A lot of people in the middle of the U.S. have been a bit on edge this storm season – for good reason.  This has been a bad, bad season, with over 500 severe weather related fatalities and over 540 confirmed tornados in the last 8 weeks.

What has made it particularly bad is that we have had several periods where a front – with a mass of warm, moist air to the south and cooler, drier air to the north – has stalled for several days.  During these times there have been multiple outbreaks – until the front finally gets pushed out to the east.

We are actually about as prepared as you can get.  We live in the country, but can hear the sirens in a nearby town.  A television station in Little Rock has an automated system that will call our cell phones and send an email message if there is a tornado warning for our area.  There is a a storm shelter in our house.

But still, after Tuscaloosa and Birmingham, Alabama last month, and Joplin, Missouri on Sunday, we pay attention when there is a threat of severe weather.

Yesterday started out with a low risk of severe weather here.  Oklahoma was under the gun with a very high risk.

As the day progressed, we were upgraded to a moderate risk.  As I had time, I kept track of the weather conditions at work, watching a line of storms break out in Oklahoma and start moving east.  There were a lot of tornado warning boxes.

I had thought to work a little late prepping for upcoming classes, but decided to come on home when the last class finished at 8 pm. Storms were still headed this way.

We usually go to bed at 10, but decided to stay up a while to see what it looked like the storms were going to do.  They were at the state line and there were a couple of warnings for counties in northwest Arkansas.

At 11 or so, it looked like the bulk of the storms were going to either dissipate or go around us, though there was one cell that was heading in our direction  that might reach us if it held together.  It didn’t look like it would, so we went to bed, though I had my cell phone next to me, just in case we got a storm alert call.

Apparently the cell broke apart in the cooler night air – after it destroyed Denning, Arkansas.

September 12, 2009

Spruce Tree House, one of the larger cliff ruins of Mesa Verde, Colorado, so called from a large spruce which grew on top of the ruins. This dwelling occupies a cave about two hundred and seventy feet broad and ninety feet deep. There is a limited supply of spring water in this district, and on this account tourists make their headquarters near by.

Another of the most important of the Mesa Verde ruins is that of the Spruce Tree House. This occupies a small canyon named ”Spruce Tree Canyon,” and was discovered by Richard Wetherill on the same day that he discovered the Cliff Palace. The name was given to this dwelling by Wetherill because of the great spruce tree which jutted out from the ruins. The valley or canyon itself is the home of a whole forest of spruce trees.

It is possible that this ruin contained, when completed, in the neighborhood of a hundred rooms; there is every indication that all the rooms were not built at once, but that a few were first built and that these were added to as the occasion demanded.

The Cliff Dwellers of the Southwest
The Pacific Monthly
May 1906

Information Links:

National Park Service – Mesa Verde National Park, Spruce Tree House, Self-Guided Trails

Wikipedia – Mesa Verde National Park

Wikitravel – Mesa Verde National Park

The tagline for this blog says that the blog is about sharing photos and images along with occasional commentary.

Lately, there’s not been much of any of any of that.

I’ve selected and randomly sorted a large number of my photos and collected images – and I’m going to start posting them on a fairly regular basis, starting tomorrow.  Some of the pictures will have appeared here before; most, though, will be posted for the first time.

Our grandson just finished his testing in karate for first level black belt.

He will be 11 next month and has been in karate for 4 years.

He gets his black belt in an award ceremony tomorrow near where he lives in Wisconsin.  Karen is up there visiting – which was arranged some time ago to coincide with this event.

I wish I could be there with Karen to visit our daughter, son-in-law, granddaughter, and grandson, but I have classes to teach.

This month’s weather has been very cruel in parts of the United States. A long-standing record for the number of April tornados has been broken – with a great many lives lost – and with the current North American temperature conditions, more may be coming in the next few weeks.

Tornados occur every year in North America, usually in the spring, starting in the southern part of the central United States and moving northward as the season progresses.  However, tornados have occurred in every month of the year and in every state of the United States – though not unknown in other parts of the world, by far the largest percentage of tornados occur in the USA, which averages about 1,200 tornados a year.

While there is a lot known about tornados and the conditions from which they tend to develop, there is still a lot unknown and, perhaps, some aspects that will forever be unknowable.

Strong winds, strong wind shear (significant differences in speed and direction of wind, varying with height), an unstable atmosphere and abundant low-level humidly are all contributors to the formation of tornadoes.  Wind shear, “the kind which develops when cold and warm air masses ‘collide’”¹ is the key.

Active tornado seasons in the U.S. are almost always due to unusually COOL air persisting over the Midwest and Ohio Valley longer than it normally does as we transition into spring. ¹

Lately, I’ve been watching and reading weather predictions from a new meteorological consulting firm, WeatherBell Analytics LLC, where Joe Bastardi, formerly of AccuWeather, said on April 2oth:

While the next 5 days sees another moderate outbreak of severe weather this weekend ( and the snow again on the northern side) its next week another lawyers, guns and money outbreak takes place. We are liable to see another 100 to 200 tornadoes before the month is out, making it the most active April ever. My reasoning for this is based on the major, and progressive, trough that swings into the plains early next week, and is leading a major crushing of the eastern ridge that will then take us into a May much like 2008 temp and precip wise.

