Category Archives: Weather/Climate

Plummeting Lake Travis

Posted on July 16, 2009 | Comments Off on Plummeting Lake Travis

All our triple digit days means the big lake in the Highlands chain is dropping 1.5 to 2 feet a week now, according to the LCRA:

1) 614.18′ set in August of 1951
2) 615.02′ set in November of 1963
3) 636.58′ set in October of 1984
4) 640.08′ set on July 13, 2009 639.53 set on July 17, 2009 (and falling)
5) 640.24′ set in October of 2000

But, as you can see, there’s still a long ways to go before it’s hitting real record territory. Some slight fauna and flora relief is in sight for the weekend, but probably nothing meaningful for the lake.

Via KVUE’s Mark Murray.

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Posted in Rancho Roly Poly, Sailing, Texana, Weather/Climate

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Noctilucent clouds

Posted on July 15, 2009 | Comments Off on Noctilucent clouds

‘Tis the season. The luminous blue-white tendrils of cloud spreading across the high sky are back. Although not, probably, as far south as Texas.

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Posted in Science/Engineering, Space, Weather/Climate

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Giving up on the black boxes

Posted on July 11, 2009 | Comments Off on Giving up on the black boxes

The U.S. Navy has stopped searching for the flight deck and data recorders that went down with the remains of Air France 447 in the Atlantic off Brazil. French surface ships gave up Friday, though a French submarine continues to prowl the depths, and there is talk of more searching begining July 14. So, with still no clear proof of what happened, let the speculation continue in earnest.

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Posted in Obituaries, Weather/Climate

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Lake Travis still falling

Posted on July 8, 2009 | Comments Off on Lake Travis still falling

The lake she is sinking like a stone, two feet lower than at the link there which was a week ago. I mean fifty-one percent of capacity? Whoa. On the other hand, we’ve been here before, just three years ago, in fact, and it’s not yet as low as it was in 2000. The important thing to remember about Texas, folks, is that, for us, drought is normal.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Rancho Roly Poly, Sailing, Texana, Weather/Climate

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Carbon Dioxide Mapping

Posted on July 4, 2009 | Comments Off on Carbon Dioxide Mapping

carbon-dioxide-map.jpg

You might think, with all the AGW hysteria, and the Dems rushing to double our electric bills, that the whole globe would be saturated in CO2. You would be wrong. Sure, this satellite mapping of the earth’s atmospheric distribution of carbon dioxide is a year old. But it’s also the first one ever made, and was assembled from data collected between ’02 and ’08. The first one ever made. Think about that for a minute. I’m no great hand at graphics, but it sure looks to me like the major culprits are California and China. So how about it Speaker Pelosi? How about starting by doubling your energy bills?

Via Baby Troll.

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Posted in Obamalot, Science/Engineering, Space, Weather/Climate

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“Traitor to the Earth”

Posted on July 3, 2009 | Comments Off on “Traitor to the Earth”

The NYTime’s shrill economist Paul Krugman is the latest shouter to accuse AGW critics of insufficient fealty to the planet. As if we had any place else to go, thanks to our greedy pols who effectively killed the space travel program after Apollo. Henceforth, we got low orbit "travel," and no more.

Here’s an easy-reading answer to Krugman, et al. Reminds me of a chat I had with a local meteorologist friend not long ago. He’s often told me how the best computer forecast models struggle with predicting Texas weather more than a few days out. The atmosphere is just too complicated.

Yet he believes in AGW predictions out to fifty years because "those arBut they did bloom about a week before we got some rain. Could the plants [be] sensing [a] pattern change?"

We can sure hope so. Slight chances of rain, after all, are forecast this weekend through next week.

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Posted in Weather/Climate

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Cats and dogs

Posted on June 30, 2009 | Comments Off on Cats and dogs

Rain, rain, glorious rain. Boy did it pour this morning. For a good ten minutes, overwhelming the gutters as always, raising anew the question of why we have gutters at all. Water even ponded in the Back Forty. It kept our high temp for the day at no more than 88 degrees. Whoo-hoo.

Mrs. Charm said she had left the "rain magnets" out, meaning the cushions on the aluminum chairs on the patio, and that must be what did it. Uh, actually it was a weak cold front. But, whatever. We’ll take it–especially considering that some people missed it altogether.

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Posted in Rancho Roly Poly, Weather/Climate

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