The Weather
I am starting a topic about weather. Reply to this if you would like to discuss the weather. Today there was a big storm. The trees were blowing a lot.
Here is something interesting:
The butterfly effect, used to describe many chaotic phenomena, was first described as such in reference to weather: that the beating of a butterfly's wings in Brazil might set off a tornado in Texas months later.
Edward Lorenz, in a paper in 1963 given to the New York Academy of Sciences, said: "One meteorologist remarked that if the theory were correct, one flap of a seagull's wings would be enough to alter the course of the weather forever." Later speeches and papers by Lorenz used the more poetic butterfly.
Chaos theory says that small changes in the initial conditions increase exponentially over time, until the weather is very different from what it would have been under slightly different circumstances. Forecasters are able to increase the quality of their predictions by calculating a number of different scenarios making small changes to the initial conditions of each. These end results are then compared, and the most common scenario is chosen as the forecast. This also has the advantage that forecasters have an estimate of the reliability of their forecast - if different models produce wildly incompatible results the forecast is known to be unreliable.
_________________
I'm Alex Plank, the founder of Wrong Planet. Follow me (Alex Plank) on Blue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/alexplank.bsky.social
Here's my brilliant insight: I've noticed the weather sometimes changes. Sometimes it changes a lot; sometimes it changes just a little bit. Weather sometimes doesn't make a whole lot of sense like that.
I don't know how the weather was today because I was at work in a contained, climatized, artificially lit, windowless environment; however, I do recall it was somewhat overcast and drizzly when I left for work.
My garden is like that too - we got 10 inches of rain last week and most of my plants are just as happy as they can be - except two of my zinnias were all wilty today and then perked back up when I watered them - they are right in the middle of all the happy plants . . . I wonder why they are different . . .
As for the North Texas weather report - it is just as hot as the devil's toenail, and humid, too because of the 10 inches of rain we got last week . . .
I went on holiday for 4days - we had one dry morning, then it rained....again.
It's supposed to be June but its rained nearly every day and when it hasn't rained its been warm...but overcast and then it rains at night. Weather is unsettled here generally but its not normally this bad in the summer- our only week of hot, sunny weather was end of May and the first few days of June....and haven't seen the sun much since!
A Swiss man once told my Dad that the reason he hated british weather was because it was so changeable. When you got up in the morning in Switzerland you could see what the weather was going to be like for the rest of the day. When you got up in the morning in Britain it didnt matter what the weather looked liked because it'd be something else by the end of the day!
The month of may and first week of June up here in Wisconsin has been the wettest since the summer of 1993. Where I live, we got our bi-annual average of rain in 40 days!
about a mile north of my house is a small creek that flows through the country side. the last time I saw that creek get that high was the spring of 1986 when I was in kindergarden. There's a farm along one of the highways and the driveway has a small bridge that goes over the creek, on june 1st, that water from the creek had risen to just under the bridge that crosses the creek. In 1986 I can remember it had just risen over that bridge.
And two weeks ago Wisconsin had a tornado outbreak that caused millions in damage and killed one person.
Tom_FL_MA
Deinonychus
Joined: 4 Jul 2004
Age: 46
Gender: Male
Posts: 304
Location: Central Florida; originally southeastern Massachusetts
I actually missed this thread, (mind you, I do from time to time scan the threads of message boards, to see what I've missed).
How about a bump up of this thread, after 22 days. Thanks for creating it, Alex.
It is difficult for me to pinpoint when I got interested in meteorology, I was probably about 6 but (of course) it increased as I grew up. My experience with Hurricane Gloria, a little more than two months after I turned 8 probably enchanged my interest, but I am sure I would be just interested today. The storm made landfall along the southern New England coast. The eye came very close, if not right overhead... across southeastern Massachusetts.
The weather is one of my main interests. Like Fleur, I also like listening to my NOAA Weather Radio. I used to really be a fan of The Weather Channel in the mid '80s to mid '90s, before it became more commercially-based, my daily internet access [starting on Monday, March 1st, 1999 and the addition of documentaries (Atmospheres and their latest Storm Stories to their primetime lineup.
