Content about weather

So we flew around Hurricane Helene last night. She was making landfall in the big bend. We were approaching Fort Lauderdale International. I thought our flight would be canceled, but we pushed back at Detroit Metro on schedule and actually had a relatively smooth flight. It was late, so I didn't get any photo-worthy views of the storm, but I tracked it and our flight as we were underway. I think we went a bit further East that the route would normally follow, taking us nearly over the Bahamas, but otherwise you might not have known that Helene was raging on the other side of the state.

tags: florida weather travel

postposted by matt in Friday, September 27, 2024

Some thunderstorms rolled in tonight, right as we were getting ready to leave the house to run some errands. We lost power at home. We're running our errands now. Hopefully the power returns before we do.

tags: weather

postposted by matt in Tuesday, August 27, 2024

Tropical Storm Debby washes $1m haul of cocaine onto beach in Florida Keys (independent.co.uk)

The drugs were allegedly blown onto the beach as Debby made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane on Monday, causing at least five deaths and widespread damage across the region before charting a path across the southeastern states.

Well, that's a new one.

tags: weather hurricane

posted by matt in Tuesday, August 6, 2024

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St. Pete appears to be getting brushed by the right side of Tropical Storm Debby this morning. The patio camera went offline, so I'm not able to watch it live. Hopefully we'll get some updates from the folks at the condo over the next couple days – they're usually quite good about getting information out to folks.

Meanwhile, we're enjoying breakfast poolside on an absolutely perfect Sunday morning at home. These contrasts between weather at different locations always amaze me, and remind me of the dynamics of weather.

tags: weather

photo posted by matt in Sunday, August 4, 2024

The forecast over the last few days called for a rainy weekend. Looks like we got it all yesterday and overnight. It's shaping up to be a beautiful Saturday and, right now, tomorrow appears to be more of the same.

It's a different story in St. Pete, though. Tropical Depression Four is just off of Cuba's southern coast right now, below Havana, and is expected to turn north and become Tropical Storm Debby later today. The current trajectory has her making landfall north of Tampa/St. Pete, but the area will likely see significant surge and plenty of rainfall over the weekend. I'll be watching live via my camera on the patio at the condo!

tags: weather stpetebeach

postposted by matt in Saturday, August 3, 2024

Renee and I got caught in a sudden downpour on our walk with Teddy this morning. We camped out on the steps of the St. Pete Beach City Hall and eventually called Jake to pick us up. Quite the adventure!

tags: weather

postposted by matt in Friday, June 28, 2024

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Beautiful morning. Renee and I are finally able to have breakfast by the pool. Hopefully this sticks around for a while.

tags: weather

photo posted by matt in Friday, June 7, 2024

Cutting grass in April is a marathon that feels like a sprint. The first cut of the year always seems to land somewhere around the first week of April, and always makes me think of the marathon ahead — I'll be cutting grass on a regular basis for the next six months. Then the April showers arrive and the grass starts growing uncontrollably. And wet grass doesn't play well with the lawnmower, so I usually end up frantically cutting it whenever I can during April. And it's always too long.

I just cut the front yard twice today - once at the second highest setting and once at the next lowest for good measure because I won't get back to it until Wednesday...after it rains on Tuesday.

I can't wait for July when it all burns out.

tags: weather lawncare spring

postposted by matt in Sunday, April 21, 2024

April is certainly doing its thing quite well this year. We had plenty of rain during the first week of the month, which helped the grass overgrow and prevented me from dealing with it. We had a couple of nice days this weekend, though, so I was able to cut the yard for the first time this year. The extra long grass meant extra draw on the battery, but I got it done.

Now we're off to the races as I try to keep up with it over the next couple months.

tags: weather yardwork

postposted by matt in Sunday, April 7, 2024

It's a beautiful morning. Supposed to be quite warm today and tomorrow, with highs in the 80s. Might be the last blast of summer, though, as a cold front is supposed to arrive on Friday and linger through the weekend.

tags: weather

postposted by matt in Wednesday, October 4, 2023

Tropical Storm Lee nearing hurricane status, will strengthen quickly (tampabay.com)

"Lee does not pose an immediate threat to Florida and most models show the storm curling away from the state."

The Tampa Bay Times gets it right. The quoted language is the subtitle for the paper's main article for Tropical Storm Lee today.

tags: weather florida

posted by matt in Wednesday, September 6, 2023

Tropical Storm Lee could become Category 5 hurricane – live (independent.co.uk)

"Preliminary forecasts are not predicting any landfall"

I won't say they buried the lead, but, at a minimum, they forgot the subtitle. The quoted language is from the body of the article, and near the end.

tags: weather caribbean

posted by matt in Wednesday, September 6, 2023

Loaf-size mission to improve hurricane forecasting is ready to launch | CNN (cnn.com)

Each CubeSat will orbit at about 340 miles (550 kilometers) above Earth’s surface and capture hourly observations of the precipitation, temperature and humidity of tropical storms. Current satellites take similar data, but only about every six hours, which makes it more difficult to measure the intensity of storms.

More frequent data can help scientists understand the rapid changes that can occur within a storm, impacting its structure and stability, and help meteorologists improve their prediction and forecasting models.

