polymania

Another turbulent, windy day here in the Front Range today. Here's a glance at the NWS Boulder forecast discussion:

FXUS65 KBOU 292146
AFDBOU

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DENVER CO
245 PM MST THU DEC 29 2005

.SHORT TERM...UPPER TROF CONTINUES TO MOVE ACROSS SOUTHERN WYOMING
WITH ASSOCIATED SURFACE FRONT THROUGH LOGAN AND WASHINGTON COUNTIES.
TIGHT GRADIENT ACROSS THE AREA...WITH BORA SITUATION ACROSS THE
PLAINS. CURRENT GUSTS ARE BELOW HIGH WIND CRITERA. LATEST MODELS
SHOWING 850 MB WINDS AT 30 KTS THROUGH 00Z...THEN DROPS OFF AFTER
THAT. SO...HIGH WIND EVENT MARGINAL AT BEST AND NO HILITES AT THIS
TIME. AS GRADIENT RELAXES THIS EVENING...WINDS SHOULD DECREASE AS
WELL.

I quickly realized that I didn't really know what a "Bora situation" was. I mean, I know it's one of those named winds of the world, but I wasn't even sure where it occurs and what specific meteorological phenomenon it refers to. With a little research (and remembering that an old acquaintance of mine, Jan Null, wrote an article for Weatherwise about it some years ago), I learned that it's basically a wintertine katabatic (downslope) wind of the Balkans and the northeast coast of the Adriatic in the Mediterranean. The name Bora is derived from the Greek God of the North Wind, Bureas, since the wind as it is experienced always seems to be from the north. It can be quite strong at times, as it originates at elevation in the Balkan Alps and the plateaus of western Russia, and descends rapidly to the sea through mountain valleys. The cold air, although warming adiabatically in its descent, is still too cold to be warmed as much as the air it displaces, and so often is felt as a cold wind nonetheless.

This certainly jibes with my experience today. The temp at 7 am was actually 50, but cooled about 5-7 degrees afterwards as the Bora situation began in earnest. You learn something new every day.

tags: meteorology wind weather

Not to belittle anyone's plane travel horror story, but this one has to be up there as one of the worst ever. A 45 hour delay? Oy.

Via View From The Wing.


tags: Travel

Cindy and I drove back from Kansas City today. Some ideas and musings that we had in the 10+ hours it took to get home...

• K-State. We passed the exit for Manhattan, home of KSU. I recounted for Cindy my lone experience there, from 8th grade as a visiting member of a student orchestra, over 20 years ago. It's such a contrast to my experiences with KU in Lawrence, where I went dozens of times, including high school music camps and visits with relatives who were students there. It's funny to me (actually Cindy) how KSU is so vilified in my family circle, when in reality it's just a mid-sized state university in a remote small town in central Kansas.
  
• The Sternberg Museum in Hays, KS. We stopped here for a pleasant hour-long visit during the trip back today. It's a somewhat ironic museum, through no fault of its own, if only because it is one with a fine collection of prehistoric fossils smack dab in the center of a state whose Board of Education makes dismissive, sneering commentary at the notions of biological evolution and Deep Time.
• Exit 272, I-70 KS. Here, just outside Abilene, you'll find the "Lion's Den" adult superstore, whose large signpost is flanked by billboards put up by the local church pleading people not to go in there. The billboards have a quote to the effect that God is everywhere, watching everything. Presumably that includes God surveying the latest content offered on the racks inside the store. No prurient interest of course - merely factfinding, just like the store shoppers. In any case, why do such strongly Republican states like Kansas and Wyoming have such successful porn vendors there? I guess that's your wholesome red-state values in a nutshell.
  
• An extremely windy day in western KS for our drive, with lots of tumbleweeds blowing evocatively across the freeway. Cindy got to wondering what a tumbleweed looks like, and where they grow, before they go a-tumbling. I have no idea - I never see areas that have bushes that look anything like potential tumbleweeds. I guess I'll have to look that up sometime.
• To kill time on the drive we started talking about TV shows we watched as kids. (We've talked about this before, but never in such detail.) What shocked us both was the length of the list of shows we both watched - how did we ever do anything but watch TV, having seen all that television?
  
