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Equus

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So I noticed there was a good bit of smoke out this evening and wondered where it was coming from; turns out there are a lot of scattered fires right now across the south. Fascinating to watch how wind direction changes across the ridge via smoke plumes.

20210661916-20210662321-GOES16-ABI-SMV-GEOCOLOR-600x600.gif
 

bjdeming

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While researching a geology-related post just now, I found this weather-related page designed for European catastrophe bond investors: https://www.artemis.bm/u-s-tornadoes-and-severe-thunderstorms/

I never heard of these until the Danish Red Cross issued one recently for volcanoes. It's interesting, and the funding for relief is good, but it makes me a little uncomfortable, too. After all, not even the 2005 hurricane season triggered full payouts, per Reuters.
 

Tyler Penland

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If April showers bring May flowers what do April snow showers mean?

Had a high of 32.7 so far on and off flurries/light snow all day. Elevations above me have a solid coating. Crazy pattern shift.

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Low temperatures in my area stayed a little above the forecast this morning. Most PWS's in my area recorded around 31°, rather than the upper 20's that were forecast. Also, the dip below freezing was pretty short. I was worried for awhile about the possibility of a worse freeze that might damage newly leafed out trees. Remember that really bad late April freeze about a decade ago that nuked the early spring foliage in extreme North Alabama and Middle Tennessee?
 

Tyler Penland

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Low temperatures in my area stayed a little above the forecast this morning. Most PWS's in my area recorded around 31°, rather than the upper 20's that were forecast. Also, the dip below freezing was pretty short. I was worried for awhile about the possibility of a worse freeze that might damage newly leafed out trees. Remember that really bad late April freeze about a decade ago that nuked the early spring foliage in extreme North Alabama and Middle Tennessee?
Yeah I believe that was 2007 maybe? Very cold outbreak.

We hit 13 at my house Friday morning and had a nice dusting of snow overnight. Just up the hill a few hundred feet up was single digits. Mt Mitchell and Leconte got down to 4. Crazy for early April.

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Yeah I believe that was 2007 maybe? Very cold outbreak.

We hit 13 at my house Friday morning and had a nice dusting of snow overnight. Just up the hill a few hundred feet up was single digits. Mt Mitchell and Leconte got down to 4. Crazy for early April.

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Ok, that's way WAY too cold for April! As much as I love the high terrain of Western North Carolina, I think I will stay down here in the hilly tropics of Alabama.
 

bjdeming

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It's basically an emission from the sodium layer in the mesosphere. CIMSS has made a number of neat posts on it over the years, for example:

And just for visuals, while checking out the various links, found this amazing NASA shot of the troposphere (orange), stratosphere, and mesosphere behind the shuttle Endeavour.

 

bjdeming

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This is right up there among the scariest photos I've ever seen, because it's on Lake Kivu in the DRC in Africa. Charles Balagizi is the director of the Goma Volcano Observatory, keeping an eye on nearby Nyiragongo Volcano (where mountain gorillas live and can be visited, by the way).



Not that a waterspout is going to make the lake erupt like Nyos did (warning: lots of sadness and death at that link) decades ago; don't think it works that way.

It's just the sight of two potential killers, dancing. Kind of chills my backbone since Kivu is much larger than Nyos and can snuff out literally millions of lives in just a few minutes. Here's the Nyiragongo chapter I wrote and also posted at my blog.
 

warneagle

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The idea of a limnic eruption at Lake Kivu is one of those terrifying worst-case-scenario type events that you hope never happen, like a hurricane hitting New Orleans (oops) or a tornado hitting downtown Dallas or OKC. Feels like a natural ticking time bomb, especially since Kivu is too large for the mitigation systems they put into place at Nyos and Monoun to be practical (and releasing all of that CO2 into the atmosphere would be bad in its own right).
 

bjdeming

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Not sure if this should go in the 2021 season thread, since it is in India, which is also where they're having a COVID crisis. Check out the featured image: would you want to lead a hurricane mass evacuation wearing hazmat suits?

 

Mike S

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Imagine if this was the Iron Bowl and one of the QB's just threw a bomb downfield in the 4th quarter.........

 
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