Christine Hudnall

While I am waiting on updated bulletins to print out, saw this bulletin flash by and thought I would share it, considering, it is not often that there is not even a tremor somewhere, someplace in the United States.

SEUS42 KNEC 310015
EQRSUM

UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY
NATIONAL EARTHQUAKE INFORMATION CENTER
GOLDEN, COLORADO

LISTS OF U.S. EARTHQUAKES IN THE LAST 30 HOURS

EARTHQUAKES IN SOUTHWESTERN UNITED STATES
(29.0 TO 35.8 N, 102.0 TO 125.0 W)

NO EVENTS LOCATED IN REGION

EARTHQUAKES IN WEST CENTRAL UNITED STATES
(35.8 TO 40.3 N, 102.0 TO 125.0 W)

NO EVENTS LOCATED IN REGION

EARTHQUAKES IN NORTHWESTERN UNITED STATES
(40.3 TO 50.0 N, 102.0 TO 125.0 W)

NO EVENTS LOCATED IN REGION

EARTHQUAKES IN EASTERN UNITED STATES
(25.0 TO 50.0 N, 65.0 TO 102.0 W)

NO EVENTS LOCATED IN REGION

EARTHQUAKES IN STATE OF HAWAII
(18.0 TO 30.0 N, 154.0 TO 180.0 W)

NO EVENTS LOCATED IN REGION

EARTHQUAKES IN STATE OF ALASKA

NO EVENTS LOCATED IN REGION

Prepared by USGS/NEIC 2008 AUG 31 at 00:15 UTC

Let’s start with the latest info on T.S. Gustav - Just out…

5PM - 19.1N 74.4W - moving W-NW 3 - 50mph - 999mb/29.50in

2PM - 18.8N 74.4W - moving W 5 - 60mph - 997mb/29.44in

Now, my thinking may be a little off but according to my figuring and what I saw on satellite Gustav jumped due north. I started semi-tracking last night - and will pick up tonights information to continue, so it should be a busy time.

As of 5PM - forecast models (spaghetti models) have Gustav landing anywhere from south-west Florida toward Louisiana. This is a little different than earlier models which all basically agreed that he would be headed toward south-east Louisiana. We all need to keep an open mind because there is a lot of H2O to still go through.

Fay - bless her wet heart she is still taking a toll as she moves northeastward. The sad part with Fay is that here in the southeast we really needed the rain, but there is such a thing as too much too quickly. Here are some totals as of 2AM last night (yes, this post was originally started last night to be posted) with updates from 5PM in paranthesis following city/town:

Alabama:

• 15.27 - Clayhatchee
• 10.27 - Meadowbrook ( 10.50 )
• 08.87 - Calera ( 9.73 )

Florida:

• 26.65 - Melbourne/Windover Farms ( 27.65 )
• 22.83 - Cape Canaveral - USAF Field Mill
• 21.00 - Palm Bay
• 18.27 - Sanford

Georgia:

• 27.50 - Thomasville
• 11.67 - Valdosta
• 8.35 - Blufton

Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia all received below 8 inches and for the most part below 6 inches. Well, that was as of 2 AM.

The 5PM update shows a little differently:

North Carolina:

• 11.18 - Burnsville
• 10.84 - Harrisburg
• 08.84 - Charlotte
• 05.32 - Asheville
• 02.06 - Raleigh/Durham

South Carolina:

• 09.00 - Lake Wylie

Tennessee:

• 08.84 - Dunlap

What is the point of all this, well, if the ground becomes saturated too quickly, not allowing the water to flow through beyond and into the deeper part or aquifier, then it can and has been shown to soften the soil around things, namely trees. That includes BIG trees! When that happens they just fall over and unfortunately we are seeing this happening all around, so be careful out there.

And out in the tropics - they are keeping busy! I don’t know if anything will become of it, but have you seen the size of that tropical wave off the African coast? Geesh! Super-sized wave with, to my untrained and unofficial eyes, some nice rotation to it already. I also think that there are 2 areas in play just northeast of Gustav. NHC is showing only one though, and they have a lot more experience than I at this, so don’t hold my ramblings to be necessarily true. :)

Am testing out a new laptop, since my HP zd8000 decided it was going to become a really expensive paper weight. Am testing out a Dell - so far it seems okay, the one thing though that I am not liking already (and may be deciding factor for me) is that it gets hot. Very hot to the touch. Now, my mom has new laptop also (well, hers is almost 3 months old now) and hers doesn’t get hot, has a 17-in screen (mine is 15.4) and weighs slightly less. I have a week to decide, so am testing both to see will be the one.

