Re: Incoming!
Ronn! Blankenship wrote: Still in the 60s here, though I've already closed the windows. Expected to be in the upper 30s by morning, and maybe as low as 20 (°F, for Alberto, et. al.) Monday or Tuesday morning . . . It's depressingly cold here in the (alleged) tropics. We miss the days when temperature was 40. Alberto Monteiro ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Incoming!
On Sat, Dec 20, 2008 at 8:11 PM, Ronn! Blankenship ronn_blankens...@bellsouth.net wrote: The worst fog I have ever seen was one night between Windsor and Toronto, where literally all that was visible was a few feet of the road right in front of the car. And all the natives were flying by at 70 or 75 mph . . . Did you know that studies have shown that people unconsciously speed up in fog? People who can't see a speedometer will consistently think they are going slower -- significantly slower -- than they really are. We hit Tule fog (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tule_fog) in the Central Valley a couple of years ago and I did what I know I should have done many times before -- immediately got off the road and stayed the night in a motel. That motel was close to empty when we checked in; it was full an hour later. Actually, it's not quite right to say we hit that fog. More like it formed around us. On the other hand, a year ago we got into some incredibly dense fog somewhere in Nevada, near Battle Mountain, IIRC, and decided to make our way east carefully - I checked current conditions in the next few towns and nobody was reporting fog. Sure enough, a half mile down the road we broke out of it into totally clear conditions. And, as long as I'm rambling on about fog... One of the more startling experiences one can have when landing an airplane is caused by a thin layer of ground fog. On approach, you can hardly even see that the fog is there, since you are looking down through its thinnest dimension. But just before touchdown, you're looking the long way through it and suddenly, really suddenly, you can't see a lot of the runway. Disconcerting, to say the least, because when landing you look way down the runway in order to judge how far off the ground you are. It suddenly becomes much more like a night landing than a daytime one. (When landing at night, you can't really judge your height accurately, so you basically fly the airplane all the way to the ground instead of gently settling it in as you do during the day. Ideally.) Nick ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Incoming!
On Sat, 20 Dec 2008, Ronn! Blankenship wrote: At 10:13 AM Saturday 12/20/2008, Bruce Bostwick wrote: On Dec 20, 2008, at 10:07 AM, Julia Thompson wrote: If the forecasts are correct by this time tomorrow I will need to dig out the winter gear again . . . though at least the week of almost-constant rain will be ending . . . And -- according to my local forecast, a cold front is coming through sometime between this afternoon and tomorrow morning. I wish it would just make up its mind what temperature it's going to be Julia Still in the 60s here, though I've already closed the windows. Expected to be in the upper 30s by morning, and maybe as low as 20 (°F, for Alberto, et. al.) Monday or Tuesday morning . . . In the 30s today. And the day or two of fog we get after each cold front is only entertaining up to a point. Fog? Yep, we've been having that, too . . . Most of the driving I do first thing in the morning is on rural roads, just 1 block on anything you could call a highway and a little more than a mile on something that's neither highway nor rural in character. People are relatively sane with their driving, but it's kind of weird to see the Highway Intersection 1000', have the road curve so the actual distance to the closest bit of highway is significantly less than that, and being *barely* able to see the rise of the main part of the highway to go *over* the road. Then the next morning, there was comparable but not identical fog. I had fun comparing the two mornings in the same spots as I went along. (Stuff south of the highway was denser, in general, on the second morning, while the stuff north of it was less dense the second morning.) The effect an actual dense fog has on people's driving behavior in Texas has to be seen to be believed. On the roads you're on, Bruce, yes. On the roads I was on, people mostly just moderated their speed and didn't do anything stupid. :) The worst fog I have ever seen was one night between Windsor and Toronto, where literally all that was visible was a few feet of the road right in front of the car. And all the natives were flying by at 70 or 75 mph . . . (They can mostly deal with rain, up to a point. Snow or ice, forget it. :) I suspect that it's worse in Utah the first time it snows. Apparently over the summer everyone forgets how to drive in snow. At least here it's rare enough that people treat it as unusual and take more care. Also, when snow is likely schools cancel class and other things shut down so there are fewer people trying to get through it (though for the women who go into labor during the storm and need to get to the hospital on the top of the hill . . . ) And to tie-in to another thread: that is one of the times people around here rely on their TV-band radios . . . We don't get ice or snow very often at all, but when we do, it tends to shut stuff down rather badly. If I thought I'd be able to stop at the end of my street when it ices, I could manage to get around -- but it's partly that I know you need to be extra, extra cautious for that, and I'm good at skid recovery, as long as I manage to stay on the road. (Hence the potential problem at the end of my street.) I also found out on Friday that I still remember how to walk on ice -- I was walking down a hallway with enough water on the floor to make it slick in spots, and I just automatically went into ice-walking mode to reduce the chances of my slipping. That was weird. Then again, a lot about Friday was weird. (I may reconsider the hit all 3 kids' holiday parties at school thing next year, for one thing.) Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Incoming!
