Pleased to bring you the weather report from my area:
We had a microburst here last night. I was in the shower and it felt like someone was hitting the roof with a sledgehammer. I got out of the shower and found Lily and the pups smashed between the toilet and the wall hiding. It was so pathetic looking I just laughed.
At any rate, all sorts of landslides, rock slides, flash flooding, and the like. It’s just a hot mess out there.
Oh, and this is kind of gross, but funny. I woke up this morning and Lovey was sleeping on my chest and had left a puddle of drool. Dear sweet little baby jeebus, lying there in your ghost manger, I hope it was drool.
donnah
I left perfectly lovely, warm weather in SW Ohio to teach a workshop in Rochester, NY and found remnants of snow piles and blustery rainy cold crap. If it’s cold and rainy when I get home tomorrow, I’m going to shoot myself.
Zinsky
Hoping to see a little sunshine here in Minnesota. It’s been 10 days or more since we’ve seen the sun. Peace to all.
HinTN
It poured here, with lightning and thunder around 0400. Our guy was out in it and dishing wet when I called him to come in.
Jerzy Russian
Cut Lovey some slack. Who among us here doesn’t leave puddles of drool(?) wherever we sleep?
Tommy
@donnah: That Forest Gump clip, I get it. We’ve had for the last week thunderstorm warnings. My phone and alerts is freaking out. I kid you not it rained I think sideways the other day. Hail. Storms that would amaze you in areas that need rain.
OzarkHillbilly
You are now getting what we had over the past 3 days. On Wednesday we got a Severe Thunderstorm warning (with my house in the bullseye) with reports of baseball sized hail, than an updated Tornado warning where they spotted one about 10 miles south of me. Fortunately the hail petered out before it got to me and the one and (apparently) only tornado never touched down.
May you be as fortunate as well.
Mustang Bobby
Calm and quiet here in South Florida. Actually, we could use some rain; the lawn is looking a little like granola, and it’s not helped by the piles of peacock poop scattered around like land mines.
ThresherK
The rain has arrived here from other places, like WV. Itching for more springlike goodness, and they say we may get it this weekend.
The taxes we file this year will be our most complex ever owing to our first experience with some not-unusual things. (And this doesn’t even rise to the level of “I work in one state and live in another” or “I work out of my home”. We are a W2 family all the way.)
But it’s funny how I don’t trust any politician who promises to make my taxes simple will make them fair at the same time. #FileOnAPostcard!
ETA: Opened my giftbox of Samoas and immediately started looking up “Samoas recipes”.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Zinsky: Meh. I’ve been perfectly happy without that evil, bright object in the sky that makes you squint and gives you cancer.
It’s enough to make me go home and go to bed.
OzarkHillbilly
@OzarkHillbilly: That storm was so impressive I videotaped the clouds. They were definitely rotating clockwise tho a long ways from forming a funnel. Didn’t surprise me in the least when the Tornado Warning followed 15 mins later.
ThresherK
Uh-oh: Cue the cries of No, we meant religious religious!
OzarkHillbilly
@ThresherK: They don’t really believe in freedom OF religion, they believe in freedom FOR religion, and to be specific, theirs.
Mustang Bobby
@OzarkHillbilly: Like the legislator in Louisiana when she found out that religious charter schools could possibly include Muslims, said, “Religious means ‘Christian.'”
Elizabelle
I’m all about freedom from religion.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mustang Bobby: I should point out, from the last thread, I was born towards the end of Ike’s time. I think I’m about 7 years your junior.
WereBear
We’ve had snow.
I know.
JPL
Poor pups. Are you sure that Rosie didn’t tell them about the rapture and being left behind.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: It took a while to touch down, but it finally did
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: Yeah, I read that.
satby
On the other side of the pond we call Lake Michigan, gale force winds but no significant damage around me. Still very windy but not as bad as overnight.
Iowa Old Lady
@ThresherK: All I can say is good for the legislature for inviting her. But really, a third boycotted? Were they afraid of Wiccan cooties?
WereBear
Yes.
Baud
@Iowa Old Lady:
They were afraid of being turned into newts.
They failed to realize that it would be an improvement.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
I heard they could see the tornado 18 miles away.
