Today's weather expression comes to us from the Weather Network. They brought polar vortex into common usage. Now it is heat dome. They tell us that aheat dome usually camps in the Four Corners section of the southwestern United States. The news is that it will bubble up directly over British Columbia by Saturday -- extending into the northern territories and Alberta.
"This feature will be particularly perilous because it's so rare in this part of the world. Sixty per cent of British Columbians do not own an air conditioner in their households.
A heat dome is colloquially known as an intense high-pressure system that features descending air that compresses and warms to record levels at the surface.
These features tend to be cloudless, as well; this setup is an excellent inhibitor for vertical motion that produces clouds in the atmosphere. Heat domes often sniff out regions in drought, and as the old saying goes, drought breeds drought.
Then you get a feedback effect. The warm air gets trapped in the lower elevations, and temperatures can only fall into the 20s at night. The following days can be incrementally toastier."
We think of domes as Architecture. Domes created by humans have been around for a long time. The dome that comes to mind for most people is the Taj Mahal. The tallest is St. Peter's Basilica at 136.5 meters or 448 feet. The world's largest is the Pantheon - is unreinforced concrete - built almost 2,000 years ago. The Wikipedia entry is packed with domes in every continent and there is a little thumb nail of each of them. Our own SkyDome (Rogers Centre) is small in comparison to these world giants. The tradition of domes includes mortuaries, celestial/religious, throne halls, and modern legislatures. What does the dome traditionally represent? Absolute power.
Do you know why, all around the world, parliaments' roof are built as a dome? Have you ever seen a circus with a flat roof?
Another Hearts Collage today. This one based on the curved palm leaf image, so I guess it could be called "Palms of Heart"
