Arkansas River below Dardanelle Dam following extreme rains


(click on lower picture for larger image)

I made it out of the house yesterday for the first time in almost a week. We went into town, but I still wasn’t feeling the greatest.

I guess what I thought was a cold turned out to be the flu strain that’s been going around. Since I didn’t go to the doctor, I don’t know for sure. I was planning to go yesterday if I wasn’t significantly better.

Ran a fever for several days and was pretty much out of it round the clock. Slept a lot. Not much coughing, which is funny, because the main thing I’m left with now is a cough.

Haven’t looked at much online until yesterday.

We’ve lost power at least three times today. The generator is sitting ready just in case.

According to the National Weather Service, we’ve had somewhere between 2.5 to 4 inches of rain today and our county is in a flash flood warning. Fortunately, we live on top of a ridge so don’t have a problem with flooding. There’s still a lot more rain to come, I think.

With being sick and all of this rain, it’s hard to get some of the stuff done outside that I wanted to do during this time off.

I go back to work three weeks from today and the contract job will go until the end of August.

Today: Rain likely, mixing with snow after 4pm. Cloudy, with a high near 40. North northeast wind between 10 and 15 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. Total daytime snow accumulation of less than a half inch possible.

Tonight: Rain and snow likely before 9pm, then occasional snow . Low around 31. North northeast wind around 15 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of 3 to 5 inches possible.

Friday: Occasional snow , mainly before 3pm. High near 32. North northwest wind between 10 and 15 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80%. New snow accumulation of 3 to 5 inches possible.

Redbreasted Nuthatch

March 4, 2008 at 1.07pm CST
Camera: Pentax K10D
Exposure: 0.004 sec (1/250)
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 300 mm
ISO Speed: 100

Twelve and one-half inches

More than we normally get in several years combined

March 4, 2008 at 8.25am CST
Camera: Pentax K10D
Exposure: 0.011 sec (1/90)
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 55 mm
ISO Speed: 100

flickr page

Farmer and sons walking in the face of a dust storm - Cimaron County, Oklahoma

I’m currently reading a book about the dust bowl period of the Great Depression. It’s a time that most people living today know very little about. Life was different then. Values were different.

I like photography. I like taking pictures and sharing them with others. I also like finding public domain images, cropping them and adjusting them and then sharing them with others.

Along with my own pictures, I plan on presenting images that I find from other times and other places.

Photo Information:
Taken: 1936 Apr.
Rothstein, Arthur - photographer
Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection
Location of public domain digital image: hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsc.00241

We took a drive today over to see some of the areas that were hit by the Arkansas EF4 tornado on February 5.

I deliberately did not take my camera along. I wanted to take a look at the area, not to exploit it for my photography. (The picture on the right is from the National Weather Service web site — the license number has been altered for privacy reasons.)

The route I took crisscrossed the path of the tornado from where it crossed the Arkansas River to a point north and west of Morrellton, Arkansas.

The twister crossed the river very close to a nice home that sits overlooking the river. It looked like they only lost a few trees. They were very lucky. Many of the folks at Lucky Landing on Lake Atkins weren’t. Even though it’s been eleven days since the storm, that area is still a mess. I can only imagine how bad it was that night and the next couple of days.

Often, in news stories, they’ll have people saying that devastation when you see it in person is so much worse than what you imagine from the little you see on TV and in pictures. I was a bit surprised in that what we saw was pretty much what I had expected.

I also wasn’t surprised to see how much the media got it wrong. The town center of Atkins wasn’t hit at all. The feed mill that was reported to have been destroyed and blocking highway 64 looked to be in perfect shape when we drove by it today.

The twister also took down four or five transmission towers on the Pleasant Hill 500KV transmission line. As a result, the power plant I am working at is operating at reduced capacity until new towers can be erected and the line repaired.

It’s raining here again. Fortunately, though, this system doesn’t have any severe weather in it, just lots of rain… and some lightning and thuinder.

(Second picture from the National Weather Service: A car from the destroyed dealership in Mountain View (Stone County) was thrown over some professional buildings across the street and ended up in a ravine.)

From the National Weather Service:

Damage that occurred in a large swath from Atkins…to Clinton…Mountain View and Highland on February 5th was the result of one tornado.

The tornado tracked from 5 miles east-southeast of Centerville in Yell County to 3.2 miles northeast of Highland in Sharp County. The track length was 123 miles…which is the longest tornado track since 1950. The tornado has been rated EF4 on the Ehanced Fujita Scale…with winds between 166 and 200 mph. The damage path reached a half mile to a mile wide at times.

From the National Weather Service:

Aerial survey was completed late this morning for the tornadic storm that tracked across west central and northern Arkansas on Tuesday. The areal survey team concluded that the path of the tornado was continuous from Yell County… northeastward into Sharp County. The tornado was earlier rated an EF4. Based on preliminary information… the length of the tornado track will be at least 120 miles long.

An NWS ground survey team has also found the starting point of this tornado to be 5.6 miles east southeast of Centerville… in Yell County. An ending point… along with a more detailed path length… will be determined once the teams return later this afternoon.

Tags: weather

The storm that swept through the area south and east of Atkins, Arkansas, was initially rated as an EF3 tornado. After surveying the damage, the National Weather Service has upgraded it to EF4 and stated that a single tornado may have tracked from south of Atkins through Clinton, Mountain View and Highland. An aerial survey is planned for today to determine if it was one or several tornados.

An EF4 has winds of between 166-200 mph, with devastating damage that can level newer houses and create “missiles” such as thrown cars or telephone poles.

Unfortunately, in the aftermath of the storm, cleanup efforts have been hampered by traffic of gawkers driving through to see the damage first hand. If they don’t have a need to go through the area, they should stay away.