Unbagging the Kids

Yesterday I took the kids out of the refrigerator, where I’ve kept them in bags since December, and have been busy burying them in dirt one by one. Before you pick up the phone in horror and dial the authorities, let me explain that the “kids” are my carnivorous plants, and refrigerating them is essential for meeting their dormancy requirement. As I think of it, the fact that, in addition to being fanatical about tornadoes, I also have a sizable collection of carnivorous plants probably seems fairly ghoulish in its own right, but the truth is, while I may be eccentric, I’m fairly harmless.

For that matter, compared to some members of the International Carnivorous Plant Society, I’m just a dabbler at a fascinating hobby that can be taken much farther than I have the money or the room for. My modest, apartment-balcony-sized collection is nevertheless something I take much delight in. At present it consists of all eight Sarracenia species, including a few subspecies and varieties, and a whole brigade of Venus flytraps.

Not only did the roots of most of my plants grow quite a bit last year, but most of them have also subdivided, which has necessitated my purchasing more and larger pots this year. This has been particularly true of the Venus flytraps. You just wouldn’t believe how the things multiply. I started with five plants a few years ago and now have 2.5 million of them. At least, it seemed like that many back in December when I had to remove them from their pots, wash them off individually, separate their corms at their growth points, remove all of the dead leaves and anything that could rot, wash them in sulfur solution to prevent mold, wrap them in sphagnum moss, spray the moss with fungicide, place them in bags, and finally, stick them in the refrigerator. If that sounds like a tedious process, pat yourself on the back for figuring it out. It took me two evenings to process five freezer bagfuls of flytraps.

Now I face the joyous prospect of unbagging my Venus flytraps and repotting them, and I’m not even sure how many I actually have. Probably somewhat fewer than 2.5 million, but still a lot. The good thing is, planting them will probably take considerably less time than I spent preparing them for the fridge.

As for the pitcher plants, I finished potting the last two bags tonight. Yahoo! I can hardly wait to see how big my Sarracenias will get this year in the bigger pots, particularly since they’re getting a month’s head start on last year. April 2009 was cold the entire month; this year, we’ve already hit the mid 60’s these past few days. And the plants had already begun growing in the refrigerator, sending out pale leaves and white flower stalks. Now that they’re getting some warmth and sunlight, I have a hunch that at least some of them, if not all, are going to go absolutely gonzo.

If you want to meet some of the kids, go to my wildflower and outdoors photos and then click on the sundews, North American pitcher plants, and Venus flytrap galleries. The photos are from 2009. Keep an eye out in a month or two for updates. By then, a lot of the plants will be in flower. This year ought to be a spectacular display, so stay tuned.

March 18, 2010 by
Filed Under: Life, Nature, Outdoors Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

So Much for Thursday in Illinois

I was hoping, really hoping, that this Thursday would shape up as my first chase day of the year out in Illinois. The NAM sure looked promising for a second, but now, like Dante’s inferno, it has “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here” written over the door.

The GFS was never very positive to begin with, but at this time of year, Great Lakes chasers are optimistic out of sheer desperation, and I guess I wasn’t the only one who was rooting for the NAM with its bullish CAPE of up to 1,500 j/kg and sweet lapse rates.

But it’s gone, all gone. Yesterdays NAM runs weakened the CAPE and shuttled it south and east. A nice cold core setup in southeast Iowa/northwest Illinois materialized long enough to whisper sweet nothings, but nothings are probably all they were. The 500 mb low has since slunk apologetically back west toward Kansas City, with its -25 C temperature minimum well displaced from the surface moisture lobe. The setup could still change, but unless it bumps back east and stacks back up, I’m not going to drive that far to find out.

I will, however, very likely head toward the Michigan border around New Buffalo. Moisture looks to be ample with mid- to upper-50s dewpoints augmented by evaporation, backed surface winds, and precip breaking out by 21Z if this present NAM verifies. If it does, there could be a bit of lightning and thunder, and at least the slim possibility of a brief spin-up; if not, it’ll have been a pleasant break-in drive for chase season 2010.

March 10, 2010 by
Filed Under: Nature, Storm Chasing, Tornadoes, Weather Tagged With: , , , , ,

El Nino and a Delayed 2010 Storm Season

Back in December I wrote a post speculating how El Nino might affect the moisture fetch from the Gulf of Mexico. I wrote as a non-expert, which is always my position regarding weather related stuff, but it appears that my concern about the influence of cooler sea surface temperatures on return flow actually held water.

