Former Hurricane Frances, now Tropical Storm Frances, has been overhead all day, her Norther Tail, that is. It’s been breezy and gusty, nothing bad yet, just very much more “windy” than any given day. Overcast with the low flowing tropical formation clouds, making it all seem surreal, as in a sci-fi movie, sort of.
Hurricane Ivan has ramped up today, at 2am 135mph, and then down to 105mph by the 5pm update. Incremental step downs all day. But he still looks good. He’s projected to hit the islands in his pathway, then either go up the east coast of the States, hit Florida, or go into the Gulf of Mexico on to Texas maybe. 3-major options.
Here’s a Visible Satellite photo of the Atlantic: morning to afternoon … which you can see the darkness turning to light and the light turning to darkness … starting with the African coast it was daylight when the picture starts at 5:45am, and light creeps over to the States and then round the other side of the globe where you can’t see but fastly creeps into Africa by the end of the animation when it’s 4:45pm — there’s a big jump from 1:45pm to 4:45pm, which makes the dark come on fast on the east side.
It’s interesting to see how darkness affects the visible satellite. [infrared satellite picks up cloud formations regardless of light] It’s a really cool thing though, in that it shows children how daytime and nighttime occur across the globe, it’s viewable via “visible” satellite weather photos.
We are expecting rain bands from Frances to come overhead tonight. The above picture shows infrared satellite with radar (composite images) overlayed, see the name ATHENS, we are to the west of that a bit. This picture is an hour old [where it ends, at 7:15pm] at the time I’m writing, so rain should be nearer even.
We are under Wind Advisories and Flash Flood Watches. So we spent a bit of time picking up the accumulated summer junk from the back yard this afternoon, and finally fixed the one drain from the gutters that fell off a couple of years ago. It falls off all the time, no biggie, but with the gusts we’ve had, it had already ended up near the road in the front yard … and it would be useful on the house if that heavy rain they are promising shows up. So we got it taken care of. Finally. 🙂 The old version of it had the band of metal nailed into the siding, and wrapping around the drain gutter and held in place with a screw there. The nails had pulled free from the siding, and the thing just fell off whenever it wanted. Now it’s held more securely into the siding with screws. Better fix. Nails are good, but so many applications screws are better for, it seems.
I’m looking forward to some good rain. It might end up being too much, but we need a good solid rain. Clear the air of pollen and feed the earth the moisture it needs, for trees especially. Please be praying for all in the path of this storm, for safety from wind damage and flooding. For aide to be sent quickly to those in need, as well.
Here’s a photo of the same area as the one above, but only Infrared Satellite, it’s just nice to see the cloud formations alone, without the radar, at closer-up, I think.
