It was a bit cooler than we anticipated last Saturday for climbing. My climbing partner arrived at the house just after 8 AM and it was still about 30 degrees Fahrenheit. We decided to go to a south facing, low elevation crag. From what we observed and others said later on, it was a good thing. One friend at church said, “I could swear that when I looked up at the mountains it was snowing.” I replied, “I can swear it was snowing.” We had snow showers with sunshine and wind alternating with just sunshine or then dark clouds and wind. Just as we were hiking out a fierce sleet flurry rushed down the draw. It was laying before we could get out of the woods. On our first climb the rock was quite cold resulting in cold fingers, but after that the sun warmed the rock just often enough to make it good climbing. We had lively talk, good climbing, brisk hiking in and out, bracing weather, Spring just breaking in blooms, and Winter trying to hold on for one more hurrah. It was a good day. Check out the pictures at Crag Day.
Archive for the ‘Weather and Climate’ Category
Variable Weather Crag Day
Posted in Climbing, Outdoors, Photo, Weather and Climate, tagged Climbing, Outdoors, Weather on April 13, 2022| Leave a Comment »
Subtlety to Extremity
Posted in General, Implications, Nature, Outdoors, Random thoughts, Reflection, Weather and Climate, tagged Climate, Reflection, Subtlety on December 2, 2021| Leave a Comment »
The atmosphere has always fascinated me. As I sat in the sunshine eating lunch the other day, I noticed the contrast of deep blue to the pine needles of the surrounding pencil straight conifers surrounding the house. A few moments later as I relished my lunch and the opportunity to sit down in the midst of a day of labor, I saw a soaring bird up very high. It appeared black but with no gray wing feathers, which would have identified it has a Turkey Vulture. It could have been a Black Vulture, Golden Eagle, or Raven, though the latter is unlikely that far from the mountains. It wasn’t an Osprey because the wings were too broad. Next I spied a commercial jet very high en route to some far away city. I started. I knew that the deep blue meant low humidity, but here was an airliner with no contrail whatsoever. I made comment to my work partner, and he replied by reminding me we were under a severe fire hazard warning and that Pilot Mountain was even now burning.
For all our efforts to insulate ourselves from the changes and extremes of the atmosphere, we still are waylaid by its sudden and violent outbursts and subtle intensities. Low humidity is certainly the latter of the two, quite enjoyable for the blue skies and warm afternoons but endangering our forests and sometimes homes with the potentialities of dryness.
California is an example where this subtlety all too often becomes an intense extreme. The Chaparral Climate* there is generally dry with rainfall ranging from 10 to 17 inches of rain annually. Most of the moisture falls in the winter, causing the summers to be extremely dry. If that were reversed and the rainfall was in the summer, fires would probably not be a serious problem there. But the shifting ocean current, which is determined by the tilt of the Earth and therefore the Sun exposure, controls when it is wet and dry and there isn’t really a climate with limited rainfall and wet summers. A little less winter moisture than usual and wildfires abound.
I am so thankful for the temperate climate in which I reside. The weather and the woods are most usually friendly with just enough change to draw one’s attention to changing seasons and weather patterns.
Though I bring up these details in retrospect, as I concluded my lunch on that day, I decided to forego the cost/benefit analysis of dry weather and enjoy the day while I labored on. Solomon agreed: “Here is what I have seen to be good and fitting: to eat, to drink and enjoy oneself in all one’s labor in which he toils under the sun during the few years of his life which God has given him; for this is his reward.” Ecclesiastes 5:18
*https://www.blueplanetbiomes.org/chaparral_climate.php
Midst the Storm
Posted in Fears, General, Glory, God Thoughts, Mercy, Nature, Poem, Providence, Trials, Weather and Climate, tagged God's help, Mercy, Nature, Poem, Providence, Storm, Trials on December 10, 2020| 1 Comment »
Have you ever smelled rain? Have you been exhilarated by lightning? Have you ever been fearful in the wind or awestruck at the rising waters? The power of the storm both attracts and repels. Why might that be?
The air of rain does smell
All birds’ songs it does quell
The nerves of grazing beasts try
When a fierce storm is nigh
Of sudden does it burst
Relieving ground’s long thirst
Overtop river banks
Calamitous flood pranks
No way to stem the tide
Or break the waves’ wild pride
Neither calm the screaming wind
Nor many trees defend
Where can one find shelter
Midst the helter-skelter?
Or from much loss be spared
No matter how prepared?
The Maker of the storm
Who gave to all things form
He our refuge always
To Him for help one prays
He may deem things be lost
Great material cost
But rescue of the soul
Is the reward and goal
Though many troubles come
Storms that frighten and numb
Yet He is gracious still
Your heart with thankfulness fill
.