Tornado season normally begins ramping up in Dixie Alley in February, solidifies in March, peaks in April, then begins to decline in May as the action moves west and north toward traditional Tornado Alley.

Last year the tornado total for February, 2009, was 43. It consisted of six tornado days, two of which were outbreaks of 12 and 21 tornadoes.

This year, the tally for February was a statistically unprecedented zero. That’s no, nada, zippo tornadoes at all last month. Instead, the South experienced record-breaking cold weather, with snow in virtually all of the southern states and a series of brutal winter storms lashing Oklahoma, Texas, and parts of Dixie Alley.

Now we’re into March, and the snow seems to finally be behind us. As I sit here writing, I can look out the sliding doors of my apartment at a beautiful day with temperatures climbing into the mid forties. I’ll take that with a smile, along with the warming trend that’s in store for this coming week here in West Michigan. But at the same time, sampling buoys across the Gulf of Mexico, I see water temperatures in the low to mid fifties and some really horrible dewpoints. It looks a lot like what the ENSO sea surface temperature table has predicted, namely, cooler-than-average temperatures.

We’re presently looking at  systems moving through the Plains that might be tornado breeders if they weren’t starved for moisture. It’s hard to get excited about dewpoints that barely scrape into the low to mid fifties pretty much everywhere except waaay down in southern Texas and Louisiana.

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Okay, it’s only March. What’s a bit scary is to think that the Gulf may not be up to snuff till as late as May. Click on this image of the Climate Prediction Center”s ENSO sea surface temperature anomaly forecast, updated March 1, and you’ll see what I’m talking about. The first two tables are the ones you want to pay attention to. That blue in the Gulf of Mexico doesn’t look too promising.

I hope I’m wrong, and it could be that I am. A quick glance at water temperatures west of the Florida peninsula shows some temps into the seventies well out into the Gulf, so maybe things will pick up more quickly than the map suggests. The ENSO update does indicate that El Nino is weakening:

•A majority of the models indicate that the Niño-3.4 temperature departures will gradually decrease at least into the summer.

•The models are split with the majority indicating ENSO-neutral conditions by May-July 2010 and persisting into the Fall. Several models also suggest the potential of continued El Niño conditions or the development of La Niña conditions during the Fall.

–Page 27, March 1, 2010, CPC-NCEP ENSO Update

That’s a good sign, kind of. The last part leaves us hanging, but as always, time will tell.

More immediately, I wonder, as I did three months ago, whether we won’t see a delayed storm season. I think, I hope, that when it does finally arrive, it will be a stellar one.  There’s reason to be hopeful, considering the ample ground moisture available for evapotranspiration throughout Tornado Alley, including areas that languished last year under a severe drought. No such problem this year. I hear some chasers talking about West Texas, and I’ll bet they’re right. Once the Gulf finally does set up shop, whether sooner or later, I expect to be making some trips out west. See y’all at the edge of the meso.

March 7, 2010 by
Filed Under: Life, Nature, Storm Chasing, Tornadoes, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Getting Ready for the Skunk Cabbage

Here’s some news that will put joy in your heart: skunk cabbage days are almost here! (And all the people shouted, “Hurrah!” and donned their festive garments.)

It’s true. Sometime within the next three weeks or so, the odd, purple cowls of Symplocarpus foetidus will start pushing up through the mud and matted leaves of the wetlands where they grow, generating enough heat to melt their way through the ice and snow and provide a microclimate for early insects. Here in the Great Lakes, the skunk cabbage is the year’s first wildflower, and I always get happy when I see it begin to show. It’s a charming little plant, though there’s nothing particularly pretty about it. This plant doesn’t care about “pretty.” It’s all about character and nail-toughness. Skunk cabbage has the grit of a pioneer.

It also has the smell of a pioneer, as you’ll find out if you ever hold a piece of the broken flower or leaf up to your nose and get a whiff. It smells a lot like an armpit that hasn’t been washed in a month. Taken all around, this is not the kind of wildflower you’d feel inclined to gather a bunch of and take home to stick in a vase. But, appearing with the robins and redwing blackbirds, it is nevertheless a welcome harbinger of the warmer months. I’m surprised that some Michigan town hasn’t claimed it and instituted an annual skunk cabbage festival. Not too surprised, though.

Speaking of warmer months, they don’t seem to be in any hurry to put in an appearance, and I’m starting to wonder whether Punxatawney Phil might not have been conservative in his forecast of another six weeks of winter. Another major winter storm is poised to dump another 6-10″ of snow on West Michigan this evening through tomorrow, and more snow is in the forecast for the next ten days.