Looks like hurricane data will grow six-fold this season. Hopefully that finds its way into weather apps for phones and tablets, which, I think, is where most people track storms (true for me).

tags: weather tech space

posted by matt in Sunday, May 7, 2023

The leading edge of winter seems to have arrived this morning, and it's sharp. We'll have a high of 40º today, and we've already hit that at 11AM.

tags: weather

postposted by matt in Saturday, November 12, 2022

Fall has definitely arrived, and I can feel winter approaching. My body is somehow aware of the change without my mind giving it much thought—I reached for warmer clothes this morning while getting ready for work without even glancing at the forecast.

I also fired up my under-desk space heater as soon as I arrived at the office. Unlike the seemingly automatic reaching for a sweater, my decision to use the space heater was, most definitely, intentional.

tags: weather

postposted by matt in Thursday, October 13, 2022

This year's spring showers aren't respecting the end of April deadline—we've had what seems to be an inordinate amount of rain during this first week of May. Looks like we've got an all day soaker ahead of us today, too.

May flowers can't come soon enough!

tags: weather

postposted by matt in Friday, May 6, 2022

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Spring in the Midwest can be a little crazy. Snow arrived right on schedule this afternoon. And we're supposed to hit eighty degrees this weekend.

By the way, I've been watching that caulking gun on the ledge in the photo for at least a few months now. They did some work on the gutters on the building next to my office awhile back, and one of the workers left it behind. So there it sits, four or five stories off the ground and out of view from nearly everyone. Something tells me it's going to sit there for quite awhile. I can't imagine they repair gutters or the roof on that building very often, and it looks like it's shielded from the wind pretty well (I think it would take quite a gust to knock it down anyways). Months at least, maybe years. We'll see.

tags: weather midwestspring forgottencaulkinggun

photo posted by matt in Monday, April 18, 2022

Ohio Turnpike announces winners of first-ever ‘Name-A-Snowplow' contest (wtol.com)

Look at Ohio doing something fun and cool. I'm happy to see the obligatory Plowy McPlowface made the cut, but it's not my favorite. It's hard to beat Snowbi-Wan Kenobi.

tags: weather ohio

posted by matt in Saturday, January 22, 2022

First snow arrived today. Not much, but it's here. And gone. It's supposed to be sixty degrees plus later this week. That's how the beginning of winter rolls in Ohio.

tags: weather

postposted by matt in Sunday, November 14, 2021

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It's been almost a year since I moved to the new firm, but I still feel like I'm getting used to the place. The physical place—the office. We had some storms roll through today and it felt like the first time I had seen that from this view. I don't know if it is or not, but it felt new to me. And it was actually nice, too. Rain on the river.

tags: weather office rain river

photo posted by matt in Tuesday, June 8, 2021

"Her Siri, what's the weather in St. Pete Beach today?"

Yep...it's about time to get back to the beach.

Ironically, though, it's going to be warmer at home than down in SPB today.

tags: travel weather

postposted by matt in Thursday, May 20, 2021

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Alice looked out the bedroom window this morning in a little bit of disbelief. And, bonus, if you look closely, you can see the rows from where I cut the grass over the weekend. Nuts.

tags: snow weather cat

photo posted by matt in Wednesday, April 21, 2021

Last day of February and we're at 55 degrees and the sun is out in full force. It's beautiful. It's Spring. But it isn't. Just more of February in Ohio.

tags: weather

postposted by matt in Sunday, February 28, 2021

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Dark Sky seems to be a bit out of whack. Apparently we're going to get 16-26 inches of snow today...while there's only a single hour that has a significant probability for precipitation (and even that's less than 50%). I've noticed this happen several times during the recent snow storm that crossed the country. They still can't beat the local weatherman during storms!

tags: weather tech apple

photo posted by matt in Thursday, February 18, 2021

There's a time-honored tradition here in the Midwest of judging the snow-clearing performance of your city or town after a big storm. I certainly don't want to ignore tradition after this doozy of a storm! So, nice work Perrysburg. All major roads were clear early this morning and the plows made a first pass on our residential street as I was finishing the driveway at about 9 AM. This evening, they were focused on detail work, widening the streets a bit. Great job!

tags: weather snow ohio midwest

postposted by matt in Tuesday, February 16, 2021

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Well, Round Two certainly didn't disappoint. This is taken right outside our garage, and the top of the driveway. I think there's a little drifting in it, but not much. Luckily it's a really light snow...relatively easy to clear.

tags: weather snow

photo posted by matt in Tuesday, February 16, 2021

Round Two is underway. Current prediction is for an additional 8-10" of snow over the next several hours. Should be wrapped up overnight. Looking forward to clearing the driveway in the morning!

tags: weather snow

postposted by matt in Monday, February 15, 2021

We hit the mid thirties today - fairly warm for January in Ohio. Renee and were able to get out for a nice walk. Hopefully these temps stay with us for a bit...and the snow stays away.

tags: weather exercise

postposted by matt in Saturday, January 2, 2021

AI has cracked a key mathematical puzzle for understanding our world (technologyreview.com)

I don't fully understand the math involved, but I appreciate the significance of the advance made here. And the potential practical applications are interesting - the author sees a role for it in weather predictions...and climate change

tags: math ai weather climatchange

posted by matt in Thursday, November 5, 2020

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It's cold and drizzling today, with no let up in sight and the temperature is set to drop over the course of the day. Fall is indeed here and it feels like Winter is already knocking on the door!

tags: weather

photo posted by matt in Thursday, October 15, 2020