Frog Eggs Fall From the Sky, Nyet on Mickey and Jim is Dead September 20, 2009

Jim Whistled By the Graveyard

Frogs Eggs From the Sky!

On This Date in History:  Its raining cats and Frog Eggs? On this date in 2003, hurricane Isabel moved up the New England coast. It had strong winds and very heavy rain. In Berlin, Connecticut, there were reports of it raining frog eggs. Investigators confirmed the occurrence. Trouble is, frogs don’t lay eggs in Connecticut at that time of year. The scientists best guess is that the storm picked up the eggs upon landfall in North Carolina and carried them 500 miles to the Nutmeg State. No word on what “expert” you are to call if you have frog eggs falling from the sky; biologist, meteorologist or frog chef.

 

 

 

Sulu Wishes He Was Dead

Jim Is Dead On this date in 1881, President James Garfield died. He was shot a few months earlier by a disgruntled (love that adjective) supporter who had hoped for a good patronage position with the new President. So, he got mad and shot the President at a Washington train station on July 2, just 4 months after Garfield inauguration. The bullet lodged near the Presidents spine and he eventually got weak and died. Today, many medical professionals suggest that had he been up and gaining strength, he would have lived with the bullet in his body. If McCoy had been there, he might have said, “you’re dead, Jim.”

Nikita Visited Everyone But Mickey

Nyet on Mickey On this date in 1959, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev was locked out of the Magic Kingdom. Khrushchev was on his extended tour of the United States prior to a high level meeting with President Eisenhower. The authorities decided that a Khrushchev visit to Disneyland would attract large crowds and they couldn’t guarantee his safety so he was barred from visiting Goofy, though he had met Shirley MacLaine earlier in the day. Naturally, Khrushchev saw it as a capitalistic plot against his fun and was quoted to have said, “And I say, I would very much like to go and see Disneyland. But then, we cannot guarantee your security, they say. Then what must I do? Commit suicide? What is it? Is there an epidemic of cholera there or something? Or have gangsters taken hold of the place that can destroy me?”

Sunday 8 pm EDT

Weather Bottom Line:  I just did a quick look-see at the data. I have to usher at church this morning and I have my fantasy football to attend to.  We got our rain this morning but it wasn’t as dramatic as the GFS was advertising, for most people.  The National Weather Service is putting out a map that says 24 hour rainfall through this morning.  But, it doesn’t specify what day or through what time.  Assuming that the map was indeed updated,  The GFS had said over 2 inches between 4am and 10 am for Standiford Field.  Well, it would appear that the airport got less than an inch and Bowman got something like a bit over 3/4″ of an inch, which is what I had at my house and my sunflowers are happier for it. 

Rainfall through Sun Morning?

But, the map indicates some cooperative stations received between 2 and 3 inches in Bullitt and Shelby counties.  So, one might say that the GFS had a  better handle than the NAM.  With that in mind, the GFS wants to take the big trof with a huge shortwave coming down and retrograde it somewhat to the Rocky Mountains.  The NAM is similar.  It’s like its a cut-off low.  Now, this pattern would suggest that we will have a pattern to support somewhat unstable conditions for a few days so a threat of rain would be in the offing.  Perhaps higher on Monday than the rest of the week provided that the wrap around from the low moving to the northeast on Sunday is pokey enough.  Now, the Canadian model wants to have that trof move out toward the middle part of the week and the GFS wants to move it out toward the end of the week.  That would tend to move the much cooler and drier air into the region then.  It makes some sense and so I suspect that at some point over the next 7 days, we will get that cooler air that was being hinted at for the first part of the week…just shifting it out  a few days.  The only wrinkle would be if that trof out west simply lifts north.   But, this time of the year we start becoming more active and I would expect that the trof will be moving. The question is when.  So the bottom line is to expect passing rain or t’storms today.  It may be interesting to see what happens as a warm front comes through and then the parent low.  Yesterday, the SPC had a 5% chance for severe weather here and today they got ride of that. Nothing has really changed to get rid of the 5% and that’s probably a pretty decent assessment.  Other  than that, expect periods of cloudiness for the next few days.  Temperatures will be held down in the afternoon and there will be a threat of scattered showers and storms.  I will be humid so I wouldn’t think that the overnight lows will be all that  cool.  Then toward the end of the week, a front comes through and increases rain chances again followed by much cooler air.

