it's a dragon. now it's a puppy. now it's a castle. now ....

here are some fascinating pictures of clouds. i've seen some of them. some of the pictures were taken from above the clouds. isn't nature curious?!

ice crystals

have you ever heard of a fire rainbow? i've never heard of one, let alone seen one, and this article says they are relatively common in the u.s.; the picture in the article is pretty and was taken in scotland.

stormy skies

wow -- this is unreal. i mean, there's just something about a tornado video ... you just can't not watch it. this one isn't too long and it shows, the first i've seen, a number of trucking units being picked up and tossed around. it's just like 'twister,' which i thought was a good flick. the thing that i really thought was weird, though, was seeing all the traffic continuing on the highway less than a mile away (a guess). don't those people know that's dangerous? a sign of the times, maybe, huh?

don't leave home without it

did you ever want to see someone caught in an avalanche? this gal was snowboarding and triggered an avalanche and used an airbag to keep herself on top. it's interesting to watch. curious that the whole thing was filmed, but i don't suppose they had that all planned out.

where's the sled? the snow shoes? the blanket?

i wanna move to alaska!! 172 inches of snow and counting! yay!!!

crazy weather

egads, it's been unbelieveably hot here lately! i mean, last week our temps got up to 77* and 78*!! that's the hottest this year!

i have to stay inside and drink ice water.

stormchaser

some really great pix of a couple of tornadoes in nebraska.

M-class sun events

oh goody -- we're supposed to be able to see the northern lights tomorrow night and the next night. apparently it's a Kp=4 forecast. i know, i know -- it sounds like something i would make up, but no. at that designation, we should be able to see it along with people in spokane wa, great falls mt, grand forks nd, sioux falls sd, minneapolis mn, oshkosh wi, grand rapids mi, and ottawa canada.

oh pooh -- every single time we hear of a good chance of seeing it, we have cloud cover. we will have clouds and/or rain for the next 7 days. dangit!

oh, the weather outside was .....

i should have been taking pictures. thursday it snowed, probably between 2 and 4 inches, friday it rained, and today it's cloudy with absolutely no evidence of white stuff.

i had hoped we were going to have more of a winter than we did last year -- it mainly hovered around 57* all winter. so i guess you can say we did have more of a winter .... just not for very long.

where's the ladder...

i forgot to mention this article i saw about the coolest way we can all help to fight global warming -- just paint your roof white. it's really interesting reading, and i can't understand why anyone would be against it. i mean, such a small thing could make a big difference.

get out the ark

this is an interesting map -- it shows, or purports to show, the extent of rising water the world over. and it's curious how some places would get soaked and others wouldn't be much bothered. check out sacramento, for example. and at 14m, the olympics are on their way to becoming their own island. intriguing.

status quo

our weather has been interesting the last 7 or 8 months. it's been mainly 57* that whole time. sure, there has been variation -- down to 31*, up to 72* -- but it's been surprising how much the temperature has stayed the same. i haven't minded it, although i like to have a couple of really cold days. the heat though, meh ... not so much.

if global warming is influencing our weather, does that mean it's going to get hotter farther north? or that it's going to start making everything cooler. i'm confused about that making-things-colder part.

just don't breathe ...

there seems to be a really bad fungus on the loose in oregon. in this section of the world, it appears to have started on vancouver island, then spread to washington and oregon. the recent strain has killed 25% of its victims. there's no vaccine for it and it can take years of treatment to cure you once you get it. people can get it as well as animals. the supposition is that global warming has contributed to its appearance. just yuck!

uh, oh ....

and speaking of tornadoes .... i had a dream a number of nights ago about tornadoes.

i was in the living room of a house against a hill, with a couple of people, and we heard a loud, long-lasting siren going off outside. i asked what it was and someone casually said it was a tornado alert. no one seemed concerned and i asked if we shouldn't take cover. they talked about going into various closets and i said i was probably going to go down in the basement. i decided to look outside and saw a HUGE rotating cloud, on the ground, just a little ways away. it was like a gigantic round barn and had to have been two miles across. i was fascinated and wondered where my camera was. then i remembered i could take a picture with my cell phone, even if i could never get the picture off the phone. so i opened the glass door of the glassed-in porch i was standing in and leaned out with my phone to take the pix. right about that time a house came flying out of the sky and slammed to the ground, sliding right down the street. i thought maybe it was time for me to take cover, so as i turned to close the glass door and get back into the room-with-three-walls-of-glass (which was standing by itself in a flat, quasi-business area), i saw a second tornado about 2 blocks away headed straight in my direction. fortunately for me, the fourth wall of the room had a closet with sliding doors, so i got in the closet, stopping only to pull the dresser against my side of the closet, and closed the door. then i scrunched down and woke up.

tornadoes

i read a little blurb about storm chasers, a subject i thought was entertainingly done in Twister. this blurb was entertaining, too, the paragraphs being entitled 'get in its path', 'unpimp your ride', and 'try not to die'. :)

nature whoops it up

did you hear about the dust storms down in australia? check out these pictures that people took -- whoa!!!

i scream, you scream, we all scream...

i just looked at some pictures of glaciers which were taken from space. they're pretty neat, although sad, because they point up how global warming is changing things.

i still remember not so long ago when people were going 'what? global warming? that's a crock. that's just people trying to scare us.' hmmm, well okay except that here it is september 21 and tomorrow it's supposed to get up to 76* and be in the 70s the rest of the week. global warming is not my favorite scenario.

i wonder if i should move to alaska? well, maybe not -- they have melting glaciers, too.

and a good time was had by all ...

there's nothing quite like getting together with family. since My Younger Son lives in new york and is busy with grad school, and My Older Son lives in everett but is busy with his job and family, getting everyone together for more than two days can be impossible. BUT -- we all got together last week and enjoyed five days on the other side of the mountains!

we stayed at a new, two-story log cabin which was situated right next to a small river west of mazama. with mountains surrounding us and being 7 miles from the nearest grocery store (but just two blocks from a grass landing strip), we felt secluded and mercifully free from the noisy kids, barking dogs, and drunken adults one might find at other vacation places.

we weren't completely free from pests, though -- in fact, we'd forgotten how very annoying it is when flies are around. to say nothing of wasps, mosquitoes, and other buggy things. so i mostly stayed indoors, especially since the temps got into the high 90s and low 100s.

it was fun to go wade in the river, but really, who needs flies?! i'm just glad we live on this side of the mountains and don't have to put up with them.

the grandaughter was adorable, of course, and a side trip into winthrop was fun. i hope we can get together again next year, or the following year at the latest. being with good people is one of life's greatest joys!!!

the rain in blaine is mainly on the plane

it's supposed to rain today. maybe.

it's been 30 days (a new record) since we had any rain. considering where i live, that's pretty wild. and the crops are needing the water. anyhow, it's supposed to rain today and when i get to work, i need to remember to NOT take my umbrella inside with me. i mean, that's my own personal trick with the weather -- whenever i take my umbrella inside, it doesn't rain when it's time for me to go outside.

i'm not sure quite how that works, but since i've carried it closed a lot more times than i've carried it open, there's something going on with that theory. so, okay -- no umbrella!

god's country

what a beautiful day! there's a soft breeze, the curtains are gently flared away from the windows, the sun is coming up in a cloud-less sky, there's a hush except for a couple of happy birds.

this is a day to go for a walk on the spit. and i should probably go right now before it gets hot or peopled except that i'm going to enjoy this loveliness reading a book and having a quiet breakfast.

one with nature for sure.