It’s natural for people to want to find a reason when something bad happens and, all too often lately, the favorite culprit of anything bad in nature is climate change (aka global warming).  However, tornadoes are one feature of nature that is not predicted by global warming theory.  If anything, a warming globe would reduce the frequency of tornadoes.

It is well known that strong to violent tornado activity in the U.S. has decreased markedly since statistics began in the 1950s, which has also been a period of average warming. So, if anything, global warming causes FEWER tornado outbreaks…not more. In other words, more violent tornadoes would, if anything, be a sign of “global cooling”, not “global warming”.¹

The ever improving weather knowledge of forecasters and meteorologists doubtlessly gave sufficient warning that saved many lives this month.

With every passing day, it seems, more precise digital tools emerge to clarify the inner heart of a storm cell in rampage. And yet, for all that solid information, the natural world can still seem murky, unpredictable and downright scary when it roars into full-throated chaos.

Tornadoes in particular, researchers say, straddle the line between the known and the profoundly unknowable.²

__________

¹ MORE Tornadoes from Global Warming? That’s a Joke, Right? – Dr. Roy Spencer
² Predicting Tornadoes: It’s Still a Guessing Game – The New York Times

Skinner’s Saloon – Originally built on Yankee Flats, Cyrus Skinner moved this building to Bannack’s main street in the spring of 1863.  It became the popular gathering place for Sherriff Henry Plummer’s gang of road agents.  Skinner had left Bannack before the hanging of Plummer, but he was tracked down to a mining camp near present day Missoula and hanged for his purported role as a spy for the Plummer gang.  The building was later used for many years as a store.

Miscellaneous Bannack images:

_______

Bannack, Montana was founded in 1862 after a major gold discovery.  It served as the capital of Montana Territory briefly during the civil war.  The last residents left in the 1970s.

“Images from Bannack” are from July 30, 2010, our third visit to Bannack.

Note: This “lost” Haw Creek Out ‘n About post was recovered from the Internet Archive WayBack Machine.

(Click on any of the thumbnail images for larger versions of the photos)

We got a little bit of a late start on June 10th, a Sunday, when we headed for Madison for a picnic and a hike. It was a beautiful day and I was skeptical that we would be able to find an empty table at a park in the city. We were following our daughter, Jessica, and son-in-law, Shane — the grand-kids were with us. Since we had never been in Madison before, and didn’t have a clue where they were heading, it could have been very interesting. However, Shane drove slow so the “old man” following him — me! — could keep up and we ended up finding a table at Tenny Park, a small park near Lake Mendota on the Madison isthmus.

After the grand-kids were done playing following lunch, we headed out again. I really didn’t have a clue where we were going and, for a while wasn’t sure Shane did either. However, before long, we stopped at a University of Wisconsin gardens.

The Allen Centennial Gardens are open daily from dawn to dusk and there is no entrance fee. The gardens serves as a 2.5 acre outdoor classroom for the Department of Horticulture. Allen Centennial Gardens is centered around a beautiful Victorian gothic house known by several names, including “the Agricultural Dean’s Residence.” One of the first buildings on the agricultural campus, the house served as residence for the first four deans. Today it is home for the offices of the Agricultural Research Stations.

Allen Centennial Gardens was dedicated in October 1989. It was designed to compliment the house and existing plantings, including a larch tree planted in 1899. (See more at the Allen Centennial Garden web site.)

From the gardens, we walked past Porter Boathouse to the shore of Lake Mendota and took a pedestrian/bicycle path along the shore over to Memorial Union. Round trip, we walked a little under 2 miles. It was a nice stroll through the woods along the lake. There were a lot of other folks out walking, running, and bicycling.

Memorial Union is one of two buildings that comprise the Wisconsin Union. The other is Union South, located in another area of this very large campus. The Union is the “social, cultural, and recreational center of campus” and “serves as a daily gathering place for students, faculty, staff, community members, and visitors.”

The 19th annual Isthmus Jazz Fest was in it’s last few hours on the Memorial Union Terrace on Lake Mendota when we got there. We stopped inside for some ice cream and then went down by the lake with the grandkids while Professor Les Thimmig was playing the sax.

Note: This “lost” Haw Creek Out ‘n About post was recovered from the Internet Archive WayBack Machine.

This short clip is from our 5th floor hotel room in Norfolk, Virginia. Two hundred photos were taken at 5 second intervals and then spliced into a short time lapse movie.

While in a meeting on Monday, I received a call on my cell from my niece in Norfolk, Virginia.

My mom had passed away at home just a short while before.

It’s been a long, sad week.

On the positive side, of course, we were able to spend time with family that we don’t get to see very often.

A long sad week.