We are awed by the wonderful, the powerful, the overwhelming, and the strikingly beautiful. The God who created the world is all of those things and more and He has made us for Him. We have then an inbred desire to seek for the glorious*. I believe that it gives glory to Him to see the superior in Creation. We must, however, make it our goal to see Him in all that He has created and done, so that all glory and honor goes to Him as is due Him and beneficial for us. Fear of harm must surely be the main reason we are repelled by storms. God is merciful to those who trust Him, but He is powerful and not to be trifled with.
I read poetry online infrequently, but recently I did because of a poet’s name that came up in conversation. One of the poems was about storms. It was good poetry, but it was atrocious theology. I don’t like poetry with bad form but I really don’t like poetry that tells lies or misses the truth. So, I set out to write my own poem about storms. When it flows and conveys deeper truths, I am happy with what I have written. Given the constraints of poetical form I place upon myself, it is difficult to convey the ideas in the way that I want.
*from Hebrew kabod, meaning weighty and the Greek doxa, meaning of honorable reputation
Density
Posted in General, Learning, Poems, Science, Understanding, Weather and Climate, tagged Density, Earth Science, Nature, Poems, Science, Understanding on February 23, 2019| Leave a Comment »
In my years of teaching Earth Science, I have discovered that one concept seems to tie more physical phenomena together than any other. Frequently it is the cause of what is observed and often it is the connecting thread between interactions of matter and energy. So I thought to give a few examples of why it is so often the correct answer to questions in Earth Science:
Earth Science is all about density
What will go up and what will come down
That convective cell propensity
Uneven heating of the atmosphere
Solar gain and wind and pressure change
Forced aloft forms clouds, sinking air clear
Heat, salt, and wind stir up the oceans
Many upwellings from the great deep
Gyres and thermohalocline motions
Far below the roots of the mountains
Plates form rifts, volcanoes, and trenches
Float on plastic and magma fountains
In the stars war gravity and fusion
Caldera of rarified plasma
Spots and flares in boiling confusion
Thus mass divided by volume seen
In many small and grandiose ways
And from its study much knowledge glean
The Big Snow
Posted in Beauty, General, Outdoors, Photo, Snow, Weather and Climate, tagged Beauty, Nature, Photos, Snow, Weather and Climate on December 10, 2018| Leave a Comment »
It was not a record snow. Those seem to be more in the neighborhood of 18″ in 1993, the 1960’s, 1925, 1911, or something, depending on whether you mean 24 hour total, storm total, and where exactly. Tracing such records is dizzying and hard to do. But a solid 14″ on the hard surface of my yard where there is gravel and scant, short grass is good enough for me. I have a picture of it when it was 13″, because the 14″ measurement picture was blurred by condensation on the lens.
I think that one of the changes with age is my way of enjoying the snow. Some people don’t really seem to enjoy it unless they are sliding on it. I, too, used to love to do that on anything slick: sled, shovel, skis, shoes (boots really, but I couldn’t resist 5 s’s in a row).
But now I like most of all to take a long walk to the point of fatigue and take pictures of anything that looks beautiful or unique. I find much peace and exhilaration mixed together when it is snowing. It is quiet and yet screams at the senses, bright and yet darkly overcast, beautifully sculpting and yet messy, sanguine and yet melancholy. The wind, flakes, and sound absorption isolate you and yet your neighbors come out to greet you and lend a hand if you are stuck.
I apologize to my friend whose picture I took, twice. It seems that the snow flake that I did not see and obscures part of the clock was inconveniently on his face moments later. I walked 2 miles over to his apartment and then we walked a mile back up into town. We are both school teachers and don’t have anywhere we have to be at the moment.
I am thankful to God for hearing my prayer for it to not rain last night, since that would have certainly caused significant flooding. It melts away slowly today, running down the gutter at the bottom of my driveway. It was a beautiful, big snow.
The Homeplace draped in liquid lace
It’s hard to keep firewood dry.
I had a better picture of this, but the flash reflecting off of the snowflakes was a pleasant surprise.
It really was 14, later.
Wind Sculpting
Nice contrasts
Working hard for a day off!
Companionship is always good.
It looks intense.
Good architecture shines even when covered.
In a small town near you
Iconic, Historic Courthouse
Go, but not too fast
No one in attendance this week
I forgot to tell him to turn off the flash.
Snowtime
“I moved down from Wisconsin to get away from this.”
We have a few pieces of snow equipment in our small, Southern town.
Pass Go, collect $200, and have a Merry, White Christmas.
CreatorWorship 