I know, I know . . .
We have a lot of beautiful sunsets. But, why not another one? Click on the image to enlarge.
Environment
Chicken Little and the World of Opposite
From the NWS:
A very frigid, arctic air mass will continue to bring dangerous, and in some cases life-threatening, low temperatures and wind chills to parts of the central and eastern U.S. on Tuesday. Wind Chill Advisories and Warnings are in effect for much of the eastern two-thirds of the nation with wind chill values as low as -20F to -50F possible. Temperatures are expected to begin moderating on Wednesday.
But, as The Patriot Post points out:
‘Polar Vortex’ Scaremongering
Remember back in the good ‘ole days when everyone expected winters to be, well, cold? Well, forget that. The Leftmedia is having a field day with this week’s furious Arctic outbreak across a large portion of the U.S., thanks to what is alarmingly being called the “polar vortex.” Climate alarmists were quick to blame the cold snap on variable weather patterns being created by man-made global warming. The Weather Channel wondered, “Is The Record Cold Arctic Outbreak Tied To Global Warming”? while CBS’ Charlie Rose asked, “Is it definitely connected to global warming?” Putting scaremongering aside, the “polar vortex” is an upper-level cyclone that is always present. Pieces of the vortex occasionally break from the cyclone, taking with it pools of sometimes very frigid air. Bottom line: Mother nature gets the last laugh.
As usual, Cold is Hot, Freedom is Slavery, Good is Bad, etc.
Autumn Colors
This is one of many trees around town that have changed colors from the summer green to all shades of yellows, oranges and reds. This tree is located along the main drag (US 60) a half mile west of old downtown. Click on the image to enlarge.
On-Line Solar Movie Maker
This morning, I browsed my usual daily visits on the internet. When I got to the webpage at SpaceWeather.com, I noticed several sunspots were visible on the “Daily Sun” feature in the left sidebar. That made me have the urge to go out and capture an image of the sun over Arizona to see if I could resolve any of the sunspots. There were three distinct spots in my image, which I labeled, as seen on the right. The solar north pole is at about the ten o’clock point in the image I made. I didn’t bother to rotate the solar image to align the pole at the top as I sometimes do. Click on the image to enlarge.
I visited the SOHO Sunspot page to get the designation numbers of the sunspots in the photo, I noticed a link to a new feature called Helioviewer which purported to allow users anywhere make their own custom images and movies. After fooling with the website a bit, I made the video below to document the spots in my image. The motion starts about 24 hours before advancing to how the sun looked today. Solar north is up and the recording was made through a hydrogen alpha (or equivalent) filter. The bright spots are the location of the spots in my image above. See this screenshot from the Helioviewer site for reference.
More Solar Optical Phenomena
After seeing the brilliant rainbow colors in the clouds near the sun, I went to get my camera and get some pictures. In this image, it appears that there is an object that resembles a planet or something near the sun. It actually is a phantom image of the overexposed sun, itself, caused by the camera lens optics. It is interesting and pretty, don’t you think? Click on the image to enlarge.
A Beautiful Fall Day
Since the rain last week, we have been having the most lovely fall weather. I took this panoramic photo of the mountains northeast of town yesterday afternoon. The clear skies and mild temperatures made for a beautiful fall day. Click on the image to enlarge.
Moon over Old Glory
Finally, after several days of overcast and rainy weather, we have a cloudless Arizona sky. While we were walking the dogs this morning, I took this photo of the neighbor’s flagpole with the third quarter moon above.
The forecast is for continued sunshine and cooler temperatures with highs typically mid-sixties and lows in the low forties. You can see from the flag that the winds are light and variable. Click on the image to enlarge.