Believe it or not there are many weather enthusiasts that used to be "TWC fans" that don't like a 24 hour network devoted for covering the current and latest weather forecasts showing weather happenings in the past.
I enjoy watching radars and satellite images and loops rather than being more interested in the physical aspects of the science; although my interest in the latter is basically "compressed together with computer indicated data, if you will.
I am looking forward to hear what everyone else has to say, especially aspies interested in weather, NT's and others that are interested in our interest in the subject.
I live in a subtropical environment, and humidity is rated along with temperature etc. I'm not much of a weather buff, but I was completely mesmerised watching a local humidity and temperature chart during a heat wave. It was fascinating. As the temperature rose, and the humidity with it, it kind of plateaued at about 36 C, and the humidity plumetted as the temperature rose - it was so hot, the moisture was drying out! From 99% humidity to 20% in 20 minutes. I was torn between spending the day in airconditioned comfort at the local library and sweating it out at home watching 2minute updates on the temperature/humidity battle on a brightly coloured graph. My boyfriend ended up dragging me away, but I still regret missing the full story.
I take a lot of interest in the weather now, although it used to puzzle and bore me as an NT conversational topic.
I check the BOM (Bureau of Meteorology) updates and forecasts several times a day. I think I enjoyed the movie "Master and Commander' so much because it was such a weather movie!
It's winter here now - I've moved to a temperate zone after only living in hot parts of the country and winter does bite in the temperate zone, I'm used to the lovely mild winters you get in warmer areas. Unfortunately the fireplace just throws smoke into the living room so I'm getting by with an oil filled electric for now, brrr. Getting reverse cycle AC installed soon.
We had a tornado up here about two weeks ago. I was watching the radar all afternoon on the 13th and saw a bad storm moving in about 3pm in the afternoon. I watched the storm moving in and heard there was a tornado sirens go off. I went back inside and heard there was a tornado about 15 miles northwest of where I was. It ripped up a bunch of houses and tore down a bunch trees and power lines.
The local weather service put a write up of the event on their webpage
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/grb/indexphp.ph ... nts/071304
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I live my life to prove wrong those who said I couldn't make it in life...
Here in Melbourne, the weather has been absolutely freezing cold! The wind is cold and biting. We haven't had a lot of rain, though the areas where the dams are located have had a fair bit of rain, which is good news because we get our drinking water from them and parts of Australia are in the middle of a drought.
My fav weather web site is
http://www.wunderground.com/ I have a yearly membership that allows me to set my weather pages the way i like them. And this link
http://www.wunderground.com/global/ shows the global temps
Archmage
Veteran
Joined: 31 Jul 2004
Gender: Male
Posts: 619
Location: Bottom of Lake Hylia... Darn Iron Boots!
I am Archmage. i know that this hardly affects me, since my state is landlocked, but i have family living smack on the coast, so i have to rant about it... how many bloody hurricanes is it going to take to completely level the state of Florida?! As if Charley was bad enough, then comes Frances, then Ivan, then Jeanne!! Its like they're all lining up to take a chunk out of the the Sunshine State (which should be called the Very Destructive Freakin' Huge Hurricane State from now on) and they don't give a damn how many people die, or that they're screwing up the economy! And now the'yre saying that there's this cycle that's started that will cause increased hurricane activity for SIXTY !$!@$ YEARS!! !! !! If that doesn't level them, then they should be called the Indestructible State. Im suprised that my grandparents' house survived two eye walls (they live in Melbourne, FL, ya know). Anyways, rant is over. See you later.
By the way, does anyone here know about the National Weather Service's
Cooperative Observer Program? its this program where volunteers are asked to record weather data such as temperature, air pressure, etc., and send it to the NWS, who use it in their research. I think it cuts down on costs for having to build and mantain record stations or something like that. do any of you know how to apply?if so, i would like to know. Thanks!
Sorry about the rant...
Archmage
Give my regards to the Hurricane State...
I went through forty years of life without experiencing a single hurricane, but lately they've been hitting us at the rate of three every two years. Even worse are the cloudbursts, which this summer (the most humid I've ever experienced) seem to have become weekly events, when previously they were once a decade events!
Still, as long as Bush and the oilmen continue to rake in their profits, every thing will be alright?
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