the driveway with the snowblower four times — basically every time we needed to get a vehicle out of the driveway, I had to clear it anew.

This is what the back deck looks like now.  (Full-size images linked behind.)

Note:  These are second floor decks.  The planter boxes at far left are about a foot deep, and have bricks under them to raise them up so they don't sit directly on the deck.  (Don't want moisture getting trapped under them.  Don't need rot in the decks.)

Frequently-high winds during the blizzard meant that exposed areas didn't get a lot of snow accumulation.  On the other hand, frequently-high winds meant that a lot of snow that fell on exposed areas ended up in sheltered ones.  Sometimes we could hardly see out the front windows for snow sheeting off the roof.  This glass-topped table on the side deck, seen at left (or probably above if you're reading this on your FL and aren't getting my CSS loaded), is about three and a half feet wide by maybe six feet long.  That should tell you there's about three feet of snow on it.

Today has been clear and free of further snow, but bitterly cold.  As I write (and revise, and revise, and revise) this, it's 14.5°F before windchill.  That's two degrees off today's high temperature.  Weather Underground said this morning that windchill temperatures were as low as -5°F, and I'd believe it.

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unixronin: Galen the technomage, from Babylon 5: Crusade (Default)
Tuesday, October 11th, 2005 12:47 pm

Last year, we had Hurricane Catarina, the first ever-recorded South Atlantic hurricane, and the first hurricane ever to strike Brazil.  Now, Vince (downgraded to 'tropical depression' by the time it made landfall) is the first recorded tropical cyclone ever to make landfall in Spain.

This is just one more piece of data in an increasingly worrying overall picture.

unixronin: Galen the technomage, from Babylon 5: Crusade (Default)
Saturday, September 24th, 2005 12:49 pm

Looks like Texas just dodged a bullet.  Small consolation for Louisiana, though, with Lake Charles getting pasted and the Ninth Ward under five to eight feet of water again.  It probably shouldn't have come as any surprise to anyone that the emergency patches to the levees didn't all hold when another hurricane came through; part of it, as has been reported elsewhere, was that storm surge from Rita simply overtopped the levees again -- and Rita's center never came within several hundred miles of NOLA.

This should be telling us something about the wisdom (or lack thereof) of rebuilding NOLA as it is, in the same spot.

GET OFF THE BELOW-SEA-LEVEL GROUND, people.

CNN's David Mattingly said he had seen little damage in Galveston following landfall.  The city's roads remained passable, although some places had minor flooding.  Its 17-foot seawall was high enough to keep the predicted 7-foot storm surge back, Mattingly said.

It's going to be bitterly ironic if it turns out the evacuation of Galveston and Houston ends up costing more lives than the hurricane would have.  But hindsight usually at least approaches 20/20, while foresight is almost always "as through a glass, darkly".

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unixronin: Galen the technomage, from Babylon 5: Crusade (Default)
Thursday, September 22nd, 2005 09:02 am

The National Hurricane Center's 0700CDT advisory says Rita dropped slightly in intensity overnight, with eye pressure rising from 897mb to 907mb.  Sustained winds are in the 170mph range, and position is around 490 miles SE of Galveston, moving west-northwest at about 9mph.  The NHC predicts slow further weakening.

AT 7 AM CDT...1200Z...THE EYE OF HURRICANE RITA WAS LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE 25.2 NORTH...LONGITUDE 88.3 WEST OR ABOUT 490 MILES SOUTHEAST OF GALVESTON TEXAS AND ABOUT 595 MILES EAST-SOUTHEAST OF CORPUS CHRISTI TEXAS.

HEAVY RAINS ASSOCIATED WITH RITA ARE FORECAST TO BEGIN TO AFFECT THE WESTERN AND CENTRAL GULF OF MEXICO COASTAL AREAS TONIGHT INTO FRIDAY.  RITA IS EXPECTED TO PRODUCE TOTAL RAINFALL ACCUMULATIONS OF 8 TO 12 INCHES WITH ISOLATED MAXIMUM AMOUNTS OF 15 INCHES FROM THE CENTRAL TEXAS COAST TO SOUTHWESTERN LOUISIANA.  RAINFALL AMOUNTS OF 2 TO 4 INCHES WILL BE POSSIBLE ELSEWHERE ACROSS SOUTHERN LOUISIANA ...INCLUDING THE NEW ORLEANS METROPOLITAN AREA.  AFTER RITA MOVES INLAND...TOTAL RAIN ACCUMULATIONS OF 5 TO 10 INCHES WILL BE POSSIBLE OVER EASTERN TEXAS... AND CENTRAL AND EASTERN OKLAHOMA DURING SATURDAY AND SUNDAY.

This could have been a lot worse; crossing the loop current boosted Katrina to category 5, but Rita doesn't seem to have picked up much energy from it.

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