Started this post the second time about 5:15PM, it is now 8:15PM - see what happens when you have storms and pressure all around, sinus pressure arises, you take medicine and the next thing you know, 3 hours go by! Yikes.

Update:

Gustav

8PM - 19.0N 75.0W - W 7 - 45mph - 999mb/29.50in.

That’s all for now folks - am fading fast…

Tropical Storm Fay

Could we possibly have landfall - taken 20080819 081526z? If it is - where is she off to now?

Hmmm - will she be knocking on my door?

Mike Hollingshead’s Storm Structure 101 DVD

Price:$25.00 (Includes everything - shipping, handling & postage)

Length: 1:51:30 (Including intro & credits)

Best Part: The final panning shot at end of credits - Simply amazing, beautiful, fascinating and terrifying to look at!

Worst Part: Knowing Mike was filming and driving at the same time!

Ordering: Extremely easy using PayPal. No need to have an account with them even, although I have since 2002, but still, even without one it is easy.

Shipping: Super fast! I ordered it late Tuesday afternoon (after 5pm EDT) and received it in the mail Friday (mine arrives around 12:30pm EDT). Not too shabby! It arrived in a padded envelope which is cool, and since it wasn’t torn up I can reuse it. :D

DVD Case: Thank you Mike! Why? For sending it in a case that doesn’t take up a lot of room on the shelf and for having a case that makes it easy to get the DVD out of it. No scraped or bruised knuckles, no bending of the DVD trying to pry it out. Just push the button (easier against hard surface) and pick up the DVD. That simple.

DVD: There are several sections to the DVD which you can jump to or play the whole thing. My suggestion is the first time watching (maybe even the first two times), and yes, you will want to watch it more than once, is to view the whole video in its entirety. After that jump to individual sections as you like. Be prepared with the pause button though! And if your player has slow-motion fast forward there are some parts when you will want to use it, especially on the scrolling text.

I enjoyed that Mike includes not only storm structures, but some very basics of forecasting and what he uses to get to that point. He doesn’t delve deep into the how’s of it, but gives enough to wet your appetite and want to learn more. I’m sure if there were enough time he would have gone further with it, but there is only so much that can fit onto a DVD - and he did have to include other stuff. It’s Storm Structure 101, not Forecasting 101. ;~)

Some of the things that I liked best:

• Basics of what to look for - be it the storms themselves (and he teaches throughout the whole video what you are looking at), surface & air plots, CAPE, convergence, wind shear, instability, moisture and more.
• He doesn’t overlay/include music over the whole video. Thank you! During the basic teachings near the beginning, the intro and the credits are pretty much the only places with music. Thankfully the rest of the video is natural sounds: rain, blowing wind, Mike talking, birds chirping, etc. And because he does this you really feel as if you are right there experiencing the same as he is. My only gripe is that he couldn’t bottle the wind and the smells of the storm to go with it. :D
• Mike telling us and showing us through add-ins what we are seeing during the chases.
• The storms themselves. Living in Florida we don’t normally get to see the ‘big’ picture of storms since there is not a whole lot of places that have giant open spaces. So being able to see the structures and what he was seeing at the time was amazing. Not sure I would want to capture tornadoes, well maybe if I knew that noone or nothing was getting hurt, but I know that I definitely want to go out and capture the structures themselves. They are just amazing, fascinating and mesmerizing. There is a reason they are called flying saucers, because that is exactly what they look like. Mind boggling!

Some of the things I liked least:

• The windshield wipers running when there was no rain. *laughs* It was like listening to nails on a chalkboard.
• The dinging sound when car door was held open. ;)
• Forecasting basics - not enough (already covered above) and the chases - not enough! So, it’s a really good thing that I’ve already put in my order for his other video, Instability Released. Can’t wait for that to arrive!

Overall impression: Absolutely worth the money! My nitpiks are just that, nitpiks, and they are only because I wasn’t there to experience it for myself. :D But through the video, we get to experience the visual, just not the emotional, although there were times when it was, like Mike driving and filming while on wrong side of road, and that last panning shot of a very large storm in Bartlett, Nebraska. WOW.