• You can see Pikes Peak from I-70 as far as 15 miles east of Limon. My estimate from looking at my Raven map of Colorado is that that mountaintop is 88 miles away at that point. For some reason I just love factoids like that.

tags: Road Trips Colorado

Because I have a few moments to spare here on Christmas Day, here's another blog meme I came across on Washington Monthly a couple days ago....

Four jobs you've had in your life: lawn cutter, car washer for Enterprise, "Shelter Tech" at the Humane Society, software engineer

Four movies you could watch over and over: Dumb and Dumber, Tremors, Fellowship of the Ring, Field of Dreams

Four places you've lived: Kansas City, Tucson, Austin, Santa Cruz

Four TV shows you love to watch: Alias, Colbert Report, Pardon the Interruption, Arrested Development

Four places you've been on vacation: Costa Rica, Hawaii, Death Valley, Berlin

Four websites you visit daily: Daily Kos, Meteostar, SFgate.com, Royals.com message board

Four of your favorite foods: Poptarts, pecan pie, seafood enchiladas, saag paneer

Four places you'd rather be: New Zealand, Hawaii, Italy, California


tags: blog memes

You may recall my earlier posts about the laborious Pikes Peak Ascent and my flirtation with electrically-induced doom on Mt Bierstadt this summer. But not all my mountain experiences were so harrowing and overwrought. Yes, I actually had some pleasant times this year too, my first year in Mile-High Country. Here's a brief recollection of some of these happier times in 2005....

January 7 - on the hogback ridge separating Fort Collins from Horsetooth Reservoir. A nice place to go, especially since it's only a 40-minute walk from our house. In fact, on the right is a pic I took through my spotting scope of our house from the ridgetop - basically just turning the other way from the view on the left.

=============================================================

January 16 - Cindy and I went snowshoeing in Rocky Mountain National Park, at Bear Lake. Snowshoeing was a wonderful discovery - a very inexpensive activity that gets you out of the house and in the woods, even in the middle of winter. I know, a lot of people ski, but for me, this was a novelty. It also helps us actually look forward to colder weather and snow. It's not good to dread the inevitable.

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June 28 - we continued training for the Pikes Peak Ascent by doing more hikes in RMNP. Here we hiked up Twin Sisters, a grouping of peaks just east of Longs Peak which rise to about 11,000 feet. This hike proved to be much easier than we expected - we made the summit in about 3 hours, on a gorgeous day and with very few other people on the trail.

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September 4 - Perhaps our most successful and enjoyable summit experience this year was Mount Audubon. Audubon rises to about 13,200 feet, with about 3000 feet elevation gain on the trail. It's not a particularly difficult hike, but the trail is beautiful, and the mountain's location amid the Indian Peaks make it a fantastic summit. The hike is about 4-5 miles each way.

Part of what makes any hike special are the unexpected wildlife moments. On our way up we encountered this pika busily gathering materials for its winter nesting. Cute. We also came across a pair of White-tailed Ptarmigans not far from the trail. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of them to show you. Other birds seen up there included Pipits and Bluebirds.

We eventually reached the very windy summit, and judging from the multiple rock shelters strewn about (see right), it's safe to assume that that's often the case. Once there, we picked our favorite shelter and had lunch, but also took some time for a few pose shots. I'm on the right leaning into the wind. The pic on the left is Cindy, as we look south towards Mount Evans way in the distance.

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September 24 - by this time fall color was well underway, and we joined up with some colleagues of Cindy's to hike the Gem Lake trail in RMNP. We most anticipated looking at the aspens, and as you can see on the right they did not disappoint. On the left is a pic from a little ways up the trail looking south toward Longs Peak. Like many of the hikes we did, this was also pretty moderate, going from about 8500 to 10,000 feet elevation and doing it over about 3 miles.

