Category: Weather

Categories
Weather

Fire and Ice

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

One unusual quality to weblogging is reading about summer fires one day, and major ice storms the next.

I must check my map before calling out greetings to friends, such as “Stay cool” to Jonathon and Victor; and “Stay warm” to Ryan, Sharon, and Jeneane.

As for me? I exist in a perfect state of being at this one moment, for which I feel no guilt; but can scrape together enough empathy to wish my friends coolness. Uh, warmness. Wait. Wait! Coolness. No, no. That’s not right. It’s warmness…

“Do not seek for warm fire under cold ice” – Samuel Rutherford

Update: I had forgotten that Mark Pilgrim also lives in the Carolinas. To my surprise, Sam also was hit with the ice storm (for some reason, I thought Sam lived in the West Coast — my powers of observation must suck). Joe Gregorio is also in N. Carolina. So my warmest thoughts go out to them, too.

I lived on Grand Isle in the middle of Lake Champlain in Vermont during the Ice Storm of ’98. We were without power for close to four days, which was a real problem because we had an electric pump system for water. No water, no flush toilet. Believe me, there are worse things than not having heat. Just after the storm, the only movement on the island was National Guard helicopters, called in by the governor. That, in itself, was a bit spooky. We felt as if we were in a war zone.

Most of the trees in our area were decimated in that storm. But oh, that ice was beautiful. Deadly, but beautiful.

I feel for all those caught in yet another “storm of the century” ice storm.

Categories
Just Shelley Weather

Winter—Retro

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Another posting from last year, wrote while looking out on palm trees and bare streets, walkers in shorts. This year, I repost these words while looking out at white flakes falling past my window, covering the ground. What is it about falling snow that makes one reflective, somehow wistful and nostalgic?

Snow falling gently over rolling hills dotted with trees both green and bare. The cerulean blue sky is captured, muted, and then reflected back in distorted waves from ice formed across a vast lake. Watched through the window, a red fox leaps from snow back to snow bank in the field in front of the house, its color matching the red of the barn next door.

Strand after strand of large Christmas lights are wound round and round the pine tree that stands alone in the field. At night, a switch is thrown and for miles you can see the tree, lights blazing, casting a multi-colored shadow on the snow.

In the morning a rare cardinal in the bush next to the driveway makes a nice counter point to the blue of the jays and the brown of the occasional hawk and commonly occurring finch.

Crystal white, azure blue, pine green, fox red, hawk brown. And then it gets colorful.

Winter in Vermont.

Categories
Photography Weather Weblogging

End of the season

The states bordering Missouri have been blasted by some unusual weather including an outbreak of tornados. It was interesting watching the storms fold around St. Louis, leaving us virtually untouched. This city really is located in a sweet spot, escaping most of the weather outbreaks, at least for now. The only impact on us was a little rain and enough wind to knock the leaves off the trees. Fall is over for the year.

fall photo from tower grove

Speaking of Fall, my friend Chris Locke isn’t the only weblogger in the neighborhood with a birthday this month. The great thing about birthdays is no matter how old you are, a birthday is always better than the alternative.

black and white photo of an old tree

Up with life, but down with gravity.

Categories
Political Weather

What’s the weather in Iraq

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Hurricane Lili sputtered to a category 1 when it rolled into the US — enough to inflict damage, but not to the extent of first speculations, when Lili was a category 4 hurricane.

Unfortunately, as much as I wish that Congress would have stood strong, forcing President Bush’s category 4 bluster down to category 1, or even tropical storm status, yesterday’s news conference with Bush and several congressional leaders show this isn’t going to happen. As the Boston Globe (and other publications) reported, all the little political ducks in congress — including Senator Gephardt from Missouri I’m ashamed to say — have lined up behind our little soldier.

There is really nothing, now, to stop Bush — a man who’s justification for war is suspect when one reads Saddam “tried to kill my dad” — from invading Iraq.

Certainly not a Congress who would push through a resolution stating that Bush only need inform them of an attack within 48 hours after it’s occurred. Hell, I can inform them within 24 hours of an attack and I don’t have the CIA and the military in my pocket. And to give the President a blank check to invade Iraq if he, he mind you, determines that diplomatic efforts have failed, is nothing more than a washing of Congressional hands; absolving themselves from any responsibility of the actions while reaping whatever pale benefits they might be able to scavage from their acts of inaction.

Both the Congress and the Presidency of this country are fast becoming nothing more than characterizations of our worst fears: a paranoid, megalomaniacal president with delusions of grandeur, only held in check by a weak and ineffectual Congress.

Too bad Lili didn’t hit Washington DC, instead — that area could have used the fresh air.

Update Mark Fiore sums this whole thing up for me. (Thanks Michael)

Second Update:This also fits this occasion: Norm Jenson’s Asshole of Evil. Norm also pointed out Flight of the Chickenhawks.

Categories
Weather

Cause and effect

A record number of salmon were killed in the Klamath River in Northern California, and the administration refuses to acknowledge that the cause was water diverted to help farmers in Southern Oregon. Though the administration was warned that to divert the water would result in death to salmon who use the river for spawning, the administration trotted out its tame team of politically friendly scientists to say there is no cause and effect relationship between less water and fish dying.

These are probably the same scientists who say that there is no global warming, though today’s temperature in this region is 20 degrees warmer than normal for the first week of October, and massive droughts impact on those parts of the world that aren’t being drowned by unprecedented flooding.