This week’s pick for Weblog of the Week (WOW) is Wake Up America. This is a very popular blog with great articles on a variety of topics, many of which are pro-military and pro-freedom. We enjoy reading Wake Up America and are happy to place their link in the Never Forget tribute for this week.
Ink Monkey
Yesterday, I had a dental appointment (two actually – cleaning and some restoration work) in the People’s Republic of Santa Monica. Since I got in the area early, I had some time on my hands so I took a little tour around the downtown area. I ran across this interesting store front. Now I know where the guy with this Satanic paint job gets his tattoos.
Catalina Island Thanks the Firefighters
The Catalina Island Chamber of Commerce reports that there was no damage done to the city of Avalon in last month’s near-disastrous wildfires. They also report that things are mostly back to normal and encourage a resumption of tourism to the island. In a tribute area on their website, the Chamber posted a photographic tribute to the Firefighters that beat back the flames in mid-May.
As a family that enjoys our Catalina visits (we were married in Avalon and go back often), we thank the firefighters also.
Purple Morning Glory
These gorgeous purple morning glories were seen during our trip to the local home improvement warehouse’s garden shop.
Red Epiphyllum Flower
A couple of days ago, I posted a photo of our first cactus blossom of the year. Now, here’s our first Epiphyllum flower of the season. We’ve been at the gun show all day, so enjoy this beautiful flower that you wish was in your yard.
Are They Blowing Smoke Up Our AWS?
Automatic Weather Stations (AWS) collect temperature, humidity and atmospheric pressure (and wind direction and velocity in some locations) from various locations throughout the world. Data from this system is used to record, and subsequently extrapolate, climate patterns. But is there a problem with the accuracy of the data collected by individual AWS installations because of localized urban conditions and features? Can smoke from a nearby BBQ distort readings? Can air conditioner exhaust distort them? Can heat from asphalt?
Image: a remote weather observation unit – click for larger image.
In what might be a major contamination of weather data, weather sensors can be influenced by the effects of surrounding human activity and artifacts. These factors will skew the data in some locations because of unnatural heating and distortion of natural climatic conditions. If you bias temperature readings in some locations, it would be impossible to rely on that data unless it has been normalized to data collected in undeveloped areas.
A Northern California blog, What’s Up With That?, identifies four cases where Urban Heat Island (UHI) effects are likely distorting temperature data.
First Cactus Flower of the Season
This is the first bloom this year from one of our cereus cactus plants. This one was still opening when I got this shot last night. Its the first of many more to come on this cactus (one stalk has five flower pods, another three and most others with one or two pods. More photos will come later, I’m sure.