Oprah’s Harpo Studios Haunted From Eastland Disaster? Kitchen Debate Video July 24, 2009

Eastland Disaster One of Nation's Worst

On This Date In History: The steamboat Eastland was a steamboat on the Chicago River in the early 20th century that was built with known engineering flaws. But, they used it for ferrying passengers from the city to picnic sites on Lake Michigan. It was designed to hold 650 people. On This Date In 1915, some 7000 employees of the Western Electric Company gathered on the dock between LaSalle and Clark streets to board 5 steamers. Now, in 1913, the Eastland was retrofitted to hold 2500 people, but a naval architect that very same year said that “unless structural defects are remedied to prevent listing, there may be a serious accident.” Nevertheless, the boat remained in service and it is estimated that at least 2500 boarded the vessel and perhaps more. There is suspicion that a large group of the passengers got to one side of the boat to pose for a picture. With the big weight shift, an engineer opened one of the ballast tanks but instead of stablizing the boat, it capsized right along the dock. Some 800 died. The bodies were taken to the Second Regiment Armory.

Today, that building is the home of Harpo Studios and The Oprah Winfrey Show. Some of the employees of the studio have reported encounters in the building and claim that it is haunted by the ghosts  of the Eastland disaster! So, if you go to see Oprah you may want to consult the Ghost Busters.

On This Date in 1959: Vice President Richard Nixon hosted an event at the American National Exposition in Moscow. Here is a video of how the newsreels of the day covered it.  The previous year, the Soviets and Americans agreed to hold exhibitions in each other’s countries in an attempt to encourage cultural exchange and perhaps better understanding. After the Soviets had theirs in New York, the Americans held theirs and it featured a number of modern appliances and such.  Nixon took Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev on a tour. As Nixon was showing Khrushchev some new color TVs, the Soviet leader launched into a protest over a resolution recently passed in the US Congress that condemned Soviet “control” over “captive” peoples of Eastern Europe and called on Americans to pray for those people. After that, he dismissed the new technology and sniffed that the Soviets would have all of the same things in a few years. Nixon chastised Khrushchev for being afraid of new ideas and told him, “after all, you don’t know everything.” The exchange escalated with Nikita telling the Vice-President that the only thing he knew was fear of Communism. From that point, they headed into the kitchen of a model home and the debate got even more testy. The exchange became known as the “Kitchen Debate” and is one of the more entertaining but insignificant events of the cold war.   However, it does perhaps illustrate the tensions between the two super powers when two of their political leaders turned up the heat in the kitchen.  I”m not sure but I think that Khrushchev was just pissed off that they wouldn’t let him extend  his trip to Disneyland.    (snopes verification)

SPC Convective Outlook Sat 8am to Sun 8am

Weather Bottom Line:  Today will be warm but still below seasonal averages.  A front will be dropping down through the Ohio Valley on Saturday with rain chances increasing late in the day into the evening.  Ahead of the front, we should have a southwesterly flow which will help elevate the temperatures into the upper 80′s.  The SPC puts us on the edge of the severe threat with most of the activity from Louisville to the Great Lakes.  Should the boundary approach a little faster, then the odds of us getting strong storms in the region will be increased but at this point, the expectation is that the line of storms associated would come late enough in the evening that the storms would be on the down side of their daily cycle with an abscense of heating.  With our atmosphere relatively stable, I just dont think that there will be sufficient time to destablize the atmosphere sufficiently to create a scenario that would support strong storms overnight.  So, if we get them it would most likely be if the line came through in the early evening.  If we do not get to 90 on Saturday, which is not likely, then this front will serve to bring in slightly cooler air and increase the probability that we will not hit 90 by the end of July, which would mean that this would be the first time in recorded history that Louisville did not hit 90 during the month of July in any given year.  BTW…Invest 97L is dead, Jim.

DAY 2 CONVECTIVE OUTLOOK 
   NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER NORMAN OK
   1245 AM CDT FRI JUL 24 2009
  
   VALID 251200Z – 261200Z
  
   …THERE IS A SLGT RISK OF SVR TSTMS ACROSS PARTS OF THE OH
   VALLEY…
  
   …OH VALLEY/MID-MS VALLEY/OZARKS …
   AN UPPER-LEVEL LOW IS FORECAST TO MOVE SEWD INTO THE GREAT LAKES
   REGION SATURDAY. SOME THUNDERSTORM ACTIVITY SHOULD BE ONGOING
   SATURDAY MORNING ASSOCIATED WITH A WELL-DEVELOPED LOW-LEVEL JET. SFC
   HEATING…LOW-LEVEL CONVERGENCE AND STRONG LARGE-SCALE ASCENT
   SOUTHEAST OF THE UPPER-LEVEL LOW SHOULD RESULT IN SCATTERED TO
   NUMEROUS THUNDERSTORM DEVELOPMENT AROUND MIDDAY AHEAD A FAST-MOVING
   COLD FRONT FROM OHIO SWWD ACROSS THE OH VALLEY. THE ACTIVITY IS
   FORECAST TO DEVELOP IN THE EXIT REGION OF A WELL-DEFINED MID-LEVEL
   JET WHICH SHOULD CREATE 35 TO 45 KT OF VERTICAL SHEAR EVIDENT ON
   FORECAST SOUNDINGS. THIS COMBINED WITH MODERATE INSTABILITY AND 40
   KT OF FLOW AT 850 MB SHOULD BE FAVORABLE FOR ISOLATED WIND DAMAGE.
   COLD AIR ALOFT AND THE VERTICAL SHEAR MAY ALSO BE ENOUGH FOR HAIL
   WITH THE STRONGER UPDRAFTS. ALTHOUGH LOW-LEVEL FLOW AND VERTICAL
   SHEAR WEAKEN WSWWD ACROSS THE MID-MS VALLEY INTO THE OZARKS…ENOUGH
   INSTABILITY IS FORECAST SATURDAY AFTERNOON FOR STRONG UPDRAFTS WITH
   A MARGINAL SEVERE THREAT MAINLY NEAR PEAK HEATING.
  
