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Showing posts with label weather. Show all posts
Showing posts with label weather. Show all posts

January 25, 2010

Lotta Low Pressure

Issued by The National Weather Service
Amarillo, TX
3:29 pm CST, Mon., Jan. 25, 2010

Special Weather Statement for Gray, TX

... POTENTIAL WINTER STORM COULD BRING CONSIDERABLE SNOW TO PANHANDLES THURSDAY...

A WINTER STORM COULD POTENTIALLY AFFECT THE TEXAS AND OKLAHOMA PANHANDLES WEDNESDAY NIGHT THROUGH THURSDAY NIGHT AS AN INTENSE LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM TRACKS ACROSS THE SOUTHERN HIGH PLAINS. BASED ON THE LATEST TRACK AND TIMING... SNOW COULD START AS EARLY AS WEDNESDAY EVENING. MODERATE SNOW... AND POSSIBLY HEAVY SNOW AT TIMES... IS EXPECTED DURING THE DAY ON THURSDAY. AS THE SYSTEM EXITS THE REGION... THERE WILL BE A SLIGHT CHANCE FOR SNOW THURSDAY NIGHT.

ALTHOUGH THERE REMAINS SOME UNCERTAINTY ON THE TRACK... TIMING... AND SNOW AMOUNTS OF THIS SYSTEM... CONFIDENCE IS SLOWLY IMPROVING. THIS SYSTEM HAS THE POTENTIAL TO IMPACT ALL OF THE PANHANDLES. CURRENT SNOW TOTAL FORECASTS ARE FOR WIDESPREAD MODERATE TO HEAVY SNOW TOTALS OF UP TO SEVERAL INCHES OVER MUCH OF THE TEXAS AND OKLAHOMA PANHANDLES.



Under Pressure - ZZ Top

January 5, 2010

Special Weather Statement for Gray, TX

Photobucket
Warning!

Issued by The National Weather Service
Amarillo, TX
3:39 pm CST, Mon., Jan. 4, 2010

... COLD AIR IS HEADED FOR THE PANHANDLES...

AN ARCTIC AIR MASS WILL BLAST ITS WAY THROUGH THE PANHANDLES ON WEDNESDAY. MUCH COLDER AIR WILL BE BROUGHT SOUTHWARD ACROSS THE REGION FROM CANADA WEDNESDAY THROUGH FRIDAY.

COLD TEMPERATURES ALONG WITH STRONG NORTH WINDS WEDNESDAY NIGHT AND THURSDAY MORNING WILL RESULT IN BITTERLY COLD WIND CHILLS IN THE 5 TO NEAR 20 DEGREE BELOW ZERO RANGE. TEMPERATURES WILL LIKELY REMAIN BELOW FREEZING FROM LATE WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON TO SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

IN ADDITION... SOME LIGHT SNOW WILL BE POSSIBLE ACROSS THE PANHANDLES WEDNESDAY AND WEDNESDAY NIGHT. A MINOR ACCUMULATION OF LESS THAN ONE INCH IS EXPECTED.

THE BITTER COLD AND STRONG WINDS CAN FREEZE EXPOSED FLESH IN A MATTER OF MINUTES... SO DRESS WARMLY. LAYERS OF PROTECTIVE CLOTHING ARE MORE EFFECTIVE THAN A SINGLE LAYER OF THICK CLOTHING.


And, it was in all-caps, so it must be serious.

December 4, 2009

Brrrr



And I think it will get much, much colder as winter rolls on.

November 7, 2009

Summer Hangin' in There



Was warm Friday, too, but next week's temps will start to slide down.

I'm already ready for spring. Supposed to be a cold, wet winter.

EDIT: Meant to add that yesterday was a record 100yr high. Just a few minutes ago I overheard a conversation at a convenience store between two women:

"My goodness, it certainly was warm yesterday!" exclaimed one woman.

"Yes, a record high!" said the other. "That's from global warming!"

I wanted to butt in and ask what caused the high temp a hundred years ago.

Sheesh, that's just the weather in the Panhandle for ya. It snowed in Amarillo a week or so ago. Guess that's global warming, too.

November 4, 2009

Obama Weather

From the Weather Channel, an application to advise you as to how Obama would dress if in your city or town.

It's a little chilly here this a.m., so Obama would dress against the wind chill:



Not many people around here wear mufflers, and many around these parts would probably want him to wear it a "bit more snugly" around his neck. (not me! I don't want a visit from the Secret Service!)

It will be warmer tomorrow, so he would dress accordingly:



Gotta get me some of those cargo shorts.

Obama Weather

September 22, 2009

Storm Chasers



Promo for the third season of Storm Chasers, first episode will be Sunday, October 18 at 8:00 pm CST on Discovery.

One of my favorite shows.

August 6, 2009

Global Warming!



Nah, just another average August day here in the Texas Panhandle.

July 11, 2009

Fiery Furnace Forecast & Fair-Weather Friends

As I've written in here before, I keep my online friends and sister's weather forecast on my Excite start page. Looks like Sis will have a hot day in Denton, but I'll be a bit warmer. (which seems strange, as she's probably 200 miles or more to the South, latitude-wise) As you can see with the current temps (in dark), it's almost always cooler at night here than there, plus it's also much less humid here nearly all the time than it is in the Dallas area.

