Thought Patterns

I have a cool flower bed or two here at the house. I have raspberry lilies, daylilies, iris, daffodils, tulips, and a ton of hosta. I also have a bridal wreath shrub and a blue mist shrub. Lorna also has two ferns.

All was fine until this year.

First we got unusually warm weather in the early spring. All the flora was out and oh so happy, despite my warnings. Then came some frosts. Then came a late heavy wet snow.

Some of the plants looked like they would recover although would not be near their usual beauty.

Then came the hail storm. And the next. And the next.

Oh, and then the drought.

The hosta suffered the most since it has such big broad leaves.

This year I had less than five hosta bloom, only one or two daylilies, one raspberry lily, a lot, but not as much as usual, of the daffodil bloomed.

With such a hot summer, I didn't venture out much. I try to go out at least once a day but not this summer. I may be insane but I'm not stupid. But today is such a pretty day, nice temp, cool breeze. So I went outside and took the camera.

The main bed up front.

The hosta

Despite the damage, there are still younger hosta that started growing after the frost, snow, and hail. They have nice leaves.

The raspberry lilies

The blue mist shrub, which was sheltered during the hail storms, did good although it needed daily watering. It is even having some new growth.

Lorna's mom gave me a rabbit statue to go with my other one. They are out among the day lilies although they weren't as well hidden as usual.

From WeatherUnderground:

Statement as of 4:54 PM EDT on August 08, 2007

… Record high temperature set at Greenville-Spartanburg…

The high temperature so far this afternoon at the Greenville-Spartanburg international Airport has been 104 degrees. This temperature was last reached at 335 PM. This is a new record high temperature for this date. The previous record high for August 8 was 98 degrees which was set in 1951.

Statement as of 5:14 PM EDT on August 8, 2007

… Record high temperature reached at Charlotte…

At 502 PM… the high temperature at the Charlotte-Douglas international Airport reached 102 degrees. This breaks the previous record of 101 degrees set in 1951. The last time the temperature reached 101 degrees or higher was August 18th 1988. The record monthly high is 103 degrees and the all-time record high is 104 degrees. Weather records for Charlotte date back to 1879.

(text in statements bolded for emphasis by me)

When Lorna came home at around 5, it was right at 90F here at the house. All of my fishtanks are at around 82F, not good!

I keep forgetting to mention this. I upload weather related images to WeatherUnderground.com. One of my more recent ones got an Approver's Choice Award! How cool is that?

You can find all my weather images on their site. Below is the winning image.

The above image is taken from this one:

This was after one heckuva hail storm a few days ago. The sun had come back out and the temp difference made some pea-soup thick fog. When the sun started to set, the trees and bamboo just framed it right.

Some of the hail storm:

4pm (that's not rain, that's hail coming down; the dark things are ripped up leaves)

Afterwards: (the light-colored patches in the road is piles of hail)

Damage:
My poor hosta! First the late snow, then the hard frosts, now this.

The other end of our road:

Er, Mama Nature? It ain't June yet.

From the National Hurricane Center (NHC)

BULLETIN
SUBTROPICAL STORM ANDREA ADVISORY NUMBER 1
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL AL012007
1100 AM EDT WED MAY 09 2007

…EARLY-SEASON SUBTROPICAL STORM FORMS OFF THE SOUTHEAST U.S. COAST…

SATELLITE IMAGERY AND AIRCRAFT DATA INDICATE THAT THE LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM OFF THE SOUTHEAST U.S. COAST HAS ACQUIRED SUBTROPICAL CHARACTERISTICS.

AT 11 AM EDT…1500 UTC…A TROPICAL STORM WATCH HAS BEEN ISSUED ALONG THE SOUTHEAST COAST OF THE UNITED STATES FROM ALTAMAHA SOUND GEORGIA SOUTHWARD TO FLAGLER BEACH FLORIDA. A TROPICAL STORM WATCH MEANS THAT TROPICAL STORM CONDITIONS ARE POSSIBLE WITHIN THE WATCH AREA…GENERALLY WITHIN THE NEXT 36 HOURS.

FOR STORM INFORMATION SPECIFIC TO YOUR AREA…INCLUDING POSSIBLE INLAND WATCHES AND WARNINGS…PLEASE MONITOR PRODUCTS ISSUED BY YOUR LOCAL WEATHER OFFICE.