   …ECNTRL CO/SE WY…
   AN UPPER-LEVEL RIDGE IS FORECAST TO BE IN PLACE ACROSS THE SRN
   ROCKIES SATURDAY. NORTH OF THE RIDGE…SCATTERED THUNDERSTORMS
   SHOULD DEVELOP IN THE HIGHER TERRAIN OF ECNTRL CO AND SE WY BY EARLY
   AFTERNOON. FORECAST SOUNDINGS ALONG THIS CORRIDOR SATURDAY AFTERNOON
   SHOW MODERATE VERTICAL SHEAR PROFILES MAINLY FROM SPEED SHEAR ABOVE
   500 MB. THIS ALONG WITH STEEP MID-LEVEL LAPSE RATES MAY BE ENOUGH
   FOR MARGINALLY SEVERE HAILSTORMS DURING THE LATE AFTERNOON.
  
   …WRN MT…
   AN UPPER-LEVEL LOW IS FORECAST TO MOVE NEWD ACROSS THE PACIFIC
   NORTHWEST SATURDAY. AHEAD OF THE UPPER-LEVEL LOW…AN AXIS OF
   INSTABILITY IS FORECAST TO BE LOCATED FROM NW WY EXTENDING NWWD
   ACROSS WRN MT. VERTICAL SHEAR IS FORECAST TO INCREASE ACROSS THE
   REGION AS THE UPPER-LEVEL LOW MOVES EWD. THIS COMBINED WITH STEEP
   LAPSE RATES MAY BE ENOUGH FOR MARGINALLY SEVERE STORMS CAPABLE OF
   STRONG WIND GUSTS AND HAIL.
  
   ..BROYLES.. 07/24/2009

Flying Frog Eggs, No Mickey and Jim is Dead September 20, 2007

The weather remains rather boring, but nice. Okay, we need rain and we will eventually get some. A front next week will get here by around Tuesday and its possible the rain chances will be enhanced by whatever happens with a system trying to develop in the Gulf. A fair scenario will be for it to move onshore along the Gulf Coast and get swept up in the flow ahead of the front and bring much needed moisture to the Ohio Valley. But, until then, just enjoy the warm late summer afternoons and mild nights. All the complaints will not change a thing so you might as well enjoy it.

On This Date in History:

Jim Is Dead On this date in 1881, President James Garfield died. He was shot a few months earlier by a disgruntled (love that adjective) supporter who had hoped for a good patronage position with the new President. So, he got mad and shot the President at a Washington train station on July 2, just 4 months after Garfield inauguration. The bullet lodged near the Presidents spine and he eventually got weak and died. Today, many medical professionals suggest that had he been up and gaining strength, he would have lived with the bullet in his body. If McCoy had been there, he might have said, “Jim, you’re dead.”

Nyet on Mickey On this date in 1959, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev is locked out of the Magic Kingdom. Khrushchev was on his extended tour of the United States prior to a high level meeting with President Eisenhower. The authorities decided that a Khrushchev visit to Disneyland would attract large crowds and they couldn’t guarantee his safety so he was barred from visiting Goofy, though he had met Shirley MacLaine earlier in the day. Naturally, Khrushchev saw it as a capitalistic plot against his fun and was quoted to have said, “And I say, I would very much like to go and see Disneyland. But then, we cannot guarantee your security, they say. Then what must I do? Commit suicide? What is it? Is there an epidemic of cholera there or something? Or have gangsters taken hold of the place that can destroy me?”

Its raining cats and Frog Eggs? On this date in 2003, hurricane Isabel moved up the New England coast. It had strong winds and very heavy rain. In Berlin, Connecticut, there were reports of it raining frog eggs. Investigators confirmed the occurrence. Trouble is, frogs don’t lay eggs in Connecticut at that time of year. The scientists best guess is that the storm picked up the eggs upon landfall in North Carolina and carried them 500 miles to the Nutmeg State. No word on what “expert” you are to call if you have frog eggs falling from the sky; biologist, meteorologist or frog chef.