The lightning here on Wednesday was the scariest in years. I drove home from work through it and wasn’t sure I wouldn’t get hit.
raven
The Forest Gump in Vietnam is based on the story of Sammy L. Davis, U.S. Army Battery C, 2nd Battalion,4th Artillery, 9th Infantry Division. I’ve met Sammy a couple of times and he is a really good dude. His speech at a fundraiser for the Women’s Monument at the Wall was one of the funniest things I have ever heard!
Mustang Bobby
@BillinGlendaleCA: Get off my lawn, you young whippersnapper.
geg6
Yup, we got some good storms last night and still a little bit this morning. Koda was attached to me like velcro. And wasn’t happy at all when I left this morning in the rain.
Weather people tell me that it is supposed to clear up this afternoon. I sure hope so. The daffodils have bloomed and the grass is greening and I’m really ready for some real live spring.
Roger Moore
@ThresherK:
When they say “religion” you should always read “Protestantism”.
@Baud:
Sorry, but one Gingrich is too many already. I don’t want any more, thank you very much.
geg6
@BillinGlendaleCA:
We must be about the same age. 1958 here.
raven
@geg6: babysan
S-Curve
One of the good things about our dog going blind and deaf in old age is that she doesn’t get afraid during thunderstorms anymore. Of course, she doesn’t know that there ARE thunderstorms anymore.
Mustang Bobby
@raven: When one of my colleagues bemoaned the fact that she was turning forty, I told her that my mustache is older than that.
raven
@Mustang Bobby: I likey
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: I had a lightning strike on my property a week and a half ago a few hundred feet from my house (half the trees around it have lightning scars) that caused my chicks to stampede and 3 got smothered. I found the tree and it is an impressive site. There’s a slash 30 feet down the tree ending in a foot diameter and deep hole in the ground. Threw splinters for hundreds of feet, some as big as 8 feet long.
Ahh yes, spring time in the Ozarks, gotta love it.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
Too scary.
germy shoemangler
@OzarkHillbilly: I wonder if lightning strikes like that were responsible for early man’s belief in a god and the subsequent creation of religions (with rules and regulations)?
Baud
@germy shoemangler:
I’m sure of it. Not just lightening, but all of nature. We are so inured to having a scientific mindset, but without it, the natural world (including the heavens) is amazingly mysterious.
OzarkHillbilly
@germy shoemangler: I think man looked around and saw that none of this sh!t made any kind of sense and decided to create a bunch of Gods so he could have somebody to blame. Now we have whittled it down to just one and we say, “It’s in God’s hands now.”
Translation: “We are so fwcked.”
gelfling545
Thunder, lightning & Flora having a conniptions in her cozy lair. She had never heard thunder before. I see this am there is standing water in my yard, a thing that almost never happens as it usually drains off into the pond. 60 degrees though which, considering it was below zero not too many weeks ago, is a plus. I’m off to Tai Chi now.
Trinity
Bless Lovey’s little heart.
It was probably drool, though with your luck…
germy shoemangler
@Baud: In ancient times, before light pollution, the night sky was a spectacular thing. I read that the milky way was so bright it actually cast a shadow!
“In Galileo’s time people assumed that the Milky Way must be some kind of continuous substance. It truly resembled a streak of spilled liquid—our word “galaxy” comes from the Greek for milk—and it was so bright that it cast shadows on the ground (as did Jupiter and Venus). Today, by contrast, most Americans are unable to see the Milky Way in the sky above the place where they live, and those who can see it are sometimes baffled by its name.”
raven
@germy shoemangler:
Lou Christie – Lightnin’ Strikes
germy shoemangler
@OzarkHillbilly: I agree with that translation.
Baud
@germy shoemangler: I know! Two of the things on my bucket list are (1) see the Milky Way away from light pollution and (2) see an Aurora Borealis.
BillinGlendaleCA
@geg6: I’m early 1960.
BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: I’ve got a walker if you need it.
raven
@Baud: My second cuz and family just went to Longyearbyen, Norway to shoot the Northern Lights and the eclipse. Enjoy.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I would suggest Moorea(a few miles north of Tahiti) for the first.
Gin & Tonic
@BillinGlendaleCA: Kids.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: They are both well worth the trip, tho saying the Milky Way could cast shadows is a little hyperbolic.
