The Weather Thread

[Dotini]

This sort of weather is not seen too often: http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Lightning-Storm-Leads-to-Rare-Light-Show-121648069.html

Watch the video, and I guarantee your socks will roll up and down.

 

[Keef]

Wow, that's pretty awesome. Those things must have been hella bright for the people right next to them.

But...why did these things produce light anyway? All the goodies of our transformers are inside a giant steel box. I don't see how they could produce any light at all, much less light like that.

 

[Dotini]

Wow, that's pretty awesome. Those things must have been hella bright for the people right next to them.

But...why did these things produce light anyway? All the goodies of our transformers are inside a giant steel box. I don't see how they could produce any light at all, much less light like that.

I have instigated a physics student who lives in Fort Worth to take a personal look at the damage. When he reports back, I will let you know.

 

[TB]

I'm guessing the orange/green is the copper being vaporized in the transformer and the blue is a downed power line.

 

[Solid Lifters]

I thought it was a planned light show.

 

[plate88]

It just keeps frickin raining in Ohio. I think we have 5 times the avg for this year. At least its not flooding around here though as many people are in a real mess with the flooding.

 

[Wiegert]

Just had a surprise torrential downpour here, it even caused my 3G internet connection to stop working temporarily. The forecast was for light rain tonight, not a 10 minute Monsoon.

 

[Northstar]

More storms today, probably won't be as bad as yesterday though. There was a funnel cloud not far from my house last night.

 

[ranhammerR34]

Just rained here on the East Side of Indianapolis as well at the Speedway. More expected all week so far. --- Randy

 

[TB]

More storms today, probably won't be as bad as yesterday though.

We had the same crap roll through here. With the way the wind is blowing, it's nice being able to have the patio door open and listen to the rain. Being out in it for 2 hours during soccer games, not so much.

The next couple of days look nice, just in time to turn to crap for next weekend.

Edit: This kind of spotty, annoying crap all day:

 

[Dotini]

This sort of weather is not seen too often: http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Lightning-Storm-Leads-to-Rare-Light-Show-121648069.html

Watch the video, and I guarantee your socks will roll up and down.

Wow, that's pretty awesome. Those things must have been hella bright for the people right next to them.

But...why did these things produce light anyway? All the goodies of our transformers are inside a giant steel box. I don't see how they could produce any light at all, much less light like that.

I have instigated a physics student who lives in Fort Worth to take a personal look at the damage. When he reports back, I will let you know.

I'm guessing the orange/green is the copper being vaporized in the transformer and the blue is a downed power line.

I thought it was a planned light show.

I received the following explanation from a Charles Chandler of Baltimore. I think he is a geophysicist.


This is the best video I've seen of this phenomenon -- thanks for posting this! These are called corona discharges, which occur when the electrostatic potential exceeds 100 kV/m.

Normally, a corona discharge in the air would produce violet light, and would be called St. Elmo's fire. As this phenomenon is most common at the end of a thunderstorm, sailors named it after their patron saint, believing that St. Elmo had once again delivered them from the perils of a storm at sea. There are a few violet-colored discharges, but St. Elmo's fire is generally a sustained discharge, and the "fingers" are rarely more than a couple of meters long. So this is something different.

The key to understanding this is the color. Violet means an electron avalanche passing through neutrally-charged air, where the arriving and departing electrons simply disturb existing electrons in the outermost shell, producing higher-frequency photons. The other colors, lower in frequency, indicate that the air was ionized, and the atoms were accepting and relinquishing electrons in full orbit (not just p-state changes). The most prevalent color is blue, which is ionized nitrogen or oxygen. Also visible is a blue-green color, which is ionized water molecules. The orange-red discharges are from ionized oxygen.

Meteorologists always say that this phenomenon is just the sky getting lit up by transformers blowing up. But that doesn't explain why they kept blowing up, nor why transformers all up and down the line kept blowing up (you'd think that once the line failed, the whole circuit would go dead, or the sub-station relay would have kicked out), nor why the city lights kept shining as the neighborhood transformers got knocked out. It also does not explain why some of the discharges are slightly directional and/or filamentary. These, in fact, are discharges between the ground and the air, and while power line towers are likely discharge points, they don't necessarily affect the power lines, and the sub-station doesn't sense the discharges, so it's not going to open the circuit. If the power goes out, it's because of a structural failure in the tower that was carrying the lines.

