06.04.11
Posted in General News, Kwajalein at 6:09 pm by Rebekah
My Dad flies in to Oklahoma City tomorrow afternoon, and we begin the three day drive back to Washington early Monday morning.
I don’t know how to say goodbye to friends here; I prefer to think of it as a “see you later” or “talk to you soon”, as I’ll still be in touch. It’s hard, as even though I look forward to spending time with family and friends in the Northwest over the next few weeks and then moving on to Kwajalein in mid-July, I have spent the last several years of my life in Norman.
I have made many friends here, the best of which have been by me through some great and some not-so-great times.
I have had so many amazing experiences since coming to Norman, and have learned a lot about meteorology. When I first came to Norman in 2005, I knew nothing about storms and not much about the weather. Since then, I have become an experienced storm chaser and have witnessed a couple dozen tornadoes, baseball-sized hail, intense storms, blizzards, and ice storms.
Before I came to Oklahoma, I had never been on a plane and had never been outside the Pacific Northwest. Since then, I have traveled to over half of the 50 states, have gone overseas, and have seen a space shuttle launch (perhaps unrelated to coming here, but you never know). You never know what experiences and opportunities may be waiting around the corner.
I always wanted to go to Oklahoma when I was a kid, and not necessarily for the weather. The musical Oklahoma! was one of the first movies I saw, and while you may laugh, somehow I became quite interested in the state. When I was about five or six, I asked my Mom for maps of Oklahoma and Oklahoma City (I still have them).
Norman, Oklahoma, and the Great Plains: I will miss you, but I will come back to visit in the not-too-distant future. Keep being great.
Friends in the Norman area: I will miss you very much, but we will keep in touch and may we be brought together again soon! All the best to all of you.
BOOMER SOONER!!!
Permalink
04.05.11
Posted in Astronomy, General News, Space Shuttle at 8:00 am by Rebekah
I’m afraid today’s regularly scheduled world wide weather post is going to be canceled, as I didn’t have time to complete it last night and am not sure I’ll get to it later today.
I found out in the morning that the space shuttle launch would be delayed for at least 10 days, so have been scrambling to change travel plans. As of now, Endeavour is scheduled to launch at 3:47 pm EDT on April 29th. Hopefully this time it will go according to schedule!
Yesterday afternoon/night I went down to Dallas for a Rangers v. Mariners baseball game. It was the much anticipated return of pitcher Erik Bedard, which was a lot of fun to watch!
Still waiting to go chasing again…
Permalink
03.12.11
Posted in General News, Weather News at 8:00 am by Rebekah
Yesterday was a pretty wild day, from the Japanese earthquake and the Pacific tsunami to wildfires in Oklahoma and Texas and flooding in the Northeast.
Here are some U.S. tsunami amplitudes I found via the National Weather Service (note the amplitude is the height above normal sea level):
LOCATION - TIME - AMPLITUDE
———————————————–
PORT ORFORD OR - 1724UTC - 6.1FT/1.85M
ADAK AK - 1755UTC - 3.6FT/1.09M
KODIAK AK - 2211UTC - 0.9FT/0.28M
LOS ANGELES CA - 2115UTC - 1.7FT/0.51M
SAN DIEGO CA - 2131UTC - 1.7FT/0.51M
LA JOLLA CA - 2007UTC - 1.4FT/0.43M
WESTPORT WA - 1920UTC - 2.0FT/0.62M
ST PAUL IS. AK - 1228UTC - 2.1FT/0.65M
OLD HARBOR AK - 2154UTC - 1.1FT/0.33M
DUTCH HARBOR AK - 1204UTC - 1.3FT/0.41M
SHEMYA AK - 1136UTC - 5.2FT/1.58M
ARENA COVE CA - 1834UTC - 8.7FT/2.65M
CRESCENT CITY CA - 1656UTC - 8.2FT/2.49M
SAN FRANCISCO CA - 1749UTC - 2.1FT/0.64M
MONTEREY HARBOR CA - 2013UTC - 2.4FT/0.72M
NORTH SPIT CA - 1639UTC - 3.3FT/1.01M
PORT SAN LUIS CA - 1745UTC - 8.6FT/2.64M
SANTA BARBARA CA - 2229UTC - 3.2FT/0.97M
SANTA MONICA CA - 2223UTC - 2.8FT/0.84M
————————-
In other news, the Passaic River is still nearing its crest, now expect to peak around 12 feet tonight.
Also, Oklahoma yesterday was going up in flames (as well as parts of Texas and Colorado); the governor declared a state of emergency for the entire state, as we had at least three dozen or so wildfires burning as a result of strong winds (gusting to 47 mph), temperatures near 80, and very dry conditions. Several grass fires wound up burning a few homes, as firefighters were having a very difficult time trying to get these fires under control.
Permalink
03.10.11
Posted in General News, Storm Chasing at 8:00 am by Rebekah
Yesterday I went to a very interesting seminar on the extreme weather events lately in Australia, and how they may be tied to La Niña, natural climate variability, and climate change. I took some notes from the talk and plan on writing up a summary of the seminar for the blog next week.
Today I just want to give you a taste of one of the many projects I’m working on in the lightning research group at OU.
Lately I’ve been analyzing a lightning flash that got my attention last July. While coming back from a chase in northern Oklahoma on July 11th, I saw a lightning stroke that went from the ground to the cloud. I know this type of lightning occurs in areas with tall towers, but I had never seen this with my own eyes before. Now I’m looking at lightning data for the storm and also looking into studying upward-going lightning in other storms, as well as studying up on the literature on the subject as I don’t know much about it.
Captured with my HD camcorder.
Permalink
02.18.11
Posted in General News, Photography at 8:00 am by Rebekah
For today’s blog I was thinking about discussing the possibility of severe storms next week, but as it looks like that isn’t going to happen now, I thought I’d take a moment to introduce my sister’s new blog.
Photo by Caitlin LaBar
While I’m out chasing tornadoes, Caitlin chases butterflies. She’s always been interested in studying insects, and she’s one of the smartest people I know when it comes to insects, especially butterflies and moths of the Pacific Northwest.
This is what her new blog will focus on: “observing, rearing, and collecting butterflies and moths in the Pacific Northwest. My goal is to post a new entry at least once a week, on topics involving personal observations, how-to guides, “biographies” of local Lepidoptera species, and photographic journals of my exploits.”
So if any of you have any interest in butterflies or insects in general (or know someone who does), especially for those that live in the Pacific Northwest, I encourage you to check out her site, and bookmark the site as there will be more coming soon.
Also, Caitlin is an excellent photographer; her photos of insects look just like ones you’d see in an identification book. She also takes great photos of birds, and has already started posting some of those.
The blog site is Northwest Butterflies (http://northwestbutterflies.blogspot.com/). Enjoy!
————
I now return you to your regularly scheduled weather blog.
PS: The Storm Prediction Center has recently put “predictability too low” in the day 4 to 8 forecast, instead of “potential too low”…that could be a good sign for even garden variety thunderstorms soon…
Permalink
« Previous entries Next Page » Next Page »