OzarkHillbilly
@BillinGlendaleCA: The high desert (5000’+) and anything above 10,000 feet are both spectacular.
MomSense
@Baud:
Washington County, Maine will make your dreams come true. Also, too the blueberries are delicious. They are eat them in handfuls like a little kid and end up with a blue face, hands, and teeth good.
Elizabelle
Meanwhile, pictorial of how much water level has fallen in California’s lakes and reservoirs. Boat docks on dry land; piers overlooking water a distance away. This is scary. LA Times.
Elizabelle
@MomSense: OK. Washington County, Maine goes on the 5 year bucket list.
OzarkHillbilly
@MomSense: Just don’t forget to keep an eye out for bears. ;-)
Mike E
@OzarkHillbilly: A full moon 8,000′ up in The Rockies certainly rivals any lighted (sub)urban street.
Pogonip
Cole, thanks for the pupdates!
Paul in KY
@OzarkHillbilly: That’s how most people actually die in a lightning strike: shrapnel from a hit tree.
OzarkHillbilly
@Mike E: It is unbelievable how bright and sharp the moon can be at elevation.
ThresherK
@OzarkHillbilly: Winter in Yellowstone Park. To my suburban eyes the sky I could see at night there was revelation.
geg6
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Oh, you’re just a baby! ;-)
Elmo
@OzarkHillbilly: And the dimmer stars sitting by the horizon, that would be utterly invisible at sea level just because of the increased humidity in the air if nothing else. I miss my mountains.
Paul in KY
@germy shoemangler: Good point, but I think you also have to imagine how bright & awe-inspiring the night sky was (no light pollution at all).
Edit: See I am preaching to the choir :-)
MomSense
@OzarkHillbilly:
I had my only bear run in way down in York County, the part of Maine referred to as Epcot Centah by the old timers from the north.
sparrow
Can any BJ gardeners help me out? I live on the 4th floor of an old brick apartment building, and I put out a nice flowerbox on my window ledge (properly bolted down). I filled it with some very nice flowers like ranunculii, something that smells very sweet, and pansies. This morning I came down and let out a little shreak as I entered the kitchen, because something had come along and ate all of the flowers (except the green parts of the pansies) down to the dirt. I was really heartbroken!
So what kind of animal is this? I can’t imagine a bird eating big old flower heads and stems (these were pretty big plants already), so all that I’ve got is squirrels (they occasionally like to run along the ledge under our windows, freaking out the cats big time). I consider this a declaration of war, so I’m going to replant and try to cover them with some kind of netting, and also spray deer/rabbit/squirrel repellant all over the place.
The strange thing is that I was growing all kinds of flowers and herbs out of window boxes last year with no problem! What is the horrible pest?
WaterGirl
@debbie: Two mornings ago we had the craziest lighting I have ever seen. Flash flash flash flash flash like a strobe light for about 10 or 15 minutes, then the hail started.
It was worrisome enough even being inside, I would not have wanted to be driving in it. Glad you made it home safe.
debbie
@WaterGirl:
Strobing’s a great description for the lightning. If this keeps up, I’ll be spending a lot of time in the basement this summer.
Another Holocene Human
Hi. I didn’t fall off the face of the earth; my schedule at work changed.
Thanks to Florida weather I learned that those surge protectors for your coax cables are not a silly ripoff when lightning struck a nearby building and my modem and computer (and a lot of other peoples modems, cable boxes, and tvs) were fried. It’s an area with new-ish electrical wiring. The lights did not so much as flicker.
Fuck you, Comcast. Circuit breakers, ya heard of them? Fuck you very much.
Jerzy Russian
@sparrow: Perhaps you have a raccoon or two? They are pretty good climbers. I don’t know if they are big on eating plants, but they are surprisingly common in urban areas. Also, too, they come out mostly at night, which is when this crime apparently happened.
WaterGirl
@debbie: I’m going to wish I had a basement!
Another Holocene Human
@WaterGirl: If your car is made of metal you’d probably be more secure in the car than in the house.
