A snowy April 2 in Los Alamos

This is the scene in our back yard as of an hour or so ago. That is, snowing heavily with 4-5" of accumulation in some places. I think it’s great. I believe I’ve mentioned before that the only acceptable weather conditions are blizzard and brilliantly sunny.

The branches covered in blossoms catch the snow best.

Los Alamos weather forecast confusion

Today's weather forecast. Note particularly "chance of precipitation" for today and tomorrow versus the "Regional Forecast". There is also a Winter Weather Advisory that I have not shown.

This dissonance happens all the time.

Los Alamos Sunrise

Sunrise in Los Alamos a few weeks ago. This is our back yard.

Post Irene

Last night around 6:30 the storm seemed to have pretty much wound down, so I went out for a walk around Fresh Pond.

Blossom in the street.

This tree had broken off. It has apparently blocked the road and been dragged out of the way already.

There were quite a lot of sticks and leaves strewn around the neighborhood.

This large tree was down across the path around Fresh Pond. (Note that the greenery in the background is standing, undamaged trees.)

After returning home, I paid less attention to the storm, which still gusted occasionally, and went about my business until it was time for bed. I looked out the windows (as I often do before bed) to discover this:

Fortunately, the car was undamaged. However, it seems my assumption that the storm was more or less over was incorrect – I'm pretty certain I would have noticed this when I returned from my walk about 8pm.

In the morning, there was a lot more tree damage in the neighborhood than I expected based on my observations of the storm. Perhaps we have wimpy trees around here? I've been in some pretty memorable windstorms while camping, and it sure didn't seem that Irene was as windy.

Street blocked off with some power lines down.

Another mess in the road.

Irene Interim Report

So far, Irene is pretty much a non-event in my neighborhood. Currently, winds at ground level are breezy, and often calm. At treetop level, my (inexperienced) guess is that the steady wind is Beaufort force 5 (18-24mph) with gusts of force 7 or 8 (31-46mph). This is significantly less than was expected now, though it's supposed to continue building until 5 or 6pm. The rain has stopped (it was never heavy after I got up today) and radar suggests there won't be much, if any, more. I've opened some windows because it is stuffy and humid in the house (88% according to our thermostat).

Things seemed pretty safe outside, so I went out to poke around.

The most “serious” damage I saw, around the corner from our house. The broken branch is touching some power lines, so there'll be some attention needed on that. (The car is undamaged, and it had been moved by the time I came by again on my return.)

I did not know there was an apple tree in the park.

Berries down!

Another big branch down in the park.

Hurricane Irene Is Nearly Here

This weekend has a bit of an impending doom aspect to it, due to the approach of Hurricane Irene. I've never experienced a significant tropical cyclone, and while it will be quite cool in many ways, I suspect, I would prefer to pass. Anyway, here's the status as of early evening here in Cambridge, Mass.

Radar image from Wunderground as of a few minutes ago. Note that radar does not extend too far out to sea, so a significant portion of the storm is omitted.

First off, while the radar image above looks quite dramatic, the likelihood of a disastrous event here is very low. Storm surge will be low (and our house is at sufficient elevation to be safe from all but extreme storm surges), and wind will be exciting but significant destruction is unlikely (more on that below). We're on a bit of a hill, so flooding from rain should not be a problem. I suspect loss of power to be more likely than not, and that will be annoying.

Storm track prediction from the National Hurricane Center's series of advisories for Irene.

Irene is approaching from the south. The currently expected track, as seen above, is for the center of the storm to pass through the center of the state, and for it to be a tropical storm with sustained winds of 70 MPH, gusting to 85; of course, wind here in Cambridge is expected to be less.

I am not a fan of wind.* I find it unnerving and ominous, much more so than rain or lightning. And this house rattles and creaks rather unpleasantly in high winds. My biggest fear is that the wind will knock over the house. Of course, the actual odds of this happening are essentially zero. I read up on wind damage thresholds, and stick-built houses are good for a lot more than a tropical storm several miles inland. Plus, this house is 100 years old and has been through a lot. Finally, I haven't seen anyone boarding up windows anywhere. Even losing the roof is quite unlikely, I believe.

Anyway, for these reasons I have been paying a lot of attention to the wind forecast. Weatherspark (which uses NOAA predictions just like the NHC) has this to say about the wind (note log scale):

Couple of observations on this prediction. First, the inflection point on the wind, where it kicks up from calmish (15mph) to pretty windy (30mph) is between 4 and 5 am. Ugh! I strongly suspect it will wake me up. Peak sustained wind (52mph, with gusts beyond that of course) is at 5pm. It then drops off more rapidly than it built up, but still doesn't calm down until after midnight. We'll see how I feel, but I suspect I won't be able to sleep until it's clearly winding down, so it's looking like a long day, unfortunately.

The NHC also publishes maps which I won't bore you with but which estimate the probability of hurricane-force winds (74mph sustained) at zero percent, 50-knot winds (58mph) at 20%, and tropical-storm force (39mph) at 70%. I think it would be cool if I could look up a probability distribution for my location (and I suspect the NHC's data would support this).

