SLOweather

I was Googling about this afternoon, looking for plastics suppliers around San luis Obispo, and found this.

“History of the Disc

Where the Frisbee First Flew, the Untold Story of the Flying Disc’s Origin 50 Years Ago in SLO

BY JEFF McMAHON

Two men held a circle of plastic over a heater in a San Luis Obispo garage in 1948, trying to mold a lip onto the disc’s down-turned edge. One of those men would be hailed as the inventor of the Frisbee. The other would die unknown, just as he began to fight for a share of the credit and millions in royalties the Frisbee generated.”

More the the link above. I wonder if there’s a little plaque in front of that house.

The NWS is has issued a freeze watch and is forecasting lows tonight for our area in the upper 30s, and Wednesday night close to 30.

The watches, warnings, and advisories map tonight is pretty interesting. I wonder how often Freeze Watches and Red Flag Warnings (fire danger) are adjacent on the same map.

This morning’s low clouds over the mountains to the east of here had a golden lining just before sunrise.

From John Lindsey at Diablo Canyon…

ATMOSPHERIC CONDITION:

A cold front now about 75 miles northwest of Diablo Canyon is
weakening and moving rapidly southeastward and should pass the
Diablo Canyon area between 21-2300 tonight. Rainfall should be on
the order of 0.25 to 0.50 inches. The rain should began at 1900
tonight then generally last between 4-5 hours before ending
and changing to showers by Monday morning. Shower activity
should continue into Monday afternoon, ending by Monday evening.
There will be breaks of sunshine on Monday in between periods of
showers with generally breezy conditions expected by the afternoon
and highs mostly in the upper 40s to mid 50s.

The winds will shift out of the northeast (offshore) on Wednesday
through Friday producing mostly sunny, breezy and cool weather.
The next rain looks to be a long time ahead as high pressure builds
strongly over the eastern Pacific and western United States.

For several days the NWS has been bullish on rain for tonight and tomorrow.

They have a KML file generator for Google Earth that overlays NEXRAD radar onto the GE display. Here’s this morning’s California radars as see on Google Earth, view tilted down a bit.

Coincident with watching Perfect Disaster, Ice Storm on Discovery Science last night, the message pasted below was posted on one of the weather forums I frequent. If you are looking for a gift for someone this Christmas, consider a weather radio with SAME decoding. Think of it as a weather warning pager. As you might know, the National Weather Service transmits continuous weather forecasts. With SAME decoding, you tell the weather radio, in essence, where you live, and it sits there quietly listening for the code that says there’s bad weather. When it hears that code, the speaker turns on and alerts you to the bad weather.

SAME is also starting to be used for non-weather related emergencies, such as hazardous materials spills and tsunamis, as well.

SAME radios programmable, so you can change the radio if you move to a different area, or if you take it with you on trips or vacation.

Amazon lists several different kinds of weather radios. From a quick check on the net, the Midland ones seem to have issues, so they might be best avoided.
—
Posted Thursday, 16 Nov 2006, by Joe from Topsail Island Weather, on wxforum.net.

Early this morning 8 people (so far) lost their lives in Riegelwood, NC. At least 20 people were injured including several children in critical condition. I’m sure that you’ve seen the news footage on today’s news. Most of the victims were still sleeping when the tornado struck.

Would an NOAA Weather Radio receiver saved any of those lives or prevented serious injury this morning? Maybe. We will never know. But what if one of those homes had an NOAA Weather Radio receiver, and it did alert the occupants of that home in enough time to get to a secure place?

We have smoke detectors in our homes that alert us to fire. We have carbon monoxide detectors that alert us to potential deadly gasses from our furnaces/fireplaces/gas heaters. An NOAA Weather radio should be included in this arsenal of weapons to alert us to severe and deadly weather events.

The news media bombard us almost daily with the possibilities of terrorism. The fact is that most of our communities are threatened more by severe weather. Witness the terrible destruction of this little community in Southeastern NC.

The NOAA Weather website says “Severe weather can strike at any time. Are you prepared?”

No home could be considered prepared for severe weather without a working NOAA Weather radio. It’s time that these radios be as common in our homes as smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. They are inexpensive and have the potential to save lives.

Consider buying them for your friends/family as Christmas gifts this year. You could save a life.

Cathy sent me the following in response to some questions about the pictures and how she took them:

“Please tell your blog friends that I set up my tripod in the safety of my car. I NEVER stepped foot outside of it because I knew how dangerous that storm was….and yes I am a weather fanatic! Just love it.

Camera Info…I used a Canon EOS 10D (Yes…digital not film), I set it to an f-stop of 22 (focused in midrange) with a
20 second exposure at 200 ASA (or ISO).”

If you would like to purchase a poster of one of Cathy’s lightning photos, go to her website and click on the poster image.

Cathy Gregg from Rhino Concepts Graphic Design & Digital Photography was out in the lightning storm the night of 12 October 2006 taking pictures. She graciously forwarded a few on to me to post here.
These were taken in the Santa Maria Area. I’ve added her comments below each picture.

BOLT BROTHERS….Looking west from Rosemary Rd. off of Betteravia Rd. towards Santa Maria (the buildings on the
horizon are WalMart and Home Depot).

STRIKING CASMALIA HILLS…Looking west from Telephone Rd. off of Clark Ave. towards Orcutt. The bolt is actually
hitting the hillside.

STRIKING GAREY…Looking east from Telephoned Rd. off of Betteravia towards Garey and Sisquoc. The white specks
in the photograph is hail. This was a little too close.

STRIKING GUADALUPE…Looking west from Telephone Rd. off of Clark Ave. towards Orcutt (on the left) and Santa
Maria (on the right). This has both Intra-cloud and cloud – ground lightning in it. I thought that this photograph
best represented what was going on that evening. The small trail of light in the sky (in the center just above the
hillside) is an airplane coming in for a landing at Santa Maria Airport. Can you imagine the show they got!!!

Photographs © 2006 Cathy L. Gregg

Sunday morning’s sunrise was pretty spectacular. The picture doesn’t quite capture it.

There may be some kind of optical illusion going on with this picture. When I view it on my laptop’s screen, the waves seem to jitter or vibrate a little, especially if I look right at the center of the image.