AT 1100 AM EDT…1500Z…THE CENTER OF SUBTROPICAL STORM ANDREA WAS LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE 30.8 NORTH…LONGITUDE 79.3 WEST OR ABOUT 140 MILES…225 KM…SOUTHEAST OF SAVANNAH GEORGIA AND ABOUT 150 MILES …240 KM…NORTHEAST OF DAYTONA BEACH FLORIDA.

ANDREA IS MOVING GENERALLY TOWARD THE WEST NEAR 3 MPH. A CONTINUED SLOW MOTION AND A GRADUAL TURN TOWARD THE SOUTHWEST ARE EXPECTED DURING THE NEXT 24 HOURS. ALONG THIS TRACK…THE CENTER OF ANDREA IS EXPECTED TO REMAIN OFFSHORE OF THE U.S. COAST THROUGH AT LEAST THURSDAY MORNING.

MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS ARE NEAR 45 MPH…75 KM/HR…WITH HIGHER GUSTS. LITTLE CHANGE IN STRENGTH IS FORECAST DURING THE NEXT 24 HOURS.

WINDS OF 40 MPH EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 115 MILES…185 KM…MAINLY TO THE EAST OF THE CENTER.

THE LATEST MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE REPORTED BY AN AIR FORCE RESERVE RECONNAISSANCE AIRCRAFT WAS 1003 MB…29.62 INCHES.

SINCE THE HEAVIEST RAINS ASSOCIATED WITH ANDREA ARE EXPECTED TO REMAIN OFFSHORE DURING THE NEXT 24 HOURS… ANDREA IS NOT EXPECTED TO PRODUCE SIGNIFICANT RAINFALL OVER ANY LAND AREAS THROUGH AT LEAST THURSDAY MORNING.

REPEATING THE 1100 AM EDT POSITION…30.8 N…79.3 W. MOVEMENT TOWARD…WEST NEAR 3 MPH. MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS…45 MPH. MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE…1003 MB.

AN INTERMEDIATE ADVISORY WILL BE ISSUED BY THE NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER AT 200 PM EDT FOLLOWED BY THE NEXT COMPLETE ADVISORY AT 500 PM EDT

Linkage:

NHC:

Satellite Images
Advisory Archive

The Emergency Email and Wireless Network

KG4VPY - my ham radio site where I try to keep updates. I failed last season.

The recent cold snap did some major damage to the flora around here.

This was Lorna's Japanese Painted Fern on April 2nd:

The bamboo is still alive, dangit. But I wonder if the red on this new-ish one is from the cold? The other, slightly older one seems to be browner and have some burnt spots.

Not long ago, last week actually, we sat outside in the sun. Lorna read a book, I let the sun touch my skin. It was warm and the clouds were fluffy and it was such a nice day. Several days.

Then we had that hail storm. And now the temps have taken a nose dive.

(from WeatherUnderground)

Do you see those lows? Crap!

We brought my blue mist shrub back up on to the porch. We have the stove back on. The dogs are all on the bed with Lorna.

The last few nights, the wind has been horrendous. Our front door is in such good shape (her voice drips with irony) that we sometimes put something heavy in front of it to keep it from being blown open.

Ah, life in these mountains…

We went out to run errands and the sky was looking ominous. Black, active, nasty looking. You know, ominous.

We came across wet road at a few points but didn't meet rain until about two miles or less away from home. The truck was beaten senseless by the hail stones and Lorna and I were shouting at each other to be heard.

Normally, we would have pulled over and waited it out except we had the dogs outside, several of which are terrified of storms. So we pushed on.

We crested the final hill, about a half mile from the house, and started down…and the sky cleared. No rain. No hail. But good golly Miss Molly! The ditches were running over with water, there was debris everywhere. And then we saw the sides of the road was white with hail.

We live in a low spot on the hill/mountain. It is literally uphill in all directions. As we approached that, we realized there was a thick pile of hail across the two lane paved road. It had to be at least ankle deep in the middle and deeper on the sides. We pulled up to the house and this is what we saw.

And the hail in the road, about a half hour later:

By the way, the dogs were relatively fine. Sam, the young'un, keeps going out and eating hail, coming back in soaking wet and muddy. Again. And again. PopCorn and Sparky are still twitchy. Maggie was the only one dry. Even she had to have heard that hail on the tin roof. Joella is velcro puppy. Oh, and Casey is just fine. She could care less. The goldfish (Sumo, Sake, and Kiko) just wanted food. The cats that were outside demanded to be let in and the cat that was inside wanted out then wanted back in immediately!

Anyway, the storm was gone and it's not rained since. We've had a very dry winter and needed the rain. Just not all at once! I see blue sky and wonderfully huge and white thunderheads from where I sit.