There were a few other hikes of note. Back in February Cindy and I hiked up Grey Rock, a large granite outcrop less than an hours drive from Fort Collins up the Poudre River canyon. I thought I had pictures of that hike, but I can't seem to find them now. We also did a couple other springtime hikes up mountains along Big Thompson Canyon just outside Loveland. And, I did an unphotographed solo day-hike while Cindy was out of town back in early August up the Longs Peak trail, where I went as far as the Keyhole. The Keyhole is a rock formation at around 13,000 feet, but with another hour and a half or so of difficult hiking to do. Sure, I could have gone farther, but that was one occasion where I actually opted against the torturous epic. Instead, the Longs Peak summit (one of the toughest day hikes you could ever do, even with cooperative weather) will have to wait another year.

Wow. Looking back though, I realize that even this is just barely scratching the surface of what can be done in Colorado. We've basically been hitting the places that are the shortest drives from FoCo, but if we just stretched our range a bit, we could do lots more. Evans awaits. So does Elbert, and Greys and Torreys peaks, which aren't far from Bierstadt. Further afield are the San Juans, which many Coloradoans tell me are the jewels of the state. So many mountains, so little time.


tags: Colorado mountains nature hiking

We got back late last night. It was a nice trip, with 2 days down in Key West, about 24 hours in and around the Everglades, and 2 days visiting my Dad. The highlights:

• Key West. I'm not sure what I expected, but I'd have to say that of all the beach towns or other tropical or subtropical locales I've been to, Key West is the least laid-back of them all. I mean, sure, it's not as intense as, say, Miami or whatever, but for a small town with lots of cozy places and two-story buildings and bungalows and palm trees, there sure is a lot of traffic and chi-chi boutiques. And it's also a contractors paradise - I don't know that I've seen a higher density of pickup trucks with ladders hauling around cinder blocks and whatnot anywhere.

  It was just a little strange, that's all I'm saying. It's not a bad place - it's pretty, has some nice restaurants and some real character. But having been to Hawaii, I'd say this place had nothing of the tranquility that I usually associate with warm beaches. It also doesn't help when you see so many cars with out-of-state license plates, and many other tourists who refuse to dress down on their vacations. C'mon people, leave the dress shirts behind for once in your life. Sheesh.

• While driving on the Florida turnpikes, I handed toll-takers dollar coins, for kicks. Two of them seemed to recognize the coins without too much trouble, but a third took a few seconds, looking it over, wondering what kind of scam I was pulling. This led to a discussion Cindy and I had about how bad the government has messed up with the circulation of these coins, to the point where people will gaze in amazement upon being handed one. I mean, they had no trouble replacing every single $20 bill - you never see the old ones anymore, right? So why can't they replace the dollar bills with coins? They can, they just don't seem to have the will.
• Back to Key West - we went to Smather's Beach one day. It was a nice time, but there was one heavy-set older guy laid out on a towel not far from us who wedged his loose swimsuit up into his crotch to tan his buttocks. Oy. What really stunned me later was when he turned over, and had his junk hanging out of that loose suit for all the world to see. Could he really be so oblivious to not know? I'm not sure which is a scarier thought, that he didn't know what was going on, or that he did.
• I'm not impressed with Florida drivers. Now, I'll grant that a large number of them are tourists, which may explain some of the idiocy we experienced, but there were other occasions where it had to be locals who were utterly clueless. For example, I've never seen so many people be so permissive about letting other drivers, especially tractor-trailer drivers, have the right-of-way even in situations when that clearly is unnecessary for safety or legality. Some drivers would just come to a stop along a throughway, and let in a loaded pickup or a semi even that was just waiting for traffic to pass. I couldn't figure it out - I've never seen that behavior anywhere else.
• Cuban Spanish is spoken very fast, and is accented. Maybe someday I'll understand a word they're saying.
  
• At restaurants in the Keys they serve a type of reef fish called a dolphin. Yes, a dolphin. That means they will advertise grilled dolphin on their menus, and when I first saw that I recoiled in horror, thinking they had gone after poor ol' Flipper. But no, they only mean what is referred to elsewhere as mahi-mahi. I confirmed this with the help of the Key West yellow pages, which has a surprising amount of useful info on local fishing rules and regs, and some good diagrams.
• There's still flooding in the Everglades, after their heavy rain year and Wilma to boot. While biking around Shark Valley we saw about a foot or more of standing water virtually everywhere, extending as far as the eye could see. The grass still extends above it, but the ground is utterly saturated. When it rains a lot in south Florida, the water level stays very high, because there's nowhere for the water to go.
• My Dad. He had a stroke back in late September, a brain-stem bleed that almost either killed him or rendered him a vegetable. But looking at him now, you'd never know anything like that had happened to him. He looked fantastic, especially for a 78-year old fellow - very chipper, in great spirits (as he should be, for someone with a new lease on life), and just as funny and inquisitive as I've ever known him to be. Very heartening to know that our family genes have that kind of wherewithal in them.
  