I'm just thankful I don't live in Houston where the air is thick enough to swim through.



Now for my "fair-weather friends", not in the usual sense, because they've always been great online pals, but because their weather is much better than it is here.

It looks like my friend Collee in NH will be getting a little more heat than has been usual for that area this year; just the other day I read an article from a Massachusetts online newspaper that said this was the "year without summer" for them up that way.

Also in an online newspaper, I read that New Zealand has been experiencing a cooler than normal winter. Sure wish I could send a bit of heat Annie's way, we've got plenty to spare!

Beary in Florida looks as though she's going to have a fairly nice day, but except for hurricanes, it's almost always nice in Florida, huh?

Mr and Mrs. G are also going to have a nice, temperate day in Nawth Carra-lana, just the right warmth for the daytime and great sleeping weather at night. (I'm sure they're snugglin' up anyway, bein' newlyweds and all)

It looks like an avg. day in England for my "absent" friend elle in Oxford. -sigh- I remember a time when she came to visit in August and it was hot like it is now and felt like a blast furnace when the wind blew...which is to say, it felt like a blast furnace most afternoons. She loved it, reveling in the heat, but the low humidity and fierce temps made her poor little nose bleed and the sun played havoc with her English Rose complexion.

Heard on the news last night that the local electric utility is asking us to conserve power as they're close to reaching the maximum on power generation. Hey, I'll turn out the lights, I'll shut down this computer and my TV; I'll even unplug my little fridge, I'll shoot out the street lights, but damned if I'm shuttin' down the A/C.

Yes, "damned" is right, and I mean it. Hell can't be too much hotter; I'm just worried if it'll be humid there, too.

June 20, 2009

May 15th Storm Vids

Was just going through some vids at YouTube and noticed there were several new ones taken during the May 15th storm I wrote about in "Dodged a Bullet" and "Friday's Storm".

This first one is from a tornado watcher's vehicle, taken just a few blocks from my house. (I'd already left by that time, headed away from the storm, although I did give some thought to trying to take some photos...the first huge hailstones changed my mind for me, though)




These next two are vids of one of the tornados that touched down. The first one was shot just off of Hwy 60; I think the second one was on the opposite side of the storm; it looks to have been shot on Hwy 282, just a few miles from where I grew up.



May 17, 2009

Friday's Storm

Photos at NWS website from two Swiss storm chasers.

Damage surveys determined that 3 of these tornadoes were EF0 on the Enhanced Fujita scale, while 1 tornado was an EF1, and the strongest tornado was rated as an EF2.

May 15, 2009

Dodged a Bullet

Had tornado sightings earlier, some large hail. The sirens wailed and the power went off, only just now coming back on.

Pampa is the black dot on the screenshot; the storm is (thankfully) past.



I'll admit I was a bit scared, but my fright was tempered by my anger. What chaps my butt is that when the power went off, so did the local radio station. The taxpayers (me 'n the rest of the good citizens of Pampa) paid a large amt. of money for an emergency generator for the station.

Tint the Twister!

Color a cowboy riding a tornado at the NWS weather site:

From the site:

A wild ride for sure! However, tornadoes are nothing you can play around. If you hear a tornado warning for your area or see a tornado, take cover immediately a well-built building or house.

(I'm sure they meant to say take cover "in"...not sure I would want to stick around to cover a building or house, well-built or not)



Color the picture by clicking on a color swatch at the bottom of the image then click on the image where you want to apply that color. Color off-line by downloading and printing the pdf version.

That cowboy has the biggest nose of any I've ever seen.

I'm not sure I should even mention his saddle horn.

April 30, 2009

Last Night's Tornados

Near Lubbock



Another, just released

April 4, 2009

This is why....

We in the Panhandle have a nasal twang...it's all the dust in the air.

Dust Storm Warning in Texas Panhandle

This is the radar return; the amount of precipitation is signified by progressive shades of green/yellow/orange/red/yellow, etc., but the dust shows up as earth tones.

How apt.



Here's the wind velocity; the green is wind going towards the radar (Amarillo) and the red is the wind going away.



The different shades of color signifies the kts or knots per hour. (1 knot = 1.15 mph) The shade of red where Pampa is equates to around 50 knots, or right around 58 mph.

Amarillo radar (composite view/loop)

March 29, 2009

March 27, 2009

Today's Winter Weather Winner Was

Me

weather screenshot

(screenshot of my friend's and family's weather)

The windchill index is right around zero...and that's because the wind has calmed down some. (the temp was a little higher around six o'clock this a.m., but the wind was blowing around 45 mph) The Texas Dept. of Transportation has closed I-40 from Amarillo to New Mexico and also most major roads going north.

Travel is being discouraged. (duh)

March 4, 2009

Withering Weather

This is a screenshot of the weather module on my Excite start page. It's the weather from my best online friend's places of residence. Here in Pampa it was darn warm today; warmer than where my big sister lives in Denton, several hundred miles to the south of here.



The high temps aren't all that unusual for this time of the year in the Texas Panhandle; just a few days ago the high didn't get above freezing.

As the old saw goes: "Don't like the weather here? Just wait a few hours."

I'd make some quip about global warming, but I bet my friends in N.H., N.C. and the UK wouldn't think it so funny, especially as they're freezin' their butts off. My friend in New Zealand is heading into fall while we're starting spring.