For more photos of similar events, see the Blue & Orange Flashes section of my paper on tornadic supercell thunderstorms. My personal favorite is the last image (and the associated video), where lamp-posts "caught fire" and burned an orange-red color just after a tornado passed by.

Chattanooga, TN, 2010-10-28

Interestingly, the street lights kept shining, and never failed, even though they were "on fire" for tens of seconds. I didn't think that there was anything flammable in a lamp-post...

 

[Aldo]

It's a bit windy here today...

As coaching is cancelled I'm getting £8 an hour for playing the PS3....

Edit:
And the garden fence just fell down... Fantastic!

 

[AOS-]

That's awful!

It's been said last week it was going to rain all of this week... seems like they were wrong until now.

 

[MercilessOne]

It's hotter than hell here in California. Great running/beach weather though.

 

[TB]

Ho. Ly. Crap.

Moving north at 50mph, with ~60mph straight line winds and sightings of funnel clouds, tennis ball sized hail, a tractor trailer tipped over, trees down and power outages.

 

[Unibob]

70 F at...well, all night, along with humidity above 65% and clear skies...for now.

The Storm Prediction Center has Lower Michigan under a moderate risk for severe thunderstorms today. A widespread damaging wind event is being predicted, most likely in the form of a Derecho.

 

[TB]

High yesterday - 94° and full sun
High today - 62° and raining

 

[Joey D]

It's been well into the 90's for the past few days, supposed to cool off tomorrow though which is good.

 

[itsbenjibrand]

It's been well into the 90's for the past few days, supposed to cool off tomorrow though which is good.

Here is my local forecast: (Courtesy of the Weather Network):

Long-term outlook:

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Right Now:

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Temperature graph showing change in temperature throughout the day

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[lbsf1]

Weather decided to be nice today, right up untill the point the bell rang for the end of school, then it chucked it down, getting me soaking wet while waiting for my bus.


Doing a 10mile hike on Saturday. It better not rain then.

 

[Leonidae@MFT]

113.5F in the sun, and yes, I was outside, doing landscaping.. x.x; I thought that global warming meant colder summers and warmer winters, not other way round!

 

[Thiele]

113.5F in the sun, and yes, I was outside, doing landscaping.. x.x; I thought that global warming meant colder summers and warmer winters, not other way round!

I didn't think it got that hot in Finland. We get those temperatures in summer. Winter now and it's in the mid teens (C).

 

[TJ13]

Global warming can cause extremes in both winter and summer. (Dont ask)
But currently it is Cloudy with Showers in the area. AGAIN?? The past week I will tell you how it went.

Monday: Rain
Tuesday: Rain
Wednesday Rain
Thursday Cloudy
Friday Sun then Rain
Today Rain

Am I sick of the rain? Yes

 

[TB]

Am I sick of the rain? Yes

I couldn't agree more. There have been so many of my kids' soccer and baseball games cancelled because of rain (and once for the heat index) this year it's ridiculous.

Currently, however, it's a perfect 71° and sunny. With rain incoming, of course.

 

[TB]

^ A day later than they said but it looks to be coming with a vengeance.

 

[Red-Rice]

Currently 20°C and it's 23:38, was in the 30's today and it was bloody great.

 

[Ibonibo]

Currently 20°C and it's 23:38, was in the 30's today and it was bloody great.

Same here. Sad I had to work.

 

[sumbrownkid]

Currently hovering around 87 degreees in F of course. But the humidity is just getting unbearable now, at around 46% but that's gonna increase following more rains this week.

I hate Summer in Florida. People think it's awesome, but really I'd rather be in Shaq's basketball shorts after a playoff game than in Florida in the Summer.

 

[TB]

Heat index of 107°. That's a 144° temperature swing (counting windchill) over 5 months.

Edit: Make that 149° and 5.5 months.

 

[CodeRedR51]

Am I sick of the rain? Yes

Send some our way then.

Phoenix average temperature for the next 5 days = 111 degrees, with a high of 116 on Saturday.

At least it'll be "breezy"...