Snow, snow, and yet again snow. If you like the stuff, just stick around. Sooner or later, Michigan always delivers.

February 21, 2010 by
Filed Under: Life, Michigan, Nature, Outdoors, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Historical Winter Weather from a Classic El Nino

By now we can all agree that this has been one wild winter, with wave after wave of major winter storms pummeling large sections of the nation.

According to an NCDC (National Climatic Data Center) snowfall map, the state of Maryland saw as much as 48 inches of snow this past week, between February 5 and 11. Southern Pennsylvania got even more snow, up to 54 inches.

A Snowman in Dallas

Spectacular as the Winter Weather Olympics have been out east, they’ve by no means been the only show in town. Oklahoma, Tennessee, even Texas, have gotten clobbered over these past few weeks with a smorgasbord of every conceivable type of winter precip, from freezing rain to record snowfalls to blizzard conditions. Yesterday, my brother Brian, who lives in Dallas, sent me a photograph of my little nephew, Sam, standing next to a big ol’ snowman in the front yard. In Brian’s message, he wrote that this has been the first time that enough snow has fallen in Dallas to make a snowman since he moved to North Texas over 25 years ago.

But Wait! There’s More!

All of the above is just this week’s weather. Farther back, from January 27-30, a nasty weather system rolled through the South and East, providing plenty of entertainment for folks from the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles, to Nashville, to Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, DC. According to the NCDC, “Snowfall amounts greater than 10 inches (25 cm) were reported in New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland. Freezing rain of over 1 inch (2.5 cm) was reported across Oklahoma and Texas, with many locations also receiving several inches of snowfall and sleet in addition to the ice.”

As I write, the bridge over Lake Ponchartrain in New Orleans has been closed due to winter weather, and…hold it, we have a news flash…0.2 inches of snow has fallen at the airport in Mobile, Alabama, the first measurable snowfall there in twelve years.

Meanwhile, while we up here in Michigan are staring out at a decent blanket left by Tuesday’s snowstorm–10 inches fell in the Caledonia area–yet overall, we’ve gotten nothing like last year’s 200-inch winter. Rather, according to the NCDC, Michigan has experienced its eighth driest January on record.

Blame It All on El Nino

From what I can see, this year’s history-making weather anomalies are the result of a classic, strong El Nino. Weather patterns get flip-flopped during El Nino years. Generally speaking, the South gets cooler-than-average temperatures and abundant precipitation, while north-central states see above-average temperatures and less precipitation. My state, Michigan, lies somewhat in no-man’s land, shifting between normal to warmer, drier conditions.

One thing is certain: for those living in drought-plagued areas, their problems have ended, at least for a while. From the Southeast to the Southwest, there’s no lack of moisture. Last year, central Texas was in the throes of a severe drought; today, its cup runneth over. All indications are that, whatever issues this year’s storm chasing season may encounter, anemic dewpoints won’t be one of them.

We’ll be finding out for sure soon. In a little over two weeks, March will be here. Meteorological spring. Can you feel it in your blood? Frankly, I have a hunch that the early convective season isn’t going to be very eventful, but it’s good just to know that Big Thunder is on the way. It may not be exactly knocking on the door just yet, but it’s only a couple blocks down the street and getting closer every day.

February 12, 2010 by
Filed Under: Nature, Storm Chasing, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Major Winter Storm Headed for the Great Lakes

We may not get socked with anything quite as bad as the three feet of snow that got dumped on Maryland a few days ago, but lower Michigan is poised for a major snow slam starting tomorrow morning. The current warning text from GRR reads as follows:

A WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 7 AM TUESDAY TO
1 PM EST WEDNESDAY.

HAZARDOUS WEATHER...

 * 6 TO 12 INCHES OF SNOW IS EXPECTED FROM DAYBREAK TUESDAY THROUGH
   WEDNESDAY MORNING.

 * THE HEAVIEST SNOW IS EXPECTED TOWARD THE INTERSTATE 94
   CORRIDOR WHERE 8 TO 12 INCHES OF SNOW IS EXPECTED. THE
   INTERSTATE 96 CORRIDOR WILL SEE 6 TO 10 INCHES OF SNOW...
   WHICH INCLUDES GRAND RAPIDS AND LANSING.

 * SNOW WILL BEGIN TUESDAY MORNING AND BECOME HEAVY FOR LATE
   TUESDAY AFTERNOON AND TUESDAY NIGHT.