Anyway, those are just a few thoughts off the top of my head about the trip. Back to winter now.


tags: florida vacations

Cindy and I are off to Florida for the next few days - see, we're a little low on Vitamin D. I'll have the laptop handy, although I probably won't be able to blog unless I happen to find some random Wi-Fi nearby.

For the 4-hour flight we're bringing along a couple DVDs that she'll be teaching for her class next spring, on Earth Sciences in the Popular Media. That means disaster (disastrous?) movies, like The Core and Volcano. Yeah, sounds like fun, can't wait.


tags: Florida vacations bad movies

I was just thinking this morning how abused the word 'normal' is in the modern lexicon.

Normal has many synonyms, which kinda sorta mean the same thing, but they don't. Basically though, if you break it down, it ends up meaning just a handful of things: average, in a roughly statistical sense; typical or expected; and healthy, in a social norm or biological sense.

Unfortunately, these meanings can get convoluted when the word normal is used, and different audiences can extract different meanings from what is intended. In climatology, a normal temperature may well be average, but it may not be typical. That's because the concept of normal as mathematical average ignores the existence of standard deviation, which is the typical deviation from the average. That can often be large, yet how many laypersons know of any distinction between average and typical? It's hard to do when the word 'normal' is used for both meanings.

Similarly, in medicine, a normal person may also be mathematically average among the populace, but might not be truly healthy in the sense of being "healthful". In that case, it's only intended to mean "typical", but many may take it to mean "expected", and along with that, "proper". What good does this confusion do anyone?

And in what sense is a normal person typical? Or expected? Or even a mathematical average? Probably not often, and yet I think most of us would come away with that idea even if it's not the intended one. The problem is that we carry all these distinct definitions of the word with us simultaneously, and can interpret the specific use of the word at a given time in a nearly random way. The more you think about it, the less that 'normal' has useful meaning. If you have to keep using other qualifiers to explain your use of the word 'normal', then maybe there's no point to using 'normal' in the first place.


tags: words semantics normal

The wind is howling out there this morning. Oh, it has howled on many days here in Fort Collins, but today could well be the windiest day we've experienced since moving here. And here's why: (Map courtesy of RAP/UCAR). This is the 1300Z (7am MST) surface pressure map. Between the 1039 high and the 1017 low, we have a very steep pressure gradient right across the mountains. With mountain effects like gap winds and rotors exacerbating the situation, the NWS has issued a high-wind warning for foothills locations:

URGENT - WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DENVER CO
456 AM MST MON DEC 5 2005

...HIGH WINDS COLORADO NORTH CENTRAL MOUNTAINS AND EASTERN SLOPES TODAY...

.INCREASING WINDS ALOFT AND AN INCREASING CROSS MOUNTAIN SURFACE
PRESSURE GRADIENT WILL PRODUCE HIGH WINDS IN THE COLORADO NORTH
CENTRAL MOUNTAINS...ADJACENT EASTERN FOOTHILLS...WESTERN URBAN
CORRIDOR AND SOUTH PARK TODAY.

When they talk about winds aloft, they're referring to maps like this: (Also courtesy of RAP/UCAR). This depicts winds blowing at the 700mb level, which corresponds roughly to 10,000 feet elevation. See the close contour lines, and the little flag symbol with 4 long lines "blowing" toward the NW, around Denver? That means that the actual balloon sounding from this morning measured 40kt (~ 45mph) winds above Denver at around 10k ft. That's important because when the sun rises, winds aloft tend to get "mixed" down to the surface in the form of turbulent gusts. And when that happens at the same time there's a strong surface gradient, well, you're talking a very, very windy day. And potentially dangerous for highway travelers.

