Cap'n Bob & the Damsel

Environment

Eastern Pacific Tropical Weather

TS Dora

A large part of the elements that contribute to our summer monsoons here in Sonoran Arizona is the influence of Eastern Pacific Ocean tropical activity. When storms form west of Mexico and move northwestward (as they usually do), they introduce a flow of tropical moist air across the southwest. The counter-clockwise circulation around the storms forces moist air northward in the lee of the storm’s movement.

Currently, Tropical Storm Dora, which is forecast to become a hurricane by tomorrow, is moving west-north westward into the Pacific Ocean. Dora, seen just to the north of the inter-tropical convergence zone (the horizontal string of clouds near the bottom of the image above), is already pumping large amounts of moisture across Honduras, the Yucatan and much of Southern Mexico. As the storm moves away from the land mass, it will probably start pumping some of that moisture northward.

In July of 2015, Tropical Storm Danielle was responsible for a northward flow of tropical moisture that resulted in a severe monsoon over our area that dropped over five inches of rain in less than two hours. The Casandro Dam catch basin filled to capacity, the washes and Hassayampa river were all in flood stage. Hopefully, Dora will drift westward and not be a problem for us.

25 Jun 2017 by Environment Science

Summer Solstice

Solstice

Today marks the official first day of summer, although the summer weather starts sooner than that in Sonoran Arizona. We have been under the same heat wave as most of the west, except a tad warmer than a lot of places. Our temperature was 117° yesterday with cooler (only 114°) predicted for today. As a bonus, you can bank on the Greenbat Cultists calling that we are all gonna die and mankind is to blame. As DrJim points out, “we learned about this in school – it was called ‘seasons.'”

Speaking of solstice, there is an interesting image on today’s APOD: a Solstice Sun Dial that spells out SOLSTICE only on this day.

The graphic above courtesy of Archaeoastronomy.com.

21 Jun 2017 by Astronomy Environment Greenbats

Eclipse Animation

This nice animation of the August 21st Eclipse across America showed up on Astronomy Picture of the Day today. It is less than a minute in length and is a good graphic illustration of the path of totality.

The embedded video can be set to full screen for enlargement.

After the video finishes, there is another interesting video follow-up that animates the shadow of the moon as it crosses the country. You can see in detail where totality occurs with the shadow video.

19 Jun 2017 by Astronomy Environment Wanderlust

Countdown to the Great American Solar Eclipse

The countdown has been underway here for almost five years since we first made our reservations at the RV campground near the centerline of the eclipse in Wyoming. Now, however, we’re down to the last few weeks before the big event. The Javascript countdown timer above shows the remaining time to the start of the eclipse (first lunar encroachment) in Arizona Time.

The date of the eclipse is August 21, 2017. The beginning of the eclipse is dependent on the location of the observer, but in our case is 16:22:20 UTC, The seven hour difference has been adjusted in the timer. Totality follows a bit over an hour later. The interactive eclipse map has moved to the NASA Eclipse pages:

https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/interactive_map/index.html

13 Jun 2017 by Astronomy Environment Wanderlust

The Climate Change “Consensus” Lie

globull-warming.jpg

Old NFO posted the image above the other day. I stole it from there.

I found a good item via The Patriot Post that completely debunks the claim that an overwhelming number of scientists agree that Global Climate Change (can’t call it “warming” anymore) is due to anthropogenic activity. The article “Debunking the ‘97% of Climate Scientists Agree’ Claim” contains the following damning passage:

It appears that Cook et al. decided to compare only those scientists who had strong opinions. If that is the case, the first two categories represent scientists who believe man is causing all or most of the warming (986), while those in categories 6 and 7 believe man is causing none or almost none (24). This ratio is about 97%. But the most important result of this study is that almost 8,000 had no opinion or were uncertain. So much for the 97%.

Why were there only 24 papers published by skeptics? We found out in 2009, when 22,000 email exchanges between senior meteorologists in the U.S. and Europe were released. Many of the emails were published by Steven Mosher and Thomas Fuller in “Climategate: The Crutape Letters” (nQuire Services, 2010). We learned the following things from this scandal:

Those promoting man-made global warming:

Controlled the meteorology and climatology journals in the U.S.;
Controlled non-meteorological science publication (Nature, Science, etc.);
Controlled Wikipedia;
Manipulated data;
Demonized skeptics.

Those of us who have studied, albeit casually, have determined the whole climate bugaboo is a hoax. It is only intended to cripple freedom and prosperity in the west and nothing more. There is a special warm place awaiting those who knowingly promote these falsehoods.

11 Jun 2017 by Environment Global Warming Greenbats Whacko Politics

First Triple Digit Day of 2017

Dry Heat

We observed Wickenburg’s first triple digit temperature for the year on our back patio this afternoon. It had been getting warmer for a week or so, but today it went over 100.

Damsel took a photo looking north from the road up the hill from our place as we were coming home from an errand to the grocery store. The scattered clouds did not aid in keeping it any cooler on the surface that we could notice.

The forecast is for continued warm days through Thursday when we should drop back into the high 80’s to low 90’s. There is no rain in the forecast (yet). Needless to say, the A/C went on yesterday and will likely stay on until we’re on the road again this summer.

Click on the image to enlarge.

22 May 2017 by Arizona Environment Photography

Camping – Williams, AZ

Williams

Just a short one today . . .

We left Monument Valley this morning and drove through to Williams with one stop at Cameron Trading Post for souvenirs and another at a Safeway in Flagstaff for provisions. We had quite a bit of rain with some gusty winds in some places. This is the first time we have had to use the wipers on the windshield, with mediocre results – the blades chatter on the downstroke – another squawk for the dealer to resolve.

Our campground here in Williams (elevation 6750) is expecting freezing temperatures overnight and possibly some precipitation mostly before 11 PM. The precip could be rain, freezing rain or snow. We have not hooked up water or sewer, so we should be OK with an overnight freeze.

Tomorrow, we will be headed home again with at least one “touristy” stop along Old Route 66 for more souvenirs. The weather is expected to be generally good with slight chance of showers along the route.

09 May 2017 by Arizona Environment Retirement Wanderlust

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