Daily Archives: Monday, August 29, 2005

Under Tornado Warnings

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We are under particular Tornado Warnings/Watches this evening. Just a while ago, oh about an hour ago already, I heard a bunch of rumblings to the South, and sure enough it was dark out that way, and lighting could be seen cloud to cloud. It then started to be the more dangerous type, ground to cloud. So I looked online and found there and on TV as well that Walton county had Tornado Warning on, and there was an immensely red and yellow cell from the most outer feeder band of Katrina there … and that county is not far away, in fact just below us.

Lightening action was intense for awhile, then seemed to pass by to the North. The TV radar is still showing very active cells below us though. So we’ll see what happens locally IRL. I turned the computer off and the network and phone stuff for awhile, but turned it on again to see what’s happening and to post this.

Frank is in Florida and can’t call me anyhow, so I wanted to get this online so he might see it. Our phone service is not working. DSL is though. We have vonage through DSL too, but that’s not working either. We only have one phone, so I can’t tell what’s up. Well, actually we do have another, the fax machine. I just went down and plugged it in, but it gives me the same “open” connection sound. I haven’t tried it in another jack, all jacks are connected daisy-chained anyhow. It’s weird though, that the modem can connect to the internet via the phone jack, but that vonage box isn’t connecting to vonage and neither is dial tone for local service that the DSL is through. Weird, weird, weird. It all started sometime this afternoon, I’m not sure when, there was no lightening around at all then.

The rain has been light since it started when I last posted. Steady at times, but never heavy. Just a light tropical rain. Before all the lightening was getting intense I was out looking at the clouds in the front of the house and had my camera, snapping a few things, and a Ruby-Throat Hummingbird came by. So I went in and made up some sugar water for them and filled the one feeder I have out there. I had filled it last week, but never saw them drink from it. I saw a hummer and so did Frank, but never did we see it feed. The feeder dripped dry. So I watched tonight after I put it out and there were two hummers that came back and were playing and flew to the feeder many times, back and forth here and there in the trees, across the street, zipping back and forth between all these and other things.

I got a few pictures, but they were blurry, and then I might have gotten a few better ones with the Hosta’s, but I have to check that out still. My hostas have some that bloom earlier and some that bloom later. The white blossoms are out now. The hummers fed on a few and that’s the time I snapped what might be croppable to blow up a bit.

It was lightly raining at that time, a time that hummers love to play in, I’ve noticed in past years. This is the first interaction I’ve had with hummers in a long time. Last year wasn’t heavy hummer time for us, and this year not at all until today. It was refreshing to see the hummers play in front of me. :)

The lightening we had was refreshing too. Many cracks and booms and rumbles, and daggers and forks of lightening. Ah!

So being under Tornado Warnings is about actual spotted Tornadoes tonight, as well as weather being primed massively by the tropical system to just expect sudden tornadoes in the weather, often maybe diguised in heavy rain and not noticeable until it’s too late if you aren’t in a safe spot … then you are toast. So of course I was out on the porch watching. I wasn’t standing in the open, but I guess it’s a spot that’s not recommended in any case. I saw nothing but nice clouds, gentle rain, and massive lightinging here and there. There were notices on TV of spotted tornadoes, but in directions not exactly affecting us, so I was just watching carefully, enjoying the weather phenoms.

I’ll have some photos to post later, if any of the hummers or night cloud photos turned out.

Tropical rain begins

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We have sprinkles starting, the sky is dark grey and blackish clouds … and it’s a large area of such. The radar for our state shows rain over us and growing.

The county next to us to the west has/had tornado warnings. So … the evening rainy thundersomeness of tropical moisture has begun for us.

Doggy is in his crate. I do hope we don’t lose power for any reason, I don’t have any “eat without heating up” sort of foods on hand really.

We do have a propane gas outdoor stove, but Frank never set it up for me since we got it … :( He’s not here, it’s too heavy for me to do anything with, so I hope I have no use for it in particular today or tomorrow.

Hurricane Katrina

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Hurricane Katrina coverage on the Weather Channel is what I’ve been watching the last few days on and off, I watched it through this past night (when I was awake, as I was and have been the last several days, a pattern that I go through often enough, it’s not unusual) and so I’ve seen it all as it came through and changed into a humoungous hurricane and gained fame as the 4th strongest hurricane in the US ever recorded. Hows that for an introductory runon sentence ;)

Katrina is making her third landfall right now, in Missippippi. Jim Cantori remarked in a phoned in report not long ago that the flooding he saw where he is was “something I’ve never seen” … a big statement coming from him! He reported that they were 27 or so feet above sea level, and thought themselves safe from the surge, but had to suddenly evacuate to higher ground when the water came into the parking lot and was covering the cars in about 20 minutes … three to four feet of water, 27 feet above sea level.

The Weather Channel is remarking too that the surge forcasted is the highest surge ever, wave heights are huge too. Katrina was a Category 5 hurricane yesterday, and weakened to a Cat 4 in the night before landfall, but at landfall she was 140 mph sustained winds and that’s nothing to shirk off. Not as bad as the previous strength of 175 mph, but still … 140 is bad. 100 is bad enough.

We are in NE Georgia, and not in harms way, but will be under a flood watch later, and a wind advisory (25 mph or more sustained winds) and most likely a tornado watch. So that’s not NOT in harms way, really.

Reports of fuel problems are racking up. Gas prices will surely rise, shortages become a problem in The South, maybe nationally, that’s what I heard from Jeb Bush, Gov. of Florida, on TV a bit ago, and that’s also data that’s reported elsewhere.

Jim Cantori was talking in his phone report that I discussed above that all sorts of things were floating around, like a big garbage bin, the sort that looks like a train box, just floating around, that’s a super heavy tonage kind of thing just floating around.

The air around our house changed since yesterday. It was mild feeling yesterday, not too hot nor too humid. I walked outside this morning, and it wasn’t hot, but I could barely breathe, it was so humid, so very tropically humid. Thanks to God that we have A/C window units this part of summer! :)

Frank is flying to Florida for a short trip for work. He had to go, this was planned before Katrina was born. He’ll be there overnight and the concern is airport troubles when flying home tomorrow.

Right now, on TWC there’s another phone report coming in from where Jim Cantori is, his producer, and he is talking about the flooding problems, and that they now had to be evacuated to the second floor of the building they are in, he said the water out there earlier was literally a sudden river rushing at them, and they had to flee for their lives, and that NOW there is at least 6 inches of water on the first floor of the hotel …. the worst any of them, the crew that covers these hurricane events, has ever seen. Absolutely the worst ever.

This is a historic storm. I thought as much when I heard that Katrina was named. She lived up to her name. That hard “K” sound is feisty. Camille was feisty too. Katrina wasn’t too nasty her first landfall, but people died. That’s bad. The damage that we’ll see in the coming weeks when crews can get into the areas now under threat will be interesting. This isn’t good, but it’s stuff that I love to see. I’m very weather-fan-storm-chaser oriented. Some people have to be. I didn’t “professionally” go into weather … I could have, but didn’t. I don’t mean I had an opportunity, but I could possibly have, but didn’t pursue it. I’ve been a storm enthusiast since I was very young.

The point of this post is just to record the event, this very historic event, Hurricane Katrina. We are under her cloudy edge, the outer outer clouds associated with the monster storm. We’ll see some wind and rain most likely later, I’ll report back as to what happens.