This time of year seems to see rapidly intensifying surface pressure systems, and when the highs and lows get onto opposite sides of the Front Range, that's when we get the gusty mountain winds. Good thing I had all our leaves raked weeks ago!


tags: weather meteorology wind

Although I may have missed the boat on this blog meme, I thought I'd go ahead and offer my thoughts on obscure movies that I think are pretty good. By obscure, I will refer to any movie that didn't see much light of day among the larger moviegoing populace, although not necessarily a definitive "arthouse" offering. And by good, that can mean well-executed, thoughtful, or just plain fun to watch.

• Live From Shiva's Dance Floor - not so much a movie, more like a short. But I got to see it while attending the Sundance Film Festival in 2003, and was impressed with its meaningful commentary on 9/11 and its impact on the city of NY. Maybe some would disagree, but I still think Timothy Speed Levitch qualifies as obscure.
• Waking Life - speaking of Speed Levitch, this film briefly starring him by Richard Linklater is also probably more a documentary than a movie. Still, a fun mix of animated imagery and live action and very intriguing philosophizing, albeit perhaps in a late-night-college-dorm-bullshit-session kinda way.
• Roger Dodger - manipulative cynicism meets fawning naïveté. It doesn't give in to any maudlin tendencies, but also doesn't leave you as jaded as its main character either.
• Stir of Echoes - hard to call a movie starring Kevin Bacon "obscure", but it was greatly overshadowed by The Sixth Sense, which preceded it and had a similar ambience. That's too bad, because this was a fine movie in its own right.
• Talk To Her - Almodovar at his best. Very touching, and one scene in particular is perhaps the absolute funniest laugh-out-loud-in-the-theater moments I've ever had.
• Unknown White Male - also a documentary, but a really excellent one about a real-life event of someone losing every long-term memory of theirs. If you enjoyed Memento, then this one is a real must-see.
  

I do see from the list at milkriverblog that others have mentioned Brazil, Rabbit-Proof Fence, and Whale Rider as well. I love all these movies too, but I don't know if I'd call Brazil "obscure". Oh well, if we call Brazil obscure, then I'll go ahead and add Donnie Darko to my list too.



tags: movies

Now this is cool:Go to the site and look at all the maps there - you can magnify it more and read the finer print.

It's fun to tinker around with their clickable statistics. One thing that jumped out at me is the breakdown of loyalties of NFL and MLB fans in the Salt Lake City area. At least among the respondents, a majority of them pull for the San Francisco 49ers and the Boston Red Sox. Whaaaa? Granted, these are self-selected responses and only a small (but growing) number of them, but still, not what I would have expected.

Haven't done nearly enough of this these past couple years....

Let's take a look at the overnight forecast discussion from the Boulder NWS office:

FXUS65 KBOU 031023
AFDBOU

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DENVER CO
320 AM MST SAT DEC 3 2005

.SHORT TERM...TDA-TNGT...BANDED JET STREAM INDUCED SNW SHWRS CONT
TO GRADUALLY MOVE OFF THE MTNS AND OVR THE NERN PLAINS THIS MRNG
WHILE RADAR CONTS TO SHW AMPLE PCPN OVR WRN CO WITH MORE PCPN
FORMING FARTHER TO W OVR NRN UT. MDLS CONT TO SHW COOLING ALF
THRU PRD AND MSTR OVR MTNS UP TO NR H5 LVL SO WILL KEEP HI POPS
IN MTNS THRU PRD. OROGRAPHIC SNW MDL GAVE ONLY LGT AMTS OF SNWFL.
GUD DYNAMICS TDA AND UPWRD Q-G OMEGA BUT AMS BCMS SUBSIDENT TNGT.
SO WILL KEEP THREAT OF PCPN OVR PLAINS TDA BUT ONLY IN MTNS TNGT.
GFS TENDS TO HANG ON TO MSTR OVR PLAINS LONGER THAN GFS. TEMPS
WILL BE MUCH COOLER ESPCLY ON PLAINS. WILL MAKE ONLY SML CHNGS
TO MOS TEMP GDNC VALUES WHICH ARE CONSISTENT WITH H7 TEMPS.
WILL CANCEL WNTR STRM WRNG FOR MTNS WITH MRNG FCST ISSUANCE.