Not sure about plastic. Eh. It’s a crummy conductor and a crummy insulator. (You want conductor, the car surrounds you and becomes a Faraday cage. Sort of. Good enough to keep God-class static electricity off of you.)
debbie
@Another Holocene Human:
And of course, there’s no danger of veering off the road from fright!
WaterGirl
@Another Holocene Human: Yeah, and when you get the surge protector, look for one that tells you how many thousands of dollars of lost equipment costs they will pay out if their surge protector fails. Read the fine print about what you documentation you need in order to file a claim, and keep your receipt. I had to do that once and got the full 15,000 reimbursement.
Another Holocene Human
@WaterGirl: I will do that! Damn. My insurance company sure as heck wasn’t putting themselves out for that much. (I did get some money back, paid for the computer I’m using today.)
Do you recommend any brands?
@debbie: Hey, I didn’t say anything about driving. :) Those microbursts can be deadly on the ground too. Highway overhangs are nice.
I used to work in an operations-admin job where I would get into it with the upper bosses (who never had a CDL) over what wind speed was too dangerous to have our fleet driving in. They set some arbitrary (hurricane) number for their emergency management plan but tree limbs start flying, cars start crashing into you, and big vehicles turn into sailboats at much lower sustained winds (look out for the gusts).
debbie
@Another Holocene Human:
Overhang, underpass, nowhere is safe, frankly.
Pity you couldn’t have shown your bosses this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHBZylcxIvw
delk
I’ve lived in Chicago for over 50 years and yesterday was the first time I ever heard them asking us to not use dishwashers or washing machines during the day so the sewers will be able to handle the rain water.
The city was oddly quiet, and warm (70 degrees) while all the craziness was happening 80 miles away.
delk
@Another Holocene Human: It’s also a good habit to take a picture of everything (plus it’s model and serial numbers) that you plug into the surge protector. Receipts too, if you have them.
WaterGirl
@Another Holocene Human:
TrippLite Isobar is was the one that made the payout in my case.
I have mostly been out of the IT game for the past 5 years or so, perhaps some of the current IT folks will jump in with a different recommendation.
Jay C
@Another Holocene Human:
When we built our summer place in Western MA, I insisted (even though our architect and builder both thought it was an odd request) on installing a full UL-standard lightning-rod system. It was an extra $4000 (It’s a sprawling house), but I figured the cost was 1) trivial to the entire budget and 2) way less than the cost (even w/ insurance) of replacing all the house electronic/repairing lightning damage. Works, too: in 13 years the house has been hit by lightning three times – or so my wife tells me: strangely, I was absent all three times.
Roger Moore
@Another Holocene Human:
They’ve also been known to flood and turn into death traps.
J R in WV
We had a huge hickory tree up on a ridge get struck by a monumental lightning strike – a hundred yards away and 90 feet or more down the hill we were astounded by the flash and simultaneous bang.
The next day I went up to look to see what had been hit – the tree’s bark layer was nearly 2 inches thick, hard and dry, and 2 or more inches from the tree trunk. The liquids in the sap vaporized and forced the bark away. The tree was dead instantly, and fell apart that summer, it was totally gone in less than a year.
Mrs J was driving home from work in the wee hours once during a serious storm when her car was struck on the highest ridge around us, it was a 1978 Rabbit diesel, and kept right on running. She was shook up, but was really only about 3 miles from home, all downhill off the high ridge. Tires are a good insulator, normally!
The guy who installed our solar package in AZ told of putting a complete lightning arrester system on a house on a high ridge, the house had been there for years, never struck by lightning ever. But after the rods went on, they were struck several times the first “monsoon” season, August-September.
They had Bruce come back and take the new expensive system off their house, and haven’t been hit again since. So perhaps that copper path to ground from your roof peaks can actually draw lightening that would otherwise hit somewhere else nearby. Research with lightning is hard to do, they use small rockets pulling copper wires to attract it, which defeats the purpose if you’re studying arrester rod systems.
seefleur
@Elizabelle: And if you make it to Maine – check out northern Maine. The Milky Way viewed from the Allagash Wilderness Waterway is truly spectacular – no light-pollution at all.
Jamey
Joni Ernst?
Jebediah, RBG
@Jay C:
You misspelled “suspiciously.”
satby
@Baud: I got the Milky Way most nights, and the Aurora is on my list too!