How's Your Weather?

[Pete_C]

It is now 107 with a heat index of 115 , and we have a red level ozone alert.

This morning when they announced the heat warning and Ozone alert they said "It will be unhealthy to be outside between 10AM and 10PM today. "

Okay, I agree, that sounds unhealthy to me.

Tomorrow is expected to be more of the same.

We have warm water but not in the nineties, they pipe it underground and that cools it from the temp of the lakes (reservoirs), but still this time of year it gets hot enough in the lakes for the algae to bloom and make unfiltered water taste positively foul.

Still, I set the temp on the water heater to just midrange and can run with full hot and full cold and still get a hot shower.

[TheTerrorist_75]

It's been in the upper 70s to mid 80s, a touch humid with popup showers around here. Yesterday a strong thunderstorm passed through and knocked out the power. I just love doing electrical work and all of a sudden hear a loud boom while I am messing with bare live wires.

[Pete_C]

Power outage here last night too.

Just after sunset showers a hundred miles south of here caused a "gust front" to form and we had sudden fifty MPH wind and a twenty degree temp drop. Not going to complain about the cooldown (it did not last) but the wind knocked out power on the block for an hour.

If it hadn't been for the cooldown it would have been miserable. As is all the neighborhood came out and strolled from house to house chatting for an hour till they got power back on.

Edit, the paper actually had an editorial about our power outage. Turns out that the transformer was overloaded. I guess they failed to replace it when all the new townhouses got built down the street, and they use more power than anticipated and the transformer should have been upgraded. So they fried it , and the neighboring ones they tried to shift the load to when it blew.

Three transformers for the price of one.

It turns out it had been a record usage day , something like 63 Gigawatts (thats for all of Texas not just Dallas); so I guess that was when it would go if ever.

Edited August 6, 2008 by Pete_C

[irregularjoe]

Yikes. "Cold" water over ninety degrees? I HOPE your hot & cold lines are crossed!

They also make fun of L.A. weathermen: "Beautiful today." "Another beautiful day." " ... another beautiful day." "Does anybody actually listen any more?"

Here, "seasonable." Warm, Sunny, picture perfect. (Too warm FOR ME, but everybody else seems to like it.)

No. Cold and hot lines are not crossed. There is no cold water within a fifty miles this time of year. City water lines run underground, but because there is no frost line, they are not buried that deep. 18 inches is normal. And the lines from the street to the house are sometimes less than that. Then of course there is the problem that the genuises that built most of the houses in the city and for that matter the entire southern half of the state didn't bother to build basements. So all the mechanical systems IE: water, electric, gas, venting for heat and AC... are in the attic. If you can call them attics that is.... More like crawl spaces. Oh, and it's SO much fun when you have to work up there. I remodeled my kitchen about 3 years ago and ended up having to rewire half the house after I discovered how bad the original wiring was.

I'm STILL going to physical therapy after that job.

It's typical for the temperature to get to 135+ degrees up there most of the summer.

I've had many clients over the years that told me they just shut the water heater off for the summer. Actually I think I'm going to do that tomorrow.

Edited August 5, 2008 by irregularjoe

[JDoors]

Yeah, I grew up in the MidWest and wouldn't have thought about supply lines being closer to the surface and running through the attic. Now I'm surprised your "cold" water's THAT cool.

-----

We had severe storms last night that caused damage, mostly South of where I was. However, one of the people I was with has been within spittin' distance of a tornado before and it was bizarre to watch the panic set in. She's a very strong person under most circumstances, but once the adreniline or emotions kick in, all bets are off.

There was a tornado "warning" in effect for the area (someone, somewhere, claims they spotted at least a funnel cloud; authenticity of the claim, location of the claim, and severity of the event would be unknown) and a tornado siren, barely audible, went off (they had to point it out to me, by my house the siren's a block away and there's NO way to overlook it). The Weather Channel scroll said the "sighting" was in a town about twenty miles away (I think much more than that but I didn't look it up, it's so far away I'd never actually BEEN there). Outside was a typically severe storm (I've seen FAR worse dozens, maybe hundreds, of times). The electric power was fluttering but never went out. She's practically screaming to get everyone in the basement. Well, she HAD to scream because she was already IN the basement.

I guess that's the "safest" thing to do, but the odds are so incredibly slim that anything would hit I thought it was overkill (based on experience and everything I had observed to that point). I reluctantly went into the basement anyway, mainly to keep her from losing it entirely.

No damage in our area, some trees and power lines were knocked down and local street flooding occurred elsewhere.

[isteve]

Around 4pm today we got a huge storm blow through. In the matter of 15 minutes we went from sunny sky to some of the heaviest rain I ever seen and some wind gust that knocked down trees all over town then to sunny sky again. Of course the electricity went out for 5 hours.

I took a walk around and found a big pine in my yard was knocked over. The local news truck was at the end of my street where four maples were knocked over onto a apartment house. Around the conner there were trees down and power lines down and a telephone pole broke in half.

[JDoors]

Sound similar to the wind damage 'round here. However, some reports say a tornado touched down in a town not previously mentioned, and THAT town was too close for comfort to where I was at the time. Still far enough away that the effects from it were non-existant locally, but close enough that I HAVE been there.

