Category Archives: Weather/Climate

Wildfire danger

Posted on June 4, 2008 | Comments Off on Wildfire danger

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Meteorologists are saying our high winds, with gusts to 25 mph, bring back memories of the Dust Bowl era. I guess you’d have to be in your eighties to know for sure. But just being outside last evening, while Mr. B.’s tournament team practiced for its first game next week, I got a thin coating of dust. Got some in my eyes when I took my glasses off. Seen here, the Austin area is still in moderate fire danger, but high danger is creeping eastward towards us. The wind, the dry and the heatwave are combining to make it so.

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Posted in Mr. Boy, Texana, Weather/Climate

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Fry Pan Olympics

Posted on June 3, 2008 | Comments Off on Fry Pan Olympics

We’ve had four five 100-degree days (and a slew of ninety-nines) already this year, according to the National Weather Service, and June has hardly begun. Usually we don’t see more than a fluke one of them before early July. Accuweather’s Joe Bastardi is calling this weather our Fry Pan Olympics. Sure feels like it.

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Posted in Texana, Weather/Climate

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The heat is on

Posted on May 31, 2008 | Comments Off on The heat is on

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After today’s second scrimmage for the Northwest Austin Little League’s Blue team, the team mom passed out watermelon slices. The temperature was, then, close to a hundred degrees, and the kids were clearly wilting. So the scrimmage was halted after three innings. Mr. B., who is playing right field when he isn’t warming the bench (there are twelve players) got a hit but was thrown out at first. Did better yesterday, with a single, a walk and a run. Tomorrow’s third scrimmage is expected to be even hotter. So who knows how long it will last. Summer’s brutality is early this year, and the meteorologists are saying that only the rain from a hurricane or tropical storm can cool us off now. After a week of high nineties, even the St. Augustine grass at the rancho is turning crispy.

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Posted in Mr. Boy, Texana, Weather/Climate

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Eco-tourists trapped in ice

Posted on May 29, 2008 | Comments Off on Eco-tourists trapped in ice

They wanted to see the Arctic Sea ice before global warming made it all disappear. But when they got there, it didn’t seem to be in a hurry to melt.

A hoot from Rene’s Apple.

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Posted in Weather/Climate

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Chance of rain

Posted on May 27, 2008 | Comments Off on Chance of rain

That would be nice, but, so far, the radar shows most of it well to our north. What a strange May, as even LCRA meterologist Bob Rose admits, with evidence:

"…according to Dr. John Nielson-Gammon, the Texas State Climatologist, for the Central Texas region as a whole, this May is on track to be the 7th driest on record, the 13th driest March through May period on record, and the 7th driest December through May period on record. So if you think the weather has been a little unusual lately, you’re right."

So, come on rain. We need you.

UPDATE:  Well, there’s hope in River City. The temperature at the rancho has dropped twenty degrees in the last twenty minutes. An hour or so later, we had a brief shower. Pleasant, anyhow.

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Posted in Texana, Weather/Climate

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Another scorcher

Posted on May 22, 2008 | Comments Off on Another scorcher

KVUE meteorologists are predicting another unseasonably hot day, with a high of 97 degrees and a low in the 70s overnight, and similar temps through what has usually been a cool and wet Memorial Day weekend. That should bring smiles to the Global Warming apocolyptees, though these warm and cool periods came and went long before anyone heard of the Gorebot and his minions. And with cooling oceans, a decline in the average worldwide land temperature and the U.S. average temeprature, a thickening of the pack ice in the Arctic and more hints of global cooling, GW is looking more like a fraud every day.

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Posted in Texana, Weather/Climate

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Surviving a tornado

Posted on May 17, 2008 | Comments Off on Surviving a tornado

Tom Higdon, an old Army buddy in Newtonia, MO, finally checks in with our email group to say that his family survived the tornadoes that killed twenty-one people in Southwest Missouri and Oklahoma on the night of May 10:

"WE are okay for the most part. Lost a garage, but the house pulled through. Newtonia is a war zone for sure. No injuries, but unbelievable destruction all over….No phone service since last Saturday until today…The tornado destroyed about 15 homes in the other end of town and damaged all others. We were very lucky on this one. We lost about 15 trees and everything not tied down in the yard. Yard and field are a mess." 

As always in these kinds of natural disasters, if you want to help, you should donate to the Red Cross (Missouri address here) or the Salvation Army nearest you. 

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Posted in Infantry OCS, Viet Nam, Weather/Climate

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