June 23, 2005, 8:48 pm
Just read Brian's post from Boston, so I figured I would chime in here with a few notes from Orlando, where I have been all week for a Disney World getaway with my family.
I totally agree about Brian's take on viewing clouds from 30,000 feet. I took this image from the plane early this week, somewhere between Birmingham and Orlando:
The weather down here has been generally wet, but quite frankly it has worked in our favor. Very little problems with heat, and the rain has knocked the crowds down a bit so the lines aren't too bad. We were soaked only once, in a dash between a boat ride and the Italian restaurant at Epcot.
I have been very pleased with our Disney experience; here are some notes:
*We are at a villa in the Saratoga Springs Resort, a new community in the Disney complex across the lagoon from Downtown Disney. Very, very nice. You get a pretty good degree of privacy, but you are very close to everything. A great view of the nightly fireworks over at Downtown Disney from the patio.
*The Fast Pass concept works very well. Be sure and use Fast Pass as much as possible if you come down here this summer. It will save a ton of time waiting in lines; you take a ticket, and are given a time when you can come back with little or no wait.
*Tried Blizzard Beach for the first time; a water park here at the complex. Thumbs up from everyone... lines weren't too bad and there was something for all ages. This wasn't in the original plan, but I am glad we went over there.
*The "coolest" new ride was the Tower of Terror at MGM Studios; one of my favorites was the new "soaring" ride at Epcot. It gives you the feel of being in a hang glider over a variety of scenes. Very, very good.
Enough of this for now... I have done a pretty good job of staying away from the laptop this week. Back to having fun! I will be back in the saddle Monday of next week, June 27. Thanks to the guys at home for covering all the various elements of my day!
June 23, 2005, 6:17 pm
It’s always amazing to me every time it happens. To be in the air with the clouds and watch from a different angle what we see everyday from the ground. Today I flew to Charlotte and then on to Boston where I’ll be attending WSI’s Broadcast User Group meeting. I hope to gain new knowledge on the graphic system we use to present the weather on 3340.
But right now as I write this in Andover, just north of Boston, I’m reveling in the getting here. I’ve been fascinated by weather nearly all my life. There is so much to see in the sky if we take the time to do it. Many of us – and count me in that group – are fascinated by the most extreme weather like hurricanes, tornadoes, and severe thunderstorms or winter weather. But there is weather everyday that presents us with a variety of visual stimulation – pretty mundane but with so much to see.
What made today interesting is to be able to look at the weather from the sky. It is such a different perspective to be there traveling through the puffy cumulus clouds. To be floating through the ice crystals that make up the thin wispy clouds we see so often is just fabulous. To be looking down on a field of cumulus that stretches out of sight is awesome.
There wasn’t anything strange or unusual about the trip to Boston. No thunderstorms, no hurricanes, no rain, no turbulence, just some clear skies, some cumulus clouds, some cirrus clouds - but what a view. I just marvel every time that I get an opportunity to fly, to see the weather from the sky.
By coming all the way to Boston, I’ve also been able to escape the heat of central Alabama. But not for long. I just caught the evening weather forecast from one of the Boston stations, and they’re expecting UPPER 90s here on Saturday. Guess I made a good forecast when I packed my shorts!!
Enjoy the sky,
-Brian-
June 23, 2005, 1:40 pm
The
ABC 33/40 Podcast for Thursday, June 23rd is now being served by our RSS feed.
Want to subscribe to our free daily podcast audio weather forecast? Use this RSS feed in your podcast receiving program:
feeds.feedburner.com/Weathertalk
June 23, 2005, 7:12 am
It's your standard forecast for a dry Alabama summertime day: hot, hazy sunshine. A sprawling ridge of high pressure west of us today will provide a northwest wind aloft and very light winds down here close to the ground. That presents two problems for us today: one, it gets hotter this afternoon, and two, with the light winds and a subsidence inversion above 10,000 feet, haze and ground level ozone will be a problem, especially in Jefferson and Shelby Counties. The highest concentration of air pollution is in North Birmingham today.
That ridge that is giving us the hot, hazy weather will begin to weaken this weekend, which could give an upper air low to our east a chance to spread some additional clouds and a few isolated thunderstorms into the state on Saturday afternoon. The best chance of rain will be well southeast of Birmingham, though, in places like Dothan, Phenix City, and Montgomery. By Sunday, that upper air low should start to move a little more to the west, and that will increase our chance of rain; however, don't look for any widespread soaking rains anytime soon! The rain by Sunday and early next week will be in a scattered fashion with some spots getting a heavy downpour and others staying bone dry!
Because of the scattered nature of thunderstorms, next week's high temperatures should stay in the upper 80s to lower 90s with morning lows near 70 degrees.
June 23, 2005, 3:50 am
The
ABC 33/40 Podcast for Thursday, June 23 is now being served by our RSS
feed.
Want to subscribe to our free daily podcast audio weather forecast?
Use this RSS feed in your podcast receiving program:
feeds.feedburner.com/Weathertalk
June 22, 2005, 11:18 pm
From the website of Senator Richard Shelby, R, Alabama:
As Chairman of the new Committee of Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee, Senator Shelby’s office reports that several important weather and climate related projects for North Alabam have cleared the subcommittee and are heading for approval at the Committee level. Some of the items include:
$1 million for the Climate Research at the University of Alabama Huntsville: Senator Shelby said, “I am pleased that our bill includes $1 million to provide UAH with the resources necessary to continue its research in global climate change and to provide policy makers and the public with the most up-to-date sound science available. As the debate regarding global warming continues, it is crucial that arguments on this matter be based on sound science.
$2 million for the NOAA Tornado Center: Senator Shelby said, “These funds will be used to establish a severe thunderstorm and tornado research program in coordination with NASA, NOAA and UAH.”
$2 million for the Remote Sensing Center: Senator Shelby said, “These funds will establish a NOAA Center at UAH for advancing our knowledge and understanding of the environment through the use of information and remote sensing technologies, both ground and space-based.”
$50,000 for NOAA All-Hazards Radios in Schools: Senator Shelby said, “I am pleased that our bill includes $50,000 which will provide weather radios for 1000 Alabama schools. These radios will provide our schools with up-to-the-minute information about storm warnings and ensure that our schools are prepared in the event of a dangerous weather event.”
$2.5 million for SURA Coastal Ocean Observing System: Shelby said: “The goal of this program, of which UAH is a participant, is to implement a system to provide comprehensive, real-time access to observational data and numerical forecasts of coastal hazards and threats as well as phenomena of routine interest to a host of operational stakeholders.”
Sounds like things are going to be busy in Huntsville...