One report from a meteorologist said the damage was consistant with a micro-burst, not a tornado. Some buildings damaged, but nothing that wouldn't be expected from a very severe storm rather than a tornado.

Still, I would have felt like such a dork if I had been the only one whisked off to OZ, so I'm glad I did finally acquiesce and go to the basement.

Now we're back to seasonable weather; Sunny & warm.

[TheTerrorist_75]

Cold front has some through. We are expecting 4 days in the 70s with nights in the upper 50s and lower 60s. This is the weather I like around here.

[darckasasin]

I'd say about 80 or 90 degrees, muggy, but not a cloud in the sky

[TheTerrorist_75]

Wow. Nasty T-storms with hail all around us, yet we had clear sunny skies.

[isteve]

We had a tornado warning earlier today, funnel clouds were spotted and few towns away. We now have a thunder storm warning in affect with possible hail.

I thought this was funny the warning from the national weather service ends with a few tips to stay safe. The last one was "stay away from windows". I'm guessing it's the glass ones not the Microsoft kind.

[JDoors]

... I thought this was funny the warning from the national weather service ends with a few tips to stay safe. The last one was "stay away from windows". I'm guessing it's the glass ones not the Microsoft kind.

Yeah, I'm thinking window panes, but ya never know.

I won't forget one of the first home videos I saw of a tornado approaching a house. They're taking the video out through a HUGE plate-glass window as the tornado heads straight for them! As everthing is getting destroyed they FINALLY decide it's time to get in the basement and, with the camera still running, you see them heading down the stairs. As they go down the stairs they turn the camera upwards and ... the house is GONE. Whew!

Another beautiful day here; seasonable, warm, sunny.

[TheTerrorist_75]

A spinning low over Canada is picking up moisture from Lake Ontario and dumping heavy rains on us causing some flooding issues.

[JDoors]

We're getting scary weather. It's not BAD weather, just a light rain, but it's a FALL RAIN. It feels like one anyway. Not a good sign!

[bobbynichols]

Expected to be a balmy 305º Kelvin... Cool for us this time of year... a light breeze helped keep it even more comfortable yesterday... hope it returns today, but not in the fire areas.

[martymas]

we are having some of the most adverse weather on record

snow in the city live in

and for this time of the year

also high winds in an area not known for the gale force

gusts

for me ime an astmatic

and the cold weather keeps me inside

hope every one is safe

take care

marty

[bobbynichols]

Hey Marty! Hope your weather moderates downunder soonest !!!

Unseasonably cooler for the last few days here (and today hopefully)... low to mid-80º's Fahrenheit with an occasion brisk breeze. Prior to that we flirted with the 100º F mark for a spell. The trend is toward more normal (90º's) soon.

Water rationing requested down in the Sacramento area due to drought conditions... our well water up here in the Sierra foothills getting more and more irony (sic)... I fear our well may soon be depleted if we do not get an early fall.

Fire hazard still very high... ozone moderate now, but on the rise.

[JDoors]

Marty, snow & high winds? What SHOULD it be like this time of year?

Still Summer-y here, bright & sunny, temps in the low eighties. Perfect for most people. Rain's comin' for the weekend.

[hitest]

Cool and wet today:-)

Current Conditions

Light rain

11 °C

Wind 4 km/hr S

[sultan_emerr]

Residents were ordered to flee an only partially rebuilt New Orleans Sunday as another monster storm bore down on Louisiana nearly three years to the day after Hurricane Katrina wiped out entire swaths of the city.

[JDoors]

I hope everyone's OK in New Orleans and elsewhere. I also hope if it turns out to be an overreaction they won't let their guard down the next time a storm goes through.

We've had a string of perfect weather. Not enough rain, the lawn's struggling, but there's been more rain than in the past 'cause the lawn USED to be entirely dormant by now.

[Pete_C]

Well , one of the Red Cross Disaster Relief Relocation and Registration centers is a mile or so from my house. They had it set up and ready (even had cops on duty) on Saturday. Looks like the storm was larger but weaker than alarmists proclaimed it to be and it hit further west than expected so N.O. probably will survive to flood another day.

Personally I am looking forward to the three days of Rain they are predicting for Dallas (tuesday, wednesday, thursday) . We could use it, not only will it green things back up and fill the reservoirs but it could signal an end to the above average temps we have endured this summer.

[irregularjoe]

Well the relief from the heat lasted exactly three days. It's October 17th and the high was 94 deg F today. I finally gave up, closed all the windows and just turned the AC back on. The house is 80 deg F and it's 3AM! We need to build a retractable roof over the whole southern part of the state. .....Yeah I know....we don't have global warming.

[bozodog]

Well, after several days of 70+ and sunshine, we've turned fall like. The colors are turning and it's 42 right now.

Don't know if you all know it, but here in Mich we had as much rain from IKE as many places down south.

This is a pic of our local softball field. The fence with the yellow padding is 4' and theres ducks swimming along the third baseline.

Edited October 17, 2008 by bozodog

[JDoors]

Our unseasonably warm weather's over too, back to typical Fall weather: 50's to 60's with overnight frosts. Some good color from all that rain this year.