I have plenty of food, cat food, and water (10 gallons potable plus a bathtubful that is a tad grimy). Flashlights are a dime a dozen in this household given our adventure habit, and I've got plenty of charged batteries. My cell phone has Internet connectivity. Potted plants and junk on the deck is inside. I'll wear shoes throughout the day in case I suddenly need to clean up glass.

I think it will basically be a rainy day at home with extra drama, and hopefully not too much extra drama. See my Twitter stream for updates and hopefully some interesting photos.

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* No pun intended.

If You Are Interested in Facts, Not Fear, About the Japanese Nuclear Incident

What is going on with the Japanese nuclear reactor is certainly bad news, but it is by no means a major catastrophe. Loss of life and damage caused by the actual earthquake and tsunami is far, far, far greater even under a worst-case scenario (and the most likely scenario is essentially zero effect on Japanese people and minimal effect on even the workers themselves).

It is very distressing to me that Americans so fear-oriented about nuclear matters. The greatest risk of this incident to humans and the environment has nothing to do with the nuclear incident itself but rather the higher use of coal, petroleum, and other dirty energy sources that nuclear power could otherwise displace. For example, coal electrical generation kills thousands of people per year via pollution, and the economic cost is estimated at $500 billion dollars [source].

(The situation w.r.t. terrorism is very similar -- e.g., the TSA has unquestionably caused a net loss of life because they make people more likely to drive, which is riskier than flying, and their procedures do little to actually protect us from terrorism.)

Anyway, if you're interested in facts, not fear, about the nuclear incident (which I hope you are), here are a couple of sources which I am finding extremely helpful and easy to understand. They both have RSS feeds.

• MIT NSE Nuclear Information Hub
• Plain English Nuclear

What Causes This?

What causes this weird striped sidewalk drying?

Snowmaggedon II

This Wednesday we had a major winter storm, one of these famous nor'easters that we keep hearing about (maybe?). It left us with a lot of snow, well over a foot and maybe pushing twenty inches, with lots of drifting.

It was the second major storm of the season. The day after Christmas we also got about a foot of snow, but almost all of that had melted; just the big snow piles were left.

The first batch of photos were taken during my morning commute (yes, I did go to work - the roads were pretty much impassable but the T was running fine).

This second group is from my evening commute.

Clouds

Some storm clouds rolling through this evening.

Domestic Geo-engineering

After 3" of rain in about an hour yesterday, there's more on the way this evening.

Due to the significant water in the basement yesterday, most of which arrived via puddles climbing over the bottom of the basement windows, this afternoon I cleaned out the gutters and just now did some engineering work outside the windows in question.

Northrop Auditorium

Incoming!

Here's the current Minneapolis weather forecast from wunderground. Hmmmmm.

	Tonight Snow. Snow accumulation around 4 inches. Lows around 25. East winds 10 to 15 mph.
	Thursday Snow. Snow accumulation of 5 to 6 inches. Highs around 30. Northeast winds 10 to 15 mph.
	Thursday Night Snow. Areas of blowing and drifting snow. Snow accumulation of 6 to 7 inches. Lows 25 to 30. Northeast winds 15 to 20 mph.
	Christmas Day Snow. Areas of blowing and drifting snow. Snow accumulation of 3 to 4 inches. Highs around 30. Northeast winds 15 to 20 mph.
	Friday Night Snow. Snow accumulation of 1 to 2 inches. Storm total snow accumulation of 19 to 21 inches. Lows around 20. North winds 10 to 15 mph.
	Saturday Cloudy with snow likely. Snow accumulation of 1 to 2 inches. Total snow accumulation 20 to 25 inches. Highs around 25. Chance of snow 70 percent.
	Saturday Night Cloudy with a 50 percent chance of snow. Lows around 15.

Bad Weather

The lake outside our cabin (Farm Lake) spent a lot of time looking like this.

A Dreary Morning

This is all that's left of the Hulk Hogan's Pastamania building and its neighbor to the north. The lots have been seeded with grass, so I suppose there's no plans to build anything in the near future.

Snow Cave

It's been warm lately. I had no idea this big pile of snow was hollow. Note the discarded shovel head.

Project 100, #63.

Cold

On Tuesday, it sleeted and rained all day. On Tuesday night, we had high winds and blowing snow. It wasn't all that cold, so I was sweating from being bundled up, but I couldn't un-bundle due to the icy snow-filled wind. It was kind of a nasty commute home.

On Wednesday morning, it was below zero when I got up.


This is my street on Wednesday around 11am when I was going in to school. It was about 10 or 12 degrees.

Project 100, #54.

Project 100, #4: Cold

This was the thermometer outside our window this morning.

I don't think of -20 as exceptionally cold any more. Sure, it's cold, but "really cold" starts at -30. I wonder if "really cold" only happens to other people?

According to the Internet, the low in our neighborhood was -22. The blue bar could be stuck, or perhaps it was slightly warmer at our house.

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In other news, the photo I posted a few days ago (at right) was selected out of 20 or so entries as the winner of "Weekly Challenge #84" over at pentaxforums.com.