Eideard

Days in the Sun — Regina Valkenborgh

From solstice to solstice, this six month long exposure compresses time from the 21st of June till the 21st of December, 2011, into a single point of view. Dubbed a solargraph, the unconventional picture was recorded with a pinhole camera made from a drink can lined with a piece of photographic paper. Fixed to a single spot for the entire exposure, the simple camera continuously records the Sun’s path each day as a glowing trail burned into the photosensitive paper. In this case, the spot was chosen to look out over the domes and radio telescope of the University of Hertfordshire’s Bayfordbury Observatory. Dark gaps in the daily arcs are caused by cloud cover, whereas continuous bright tracks record glorious spells of sunny weather. Of course, in June, the Sun trails begin higher at the northern hemisphere’s summer solstice. The trails sink lower in the sky as December’s winter solstice approaches. Last year’s autumn was one of the balmiest on record in the UK, as the many bright arcs in the lower part of this picture testify.

Thanks, Ursarodinia

ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) has teamed up with NASA’s Cassini spacecraft to study a rare storm in the atmosphere of the planet Saturn in more detail than has ever been possible before…

The atmosphere of the planet Saturn normally appears placid and calm. But about once per Saturn year (about thirty Earth years), as spring comes to the northern hemisphere of the giant planet, something stirs deep below the clouds that leads to a dramatic planet-wide disturbance.

The latest such storm was first detected by the radio and plasma wave science instrument on NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, in orbit around the planet, and also tracked by amateur astronomers in December 2010…

This is only the sixth of these huge storms to be spotted since 1876. It is the first ever to be studied in the thermal infrared — to see the variations of temperature within a Saturnian storm — and the first ever to be observed by an orbiting spacecraft.

“This disturbance in the northern hemisphere of Saturn has created a gigantic, violent and complex eruption of bright cloud material, which has spread to encircle the entire planet,” explains Leigh Fletcher…lead author of the new study. “Having both the VLT and Cassini investigating this storm at the same time gives us a great chance to put the Cassini observations into context. Previous studies of these storms have only been able to use reflected sunlight, but now, by observing thermal infrared light for the first time, we can reveal hidden regions of the atmosphere and measure the really substantial changes in temperatures and winds associated with this event.”

The storm may have originated deep down in the water clouds where a phenomenon similar to a thunderstorm drove the creation of a giant convective plume: just as hot air rises in a heated room, this mass of gas headed upwards and punched through Saturn’s usually serene upper atmosphere. These huge disturbances interact with the circulating winds moving east and west and cause dramatic temperature changes high up in the atmosphere.

“Our new observations show that the storm had a major effect on the atmosphere, transporting energy and material over great distances, modifying the atmospheric winds — creating meandering jet streams and forming giant vortices — and disrupting Saturn’s slow seasonal evolution,” adds Glenn Orton…another member of the team.

Delightful stuff – knowledge and dreams. I’ve dreamt of space travel, adventure and exploration, since I was a kid. There’s hardly an area of human endeavor that grabs the focus of my attention more.

We have been moving through the slowest arrival of springtime in decades here in La Cieneguilla. The trees and willow brush down in the bosque of the Santa Fe River are just turning to leaves and green.

You know those little white flowers we see alongside the path at the fenceline every spring? They’re back.

Lightning over Dorset.

Grandma’s maple

A large swath of the country is at risk of moderate to major flooding this spring, from northeastern Montana through western Wisconsin following the Mississippi River south to St. Louis, National Weather Service flood experts are forecasting. Today the agency released an initial spring flood outlook for this high risk region and will release a national spring flood outlook on March 17.

For the third consecutive year, forecasters predict moderate to major flooding along the Red River of the North, which forms the state line between eastern North Dakota and northwest Minnesota and includes the Souris River Basin and the Devils Lake and Stump Lake drainages in North Dakota.

If the current forecast holds, the main stem Mississippi River is at risk for moderate to major flooding from its headwaters in St. Paul, Minn., all the way to St. Louis…

“Excessive precipitation, mainly in the form of snow, coupled with continuously frigid temperatures has yielded a thick snowpack in much of the upper Midwest. We expect significant flooding when this snow begins to melt,” said Lynn Maximuk, central region director of the National Weather Service. “We urge residents in risk areas to closely monitor NOAA’s river forecasts and warnings, and prepare now for flooding.”

For complete details, see the spring flood outlook at http://www.weather.gov/oh/hic/nho.

It would be a chuckle if it weren’t tragic. I don’t see any of the climate change so-called skeptics telling their kin in flood zones to “sit tight and don’t worry about a thing. NOAA experts in weather and climate don’t know nuthin.”

Meanwhile, I hope the rest of y’all pay attention and check predictions and updates for your own neck of the prairie.

This is supposed to be the last snow storm of springtime.

El Niño has been good to Lot 4 and our high desert country. Precipitation has been well above normal, mostly powder snow. Base up at the Santa Fe ski area is 10 feet – before last night’s storm.

That moisture will perc down into the Ancha aquifer and do us all nothing but good.

First thunderheads of the season forming – over the Jemez Mountains out of sight beyond the Caja del Rio mesa. Probably 30 miles away.