It's depressingly cold here in the (alleged) tropics. We miss the days when temperature was 40. Yesterday was the Summer solstice here in the South Pacific and the day before was cold - only 6 degrees celsius. Global warming harumph. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Incoming!
Euan Ritchie wrote: It's depressingly cold here in the (alleged) tropics. We miss the days when temperature was 40. Yesterday was the Summer solstice here in the South Pacific and the day before was cold - only 6 degrees celsius. Global warming harumph. The science-deniers at Conservapedia are making fun of Global Warming. It seems that AGW proponents were involved in scientific fraud. Alberto Monteiro ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Incoming!
On Sun, Dec 21, 2008 at 3:46 PM, Alberto Vieira Ferreira Monteiro albm...@centroin.com.br wrote: Yesterday was the Summer solstice here in the South Pacific and the day before was cold - only 6 degrees celsius. Global warming harumph. The fact that it is colder in some places than normal may be a sign of global warming. I know that some predictions say that global warming will make it colder and wetter here in our part of California because more cold air will be sucked off the Pacific by rising air in a hotter Central Valley. Global warming will lead to less stable weather and more extremes. Or already is. Nick ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Incoming!
On Dec 21, 2008, at 11:41 AM, Nick Arnett wrote: And, as long as I'm rambling on about fog... One of the more startling experiences one can have when landing an airplane is caused by a thin layer of ground fog. On approach, you can hardly even see that the fog is there, since you are looking down through its thinnest dimension. But just before touchdown, you're looking the long way through it and suddenly, really suddenly, you can't see a lot of the runway. Disconcerting, to say the least, because when landing you look way down the runway in order to judge how far off the ground you are. It suddenly becomes much more like a night landing than a daytime one. (When landing at night, you can't really judge your height accurately, so you basically fly the airplane all the way to the ground instead of gently settling it in as you do during the day. Ideally.) Nick I've know pilots who've encountered this themselves. I have it on reliable authority that it's extremely disorienting if you're not prepared for it. I also know someone who got fooled by an optical illusion one day when a runway was covered by blowing dust, and lined up his landing approach where he thought the runway was, then dropped about 20 feet into the dust and bounced right off the runway. In a B-24J Liberator. :) (I'm pretty sure he *didn't* crack the main gear trunnions or blow the tires, but it was a rather, um, *firm* contact with the runway even so.) The thin fog layers can be interesting even driving, though. Sometimes they do strikingly beautiful things like mask the road and the horizon, but show hints of clear sky above. I've seen it thin enough that the top of the car is actually above the fog bank, or fill up a small valley in between the hill I'm topping and the next one. My favorite, though, is the suspended fog layer a couple of feet or so off the ground and only a few inches thick. Those only form when there is *no* wind, at all, and usually aren't visible unless you see them almost edge-on. They don't ever form on highways because the air movement from a passing car will stir them up too much, but they form in the fields beside the road here and there. It's just a rather visually striking phenomenon, for me at least .. :) You wanna tempt the wrath of the whatever from high atop the thing? -- Toby Ziegler ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