We had our first real snowfall of the season last night. It was only about an inch or so, but we awoke to see white streets, yards, and rooftops. However, the sky has cleared off the past hour or so, and the satellite image shows some clear air upstream of where we are (in the black circle):
That huge patch of white in the southeast central part of the state is the larger snowfield - in Fort Collins we were on the very northern fringe of the snowfall. Cindy reported to me on a walk up the local ridgetop here this morning before the sun came out that the snow ended just north of town, and didn't seem to even extend that far east of here either. The satellite seems to suggest that too. By now though, any snow here in the direct sun has melted.

One thing I still have a hard time understanding is why forecasters still think of "dynamics" and "Q-G omega" as somehow separate entities. They're the same freakin' thing! I may not be in meteorology anymore, but if there was one thing that stays with me, it's that. Ugh.

tags: weather, meteorology, national weather service

It's November, when winter weather begins to lay siege too much of North America. Trees are all bereft of leaves, snow has fallen most likely in the northern tier of states, skiers may be hitting the slopes in a few choice locations like Utah, Colorado, or California...and the winter holidays, Christmas et al., are only weeks away. Schools will soon empty nationwide, from kindergartens to every public and private university. Non-retail businesses prepare to have their employees vacating for a de facto December shut-down. Stores have already begun with the decorations, and millions of Americans prepare travel plans for those holidays that are just around the corner.

So would someone please explain to me, why on goddess' green earth do we have another family holiday just 3 weeks before the biggest holiday season of them all?

Every year those same aforementioned millions of Americans set out to reunite with family and friends - mostly family - in late November, one of the worst travel times of the year. Tens of millions of extra miles will be driven or flown, beyond that which would otherwise occur, to commemorate a holiday that is allegedly a harvest festival. In late November. Seriously, why?

From an academic perspective, this is really silly. Classes have to undergo a major interruption, just a week or two before the term is about to end anyway. Some college students end up taking the whole week off, treating it as the Autumn analog of Spring Break. Not that you can blame them, because these students have mostly been in classes for up to 12, 13, even 14 weeks straight. But it's not truly a week off, it's at most 4 days. A long weekend, at best.

I understand and appreciate the sentimental and wholesome nature of Thanksgiving, and far be it from me to want to take it away from anyone. I don't propose that at all - instead, I want to make it better. I want to improve Thanksgiving. And the way to improve Thanksgiving is to move Thanksgiving. Catchy, eh? Mend it don't end it.

Let's have Thanksgiving in October, say, the third week. Sometime between the 17th and the 24th, something like that, over a full month earlier than what it is now. Think of the advantages: we can celebrate a real harvest festival at a time when real food is being harvested - what a concept! We can also do the big holiday travel thing like before, except it is far less likely to be disrupted by nasty winter storms. In other words, you're less likely to get stranded in an airport with overpriced concessions, or on some lonely stretch of interstate in a blizzard with no extra blankets. Also, the days are longer and warmer, so you can spend more time outside with the family, enjoying the fall color. The Canadians already have the right idea, with the celebration of their version in the second week of October - why should they have all the fun? Why do we deny ourselves a better time of year for this important holiday?

And for all you religiously inclined folks - now you get a nice wholesome family holiday to steal the thunder from Satan-worshiping Halloween. And for all you witches and warlocks, now you can combine your pagan rituals with a nice turkey dinner with everyone in your coven. It's really a win-win. Academia gets a nice break smack dab in the middle of the term, when they need it the most. (Those on the quarter system, who just started in early October, well....you get a nice early vacation.) And late November is freed up to start a real runup to the holiday shopping season, without having to worry about a short one every few years, as is under the current system.

We can do this - we need to do this. The current system is silly and causes completely unnecessary inconvenience. Just because the date was established many decades ago (1939 if Wikipedia is to be believed) is no reason we can't adjust it for our modern era. So tell your friends and family - let's get this thing done. The way to improve Thanksgiving is to move Thanksgiving.

UPDATE: A man after my own heart: Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune apparently thinks the same way I do. Good man.

tags: Thanksgiving, holidays