 * BLOWING AND DRIFTING SNOW IS EXPECTED TUESDAY EVENING THROUGH
   THROUGH WEDNESDAY MORNING AS NORTH WINDS INCREASE TO 15 TO 25
   MPH.

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Here’s what the NAM-based F5 proprietary snowfall total shows for Wednesday at 18Z. (Click on the image to enlarge it.) The GFS moves things more to the south and probably is a bit more in line with the NWS forecast. But either way, tomorrow is going to be very different from the beautiful day we’ve had here today in West Michigan.

Well, what else can we expect? It’s early February, after all, and the groundhog probably was spot-on in his forecast for six more weeks of winter. I guess that explains why there’s open season on groundhogs in Michigan.

February 8, 2010 by
Filed Under: Life, Nature, Outdoors, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Countdown to March

It’s the last day of January. Just one month to go till storm season begins! Yeah, baby!

I’m not the only one who thinks this way. A lot of you fellow storm chasers get happy at the thought of March arriving. It won’t be much longer–just four little weeks. Then spring begins.

That’s right, spring. While the vernal equinox will occur on March 20 at 2:35 a.m. EST this year, marking the arrival of astronomical spring, March 1 is the beginning of meteorological spring. Yes, boys and girls, there really is such a thing.

The Roman calendar began the year and the spring season on the first of March, with each season occupying three months. In 1780 the Societas Meteorologica Palatina, an early international organization for meteorology, defined seasons as groupings of three whole months. Ever since, professional meteorologists all over the world have used this definition.[5] So, in meteorology for the Northern hemisphere: spring begins on 1 March, summer on 1 June, autumn on 1 September, and winter on 1 December.

–From “Season,” Wikipedia

The long and short of it is, even as middle-tier states from the Texas panhandle eastward are dealing with the aftermath of an ugly winter storm, spring is just around the corner. On Tuesday, Groundhog Day, we’ll get the authoritative word from Punxatawney Phil on what the next six weeks holds in store weatherwise. But whatever his verdict may be, the fact is, we’re two-thirds of the way through meteorological winter. We’re almost there!

So dust off your laptop. Spring will be here before you know it.

January 31, 2010 by
Filed Under: Life, Nature, Outdoors, Storm Chasing, Weather Tagged With: , , , , ,

The Cloudspotter’s Guide: From Nomenclature to Human Hailstones to Surfing the Morning Glory, Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Clouds

I had crossed the world to meet this cloud, and, finally, here we were, face to face. I held my hand to shield my eyes from the brilliant rays, now that the sun was well off the northeastern horizon. And these cascaded down the cloud’s face, casting long, warm shadows along the ripples of its surface. The undulations gently rose up with the progress of the wave, before disappearing over the crest.

In so many words, Gavin Pretor-Pinney describes his first encounter with an unusual and wonderful cloud called the Morning Glory. The setting is Burketown, south of the Gulf of Carpenteria, halfway between nowhere and oblivion in the hinterlands of northern Queensland, Australia. To this tiny community, a growing number of glider pilots make annual pilgrimage, convening to take advantage of the ultimate gliding experience: surfing the Morning Glory. While this wave-like cloud formation–and it is a wave, the product of a rolling current of air advancing linearly across the sky–occurs elsewhere in the world, the Queensland Morning Glory is its finest example. And little, nowheresville Burketown is the Morning Glory Capital.

Surfing the Morning Glory is just one of the fascinating, warmly written, often humorous accounts you’ll find in The Cloudspotter’s Guide: The Science, History, and Culture of Clouds. Who better to write such a book than Gavin Pretor-Pinney, founder of The Cloud Appreciation Society. A lover and student of clouds since his childhood, the author takes you for a look at clouds from many angles. Working his way up from the atmosphere’s lower levels, he not only provides an excellent, well-organized introduction to cloud nomenclature, including the various species and varieties of each cloud genus, but he also shares personal and informative bits and pieces that render the richness of his subject in an imaginative, often funny, and sometimes off-the-wall manner. Through it all, Gavin’s passion for clouds shines like sun pillars in a sheen of stratocumulus.

In The Cloudspotter’s Guide you’ll revisit the terrifying experience of Lt. Col William Rankin, who in 1959, having jettisoned his crippled aircraft in the midst of a thunderstorm, became a human hailstone and lived to tell the tale.

