This morning we had our second lowest temperature of the year, bottoming out at 19F. I went out with my iphone and handy macro lens to snap a few pictures of the frost leaves and found that most of the dirt under the plants was covered in hoar frost columns!
Living in the Seattle area has always meant having interesting weather. One of the most unique weather features of our area is the Puget Sound Convergence Zone. Weather from the north (often "modified Artic air" or "Frazier River Valley air" or just cooler canadian air) meets warmer, southern air. The two air masses are channeled between the Olympic range to the west and the Cascade range to the east and when these two air masses meet, it usually happens in an area just north of Seattle and just south of Everett, or often generalized as the "Snohomish/King County Line". What a perfect location for a weather buff like myself to live! Here is a very simpified explanation of what usually goes on to create a PSCZ:
[Solved: it was a reflection of a light source inside the house, filtered through the flats of the blinds.]
One of the RSS feeds I follow is Latest Worldwide Meteor/Meteorite News blog which mentioned an observation from Tacoma of a North-South meteor sighting around 6pm on December 3. I figured this might be something my WeatherCam might have captured, as the time fit within the capture period of my daylight camera. Though the odds were slim, as my camera only captures a frame every 20 seconds.
While there is a faint contrail (aligned with north-to-south), there was no brilliant of obvious sign of a meteor streak, unfortunately. While some bolides are known for leaving a lingering trail, the contrail that visible falls within the standard YVR (Vancouver) approach, and lasted much too long to be a bolide contrail (which tend to disappate rather quickly). The contrail starts at around 5:45pm and passes overhead and out of view at 6:02pm.
However, while I'm watching my video, I notice a bright object appear, then disappear. I first thought this might be a lens flare from the lamp in front of my house, but it was on at full illumination before and after the object appears and disappears.
Its not surprise that Seattle goes to absolute crap in the snow. The combination of snow, a snow that melts, then a deep freeze (thank you Canada) turns our hills, overpasses and interstate freeways into absolute hell zones. A friend of ours had a 12 HOUR COMMUTE. He got home at 4am. Rear-drive articulated buses don't do well on ice.
This week, the week of the "mystery missile" non-event in California, turned out in a way that I could never have imagined. What started out as mild curiousity turned in to a desire to put to rest a "mystery" that was so obviously unmysterious to me.
I'm just getting word that there was another "UFO" cloud sighting over New York last night and from the clips I've seen, it appears to be another sunlit contrail, this time in a horizontal alignment.
CBS 2 coverage: Did You See the Fire in the Sky?
[cbs2]
The most notable feature I want to address about the video is this:
I have acquired nearly all the pieces I need to begin work on my All Sky Camera project. I have purchased the camera (Panasonic WV-NP244 IP CCTV camera), the lens (Fujinon 2.8mm-8mm) and the rotating telescope base. The telescope base will be made from a Meade ETX-60RA telescope that I acquired on craigslist. That means all I have left to purchase is the convex sky reflector... More to come..
I have a fairly stable weather collecting scheme going so I figured it was a good time to start sending my weather data to Weather Underground. The station ID is KWABOTHE16. I also linked the webcam to the site as well.
Jenn thinks I am crazy, but she started it. My current thinking is that I now want to make not only a time-lapse webcam to accompany my weather station, but I want an All Sky weather camera. More after the bump.There are two main types of all sky cameras out there, and they primary serve two purposes: cloud observation and night sky observation (usually meteor hunting). I'm going for the cloud obversation aspect. The two types that are employed are usually constructed with either:
Lightning is one of nature's most exciting and potentially dangerous phenomenon. Capturing the beauty of something that lasts only a few hundredths of a second does not have to be a challenge. With the right set up, capturing photos of lightning can be a rewarding experience. More after the bump.
First of all, lets get this out of the way:
