Environment

Second Spring

The weather outlook in our little patch of Arizona looks to be cooling off somewhat; that is, high temps of less than 100°F. In our experience, this indicates not autumn, but our “second spring” for the next few weeks. As you can see in the image above, cactus flowers are now appearing on our “Devil’s Tongue” (ferocactus latispinus).

My camera caught some other interesting things as seen below . . .

This is a Black Hawk which soared above our place yesterday. They look similar to turkey buzzards, but they lack the bright red head the buzzards are known to have.

And, as fall advances, the fruit on our lemon tree are beginning to ripen. We will be making Limoncello around year’s end.

Some of the most commonly seen birds in the area are doves. This Mourning Dove perched in the mesquite tree where we place bird feeders year around.

Click on any image to enlarge.

Altocumulus Mammatus

This past Monday evening, I photographed the above image after I noticed the normally flat-bottomed cumulus cloud had these predominantly rounded protrusions below. I recognized them as mammatus.

Mammatus is a cellular pattern of pouches hanging underneath the base of a cloud, typically a cumulonimbus raincloud, although they may be attached to other classes of parent clouds.

I remember from my days as a commercial instructor pilot that these cloud formations were to be avoided. There can be up/down drafts, microbursts, wind shear and possible other airborne hazards.

Not long after the photo was taken, we got some steady rain for about fifteen minutes. The ground got a good soaking with little runoff. Last night, however, several thunder cells rolled through the area and left plenty of rain. There was no evidence of flooding afterward.


Now, speaking of weather, I saw a couple of interesting articles on the topic of the Farce of Anthropogenic Climate Change. The first one “Greenhouse Gases Are a Scientific Myth” from American Thinker, discusses, as the title indicates, “climate stupidity” with regard to so-called “greenhouse gasses.”

The most recent climate stupidity suggests that American factories report their greenhouse gas emissions. As we learned from our country’s first cap-and-trade rule in California, reporting led to required reduction of clean-burning natural gas. Most factories in California have closed because of that rule. It required a 75-percent reduction of natural gas — the factories’ only heat source — over five years.

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The next article, from long-time blogger “GREENIE WATCH,” discloses a study debunking CO2’s adverse effect on the weather.

A powerful peer-reviewed scientific study delivers substantial evidence that carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the atmosphere have zero impact on the Earth’s global temperatures. The study concludes that even though most publications attempt to depict a catastrophic future for our planet due to an increase in CO2, there is serious doubt that this is, in fact, the case. Instead, the study authors deduced that their research unequivocally means that the officially presented narrative that human activity is causing a detrimental CO2 increase on Earth’s climate is merely a hypothesis rather than a substantiated reality.

Read More

We’ve long known that the notion of man-made climate change is as follows:

Monsoon Days Are Upon Us

As of a few weeks ago, our Monsoon Season has brought us a few showers, but not in the usual summertime quantity nor have they been very intense. We’re not complaining about the lack of damaging rainfall at all, but as to not getting a good soak now and then. The image above (I later learned) is of a cell located over Yarnell, AZ, a town 30 miles north of here. They had a good prolonged rainfall just up there around eleven AM local, while we have had didley squat.

Later in the day, some intense, dark clouds drifted over us, but again, no significant precipitation. Damsel took the following photo of a Turkey Buzzard circling overhead beneath the clouds:

After the time of the previous photo, I took the dogs for a walk and distinctly smelled wet creosote, but observed no rain. I presume that the Good Lord will eventually bring gentle, soaking rain our way as He always does.



Image courtesy Foxtrot Mike Products

In other news, we have been monitoring some of the court proceedings regarding our rights to keep and bear arms. There are some good decisions and some bad decisions about various aspects of arms and accessories. We anticipate that one of these days the US Supreme Court will gather their collective cajones and grant certiorari for one or more of the “Assault Weapons” cases where various Communist states (California, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, etc.) are unconstitutionally restricting the right to keep and bear those “commonly in use for lawful purposes” firearms. Maybe I will live long enough to see that become a reality.

Camping in El Campo, TX

Our travel day started out with moderate to heavy rain showers in the Waco, TX area, Then, as we progressed southward towards our destination, the weather improved to overcast with no precipitation for the “middle” of the drive. The clouds gradually broke up and as soon as we parked in our camp spot, the sky became clear.

On the way, Damsel took a shot of one of the many pastures we pass, usually no big deal, but this pasture had a little something unusual about it:

Damsel found that this herd belonged to FreBo Ranch.

Click on images to view enlarged.

Eclipse Day

What we anticipated to be a dismal forecast for the weather on Eclipse Day, turned out to be not so bad, especially during the totality phase. Clouds passed between us and the sun often, but then opened up for partial phase glimpses and during totality, most of the four minutes of darkness, we were able to see the corona and in the image below, a couple of prominences at two-thirty and five-thirty on the disc. The 5:30 prominence was huge.

I wasn’t very well-prepared to take photos given the woeful forecast, which affected my motivation, but I was able to attach the big 100-400mm telephoto lens and shoot bunches of photos hand-held (no tripod) and had a few fair results including the one above. Damsel had similar results and captured the “Diamond Ring” at the end of the totality show:

As I’m blogging this, we are getting some moderate to heavy thundershowers with lightning and thunder, but, Praise the Lord, no tornadoes. The precipitation knocked out the satellite TV a few times, but it is up and running now.

We’re here until Wednesday and then off to other parts of Texas south of us towards the Gulf of Mexico and thence via westerly routes heading back to Arizona over the next several days.

2024 Total Solar Eclipse

The (clickable) panel below shows the details of the eclipse as expected here in our RV campground located near Waco, TX. I cropped the image from a screenshot taken from the Time and Date website.

The right side of the panel shows our approximate location in the RV park (green area), The left side of the panel shows times for events associated with this eclipse. It also shows the expected weather of overcast with scattered thundershowers. That’s sub-optimal for eclipse viewing, of course, but we’re optimistic that we will see some of the spectacle, regardless.

At a minimum, the daylight will diminish to darkness if overcast, and I may be able to take a video the lunar shadow as it approaches our site at 1500 miles per hour. Likewise, four minutes later, I may be able to take a video of the shadow’s departure.

We just learned that there is a tornado watch for this area after the eclipse. We probably could use some prayerful help with that. Stay tuned.

Camping — Roswell, NM

Don’t let the sunshine (April) fool you about the weather here and on the drive from Albuquerque to Roswell; we had not-so-good weather most of the day until within a couple dozen miles of Roswell. We started out in the snow and drove through fog, sleet and gusty crosswinds along the route. We had a few light showers later in the trip along US 285 enroute to where we are now.

At any rate, we’re here and settled in for the night. We will be headed to Lubbock, Texas in the morning. We will be there for a couple of days as we continue to enjoy the trip to our eventual campsite where we are hoping for clear skies to enjoy the total solar eclipse.