Category Archives: Weather

Frozen slurpee Waves

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Mrs. Charm and I were complaining today about how cold this winter has been in Central Texas and how it seems to be continuing with more forecast this week. It could be worse, as this photo off Massachusetts shows:

“The waves captured by photographer Jonathan Nimerfroh are so thick with ice that they’ve drawn comparisons to ‘Slurpees’ and other frozen beverages, but the texture and shape of the wave also suggest a giant, grey tongue, licking the shores of Nantucket.

“Here’s what the photographer had to say about his images: ‘When I pulled up to the beach I could see the horizon just look strange. When I got to the top off the dunes I saw that beginning about 300 yards away from the shoreline the ocean was starting to freeze.

“‘The high temp that day was around 19 degrees. The wind was howling from the southwest which would typically make rough or choppy conditions not so good for surfing, but since the surface of the sea was frozen slush the wind did not change the shape. What resulted was perfect, dreamy, slush waves. Most waves were around 2 feet with some larger sets slushing through around 3 foot or waist high. What an experience to be absolutely freezing on the beach watching these roll in while I mind-surfed them! I wonder if a shaper can make me a special designed slurfboard?

“‘The next day I drove up to see if they melted but beginning that same 300 yards away from shore the water had frozen solid and there were no waves at all. I’ve been asking all the fishermen and surfers I know if they have ever seen such a thing and they have all reported that this is a first, a result of it being the coldest winter we’ve had in 81 years. I guess the people I asked weren’t old enough to remember a colder winter than this!”

Still worried about your carbon footprint and the government’s illusory global warming?

Via WeatherBell’s Joe D’Aleo.

The atomic bomb: A rabbit shoot

I well remember Richard Feynman’s performance on the federal commission studying why the Challenger space shuttle blew up on takeoff in 1986. How simply he explained what no one else seemed to know, and thus wrapped up the precise cause spectacularly. On his own.

He died a year later, just 69. So I enjoyed this essay about Feynman, one of the men who built the first atomic bomb and later said of it: “It wasn’t a lion hunt, it was a rabbit shoot.” Just what you’d expect from the man who demonstrated, with a piece of rubber and a glass of ice water, why the Challenger went down.

Via A Brief History.

Snow in Jerusalem

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Prayers at the Western Wall continue even as the snow falls. Up to 40 centimeters (almost 16 inches) were expected overnight into Friday morning.

May the rains disperse the Texas curse

Forecast rain today and tomorrow will be more welcome than usual here at the Rancho. This winter’s round of cedar fever (which isn’t a fever and isn’t about cedar) has been a particularly bad one. Although they’re always bad enough.

The damn juniper (called mountain cedar) trees have been puffing out billows of pollen which only a rain can disperse. We’ve had several good rains but the damn pollen has always come back to give me another snoot-full.

If the Democrat/Obama economy wasn’t so rotten so many other places this annual curse would be cutting into our bumper-to-bumper traffic. Hasn’t noticeably so far, however.

A prayer is in order: May this rain finally do the trick.

Grandma was right

Bundle up or you’ll catch your death, grandmother used to say in the winter.

Mr. B. and his cronies prefer smug. And shorts and tee-shirts, whatever the temp. He already has a stuffed sinus and runny nose. Proof, once again, of the stupidity of youth.

Comes now research showing that, yes, indeed, when you get cold you are more receptive to infection by the rhinoviruses that cause the common cold.

“The colder we get, the easier it is for the rhinovirus to trounce us into sniffling, sneezing defeat.” Could be that’s why it’s called a “cold.” Ya think?

Which, nowadays, is mostly a nuisance, unless it morphs into the flu or pneumonia. Whereas, in grandma’s pre-antibiotic days of mainly empirical research, it could lead straight to the death-bed.

Via Instapundit.

Miserable weather

Cloudy, cold and rainy for the first two days start to the new year has things mopey around the rancho. All I want to do is sleep. At least the rain has washed most of the juniper pollen out of the air.

My cedar fever sneezing fits are almost down to zero. Making a snooze under warm covers, when the outside temp is around 40 degrees, even more appealing.

UPDATE: Could be worse. One drunk with a bottle rocket made 8,000 plus homeless in the Philippines. The rain made that impossible here.

The Texas Curse, early this year

My nose has been running and its itching causing sneezing fits for a week now and I know it ain’t a cold. It’s cedar fever, early this year. I can’t decide whether the light rain we’re having is keeping the culprit juniper pollen out of the air or making it worse.

How could it make it worse? Beats me. When the Texas Curse hits you try to reason why, but you fail because there’s no reasoning about it. You just pray it doesn’t last more than a few weeks. Shoot, even afflicted atheists pray it doesn’t last too long.

But even when it’s not in the air outdoors, the heating system has pulled it into the house and distributed it around. Even if you vacuumed and dusted, it’d still be around. I know. I’ve tried. Better to hunker down with a good book and lots of tissues. And wait it out.