You’ll also set foot inside the strangest “structure” ever designed–the Blur Building of the 2002 Swiss National Expo, made entirely out of cloud. And you’ll join Gavin in an amusing and educational fantasy trip backstage at a Frankie Lymon concert, as Gavin holds up the event in an effort to explain to the singer why the rain falls from up above.

There’s plenty more to this little book, named one of the Best Books of 2006 by The Economist. I spotted it a few weeks ago on the shelf at Schuler Books & Music while looking for some weather-related reading and decided to give it a try. Good choice. The Cloudspotter’s Guide is a whimsical, informative, and heartfelt read, written in a popular tone that will engage pretty much anyone who has ever looked up at the sky with a sense of childlike wonder and adult curiosity. Weather nerds, stick this one in your library. You’ll reach for it more than once, not just to refresh yourself on cloud nomenclature, but also to remind yourself why you’re doing so.

January 30, 2010 by
Filed Under: Life, Nature, Outdoors, Reviews, Storm Chasing, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Dixie Alley: Are Storms on the Menu for Late Next Week?

Just as I was preparing maps for a blog post on the possibility for severe weather in Dixie Alley next weekend, I got a call from my brother Pat in Port Townsend, Washington. Was I aware of the deep low off the northwest coast, he wondered? A local meteorologist named Cliff Mass had been talking about it and posting about it in his blog. Today he opened with the following:

The new high resolution forecasts (4km grid spacing, initialed 4 AM) are in and the potential for a significant coastal wind event remains. Here are two plots of sea level pressure and surface wind speed for 4PM, 10 PM, and 4 AM, starting on Sunday afternoon. A deep low center moves up the coast and sustained winds on the coast are 45-50 kts. Gusts could easily be 15-20 kts higher.

The Sunday 00Z NAM shows a persistent surface low bottoming out at 974 millibars, with some mighty tight isobars there along the coast. All I can think is, dang! There’s a wind machine, if you please. But that’s just for starters. The GFS shows the low deepening to 958 mbs late Tuesday night. By Wednesday, lower pressure is invading much of the west, and the scenario for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday across Dixie Alley begins to shape up.

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That was really what I was going to write about. Please don’t preach to me about long-range models and wishcasting. Of course I know it’s nothing but wishcasting right now. In the middle of January, can you blame me? And anyway, there’s at least some consistency established in depicting a walloping low moving into the Central Plains and then on up toward the Great Lakes. That much looks good.

.

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But what about moisture and instability? Heck, I don’t know, and right now I don’t care. Give it five days and let’s see what happens. It’s enough at this point to have something to keep an eye on. Here are some 18Z maps to ponder. Click on them to enlarge them.

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January 16, 2010 by
Filed Under: Nature, Storm Chasing, Tornadoes, Weather Tagged With: , , , ,

Bob’s Bird Bar & Grill

Is El Nino finally kicking in for us northerners? It’s closing in on 11 a.m., and here in Caledonia, Michigan, the temperature is around 37 degrees. With mid- to upper-thirties temps forecast through at least next Wednesday, we’re talking something more than just the usual January thaw.

Yaaaay! I like warm winter weather! I’m a fan of air that isn’t so cold it freezes my boogers, and it looks like that is what will be on the menu for a while. As I write, a steady layer of of stratocumulus has been streaming in from the west, chuffing in moisture, and the sun has been peering through rifts in the clouds often enough to brighten the January landscape.

The bird feeding station out on my balcony has been getting an increasing amount of commerce. The goldfinches are nonstop consumers at the mesh bag full of thistle seed; I’ve had up to at least fifteen of them at a time, pushing and shoving  like little gang bangers. The chickadees, which were the first to discover the bird feeders and for a while had the seed all to themselves, now have to put up with the unruly finches. Sparrows of course put in their appearance, and so do a solitary junco, tufted titmouse, and at times, a cardinal. A few days ago, a rosy breasted nuthatch took an interest in the suet bag, and he’s proved a match for the finches. And now this morning, a downy woodpecker discovered the suet! I’ve been waiting for that to happen, and now that it has, I’m elated. I suspect he–or she, I haven’t gotten close enough to inspect–will become another regular visitor at Bob’s Bird Bar & Grill.

Anyway, today is a warm day that presages many more warm days. So maybe this El Nino has finally decided to weigh in over the incursions of cold Canadian air that defined our December. I’m not ready to put on shorts and a T-shirt, but I will be wearing a smile when I step outside today.

January 14, 2010 by
Filed Under: Life, Nature, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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