Sep 27 2022 - Troipcal Storms

 

Storms are all around us - and all around the world.  They demand our attention and action.  Based on a 30-year climate period from 1991 to 2020, an average eastern Pacific hurricane season has 15 named storms, 8 hurricanes, and 4 major hurricanes.  An average of ten tropical storms develop over the Atlantic Ocean, Carribean Sea, and Gulf of Mexico each year. Many of these remain over the ocean. Six of these storms become hurricanes each year.  "Since the year 957, there have been at least 12,791 recorded tropical or subtropical cyclones in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans, which are known as basins."  I haven't found any information about that typhoon in 957 which is listed to have killed 10,000 people.  I have found that the early recorders of typhoons were the Chinese: As early as the fifth century AD, the typhoon had been recognized by the people of southern China as a distinct meteorological phenomenon. A specific term, ju or jufeng, was accordingly coined, with rather accurate specifications given to it. A typhoon that struck the coastal city of Mizhou in Shandong Province of northern China in AD 816 is the earliest recorded tropical cyclone landfall in China, and perhaps also in the world. The typhoon as a weather phenomenon was frequently mentioned, described, and discussed in many works, including history books, poems and government documents, in the ninth century AD. What's the biggest storm that we know of?  It is the Great Red Spot on Jupiter.  It is a persistent high-pressure region in the atmosphere of Jupiter, producing an anticyclonic storm that is the largest in the Solar System. Located 22 degrees south of Jupiter’s equator, it produces wind-speeds up to 432 km/h (268 mph). Observations from 1665 to 1713 are believed to be of the same storm; if this is correct, it has existed for at least 356 years.

Here's a montage landscape image turned into an interpretation of a tropical storm.  Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblog.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Cruising into the Storm

Isn't that a great photoshopped picture on the left?  The perfect blue wave overcoming the luxury cruise ship on a seemingly sunny day.  There is a 6 minute video of a cruise ship during a hurricane level storm.  The one on the right seems more accurate - you can see everything sliding right then left then right HERE.    The Dailymail.com has an article on Norway launching an investigation into why a Viking Sky cruise ship set sail in a storm, and then lost power.  Thirteen hundred passengers were airlifted to safety.  That was in March 2019.  There are previous events similar to this. There are lots of videos inside the ship.  It is all HERE.   Here is an email message supposedly sent during the crisis: There's a 2013 article in the New York Times and it asks how normal are cruise mishaps.  They show the website cruisejunkie.com where cruise mishaps and accidents are tracked. The site lists events such as passenger kicked off ship, collision, propulsion problems, insensitivity to medical emergency (passenger had heart attack and ship crew wouldn't allow them to get medical attention on an island, then he died on board).  There are charts of illness outbreaks on cruise ships. What about these dumbest cruise questions. It makes sense as over 20 million people take cruises each year. 1. Does the crew sleep on board? 2. Why are the ruins in such poor condition - after a tour of the ruins in Rome 3. What do you do with the ice carvings after they melt? 4. How small does your face have to be to get a mini facial at the spa? 5. What time does the Midnight buffet start? 6.This is our family's first cruise ever… we have several cabins on different decks of the ship and our question is, do all of the decks go to the same ports of call? 7. Are these islands completely surrounded by water? There would be best sunset views on a cruise, so we'll go with that as our picture of the day.

While the weather is always a subject of conversation, our recent weather has demanded widespread attention.  Our daily average in April is between 8 - 12 degrees celsius.  That's in the 40's - 50's fahrenheit.  Today, though, we have a high of 4 degrees. There's  promise that next week will be in the range of the averages.   The 'potentially historic' storm for Southern Ontario is moving on slowly. There were power outages and hundreds of accidents. Ice fell from the CN Tower causing damage to the Roger Centre roof.  Most institutions were closed. That was the weekend. Here we are on Tuesday, and we're nearing the end of the bad weather. Toronto's historic storm was in 1999 with 39 and then 27 cm of snow.  The army was called in to help clear the roads. The rest of the country was amused.  That may be because in comparison in 1999 Tahtsa Lake, B.C. set the record for the largest one-day snowfall with 145 cm falling within a 24-hour period.  It delivered more snow than Calgary, Edmonton or Winnipeg see annually. Niagara's greatest blizzard was in 1977. There was a combination of 60 cm, with gusts of winds up to 80 km/hr.  In some cases drifts covered over houses. There was a state of emergency in Ontario, and New York was declared a federal disaster area.   What should you do in bad weather? Here are today's suggestions from wise bread.com... 1. Plan your summer vacation 2. Make an awesome breakfast 3. Nap 4. Make Candy 5. Take an online class or tutorial 6. redecorate 7. Fireside camp out 8. Pajama day in bed 9. Take a luxurious bath 10. Shop your closet 11. Indoor fort 12. Check out some good blogs 13. Afternoon tea 14. Catch up with family and friends Our picture today is the centre of a white Ranunculus at Sunshine Express Garden Centre.

Lake Check

November is the month of storms on Lake Ontario.  So if we go to the International Lake Ontario - St. Lawrence River Board website - ijc.org and the weekly regulation summary, it says that the outflow is expected to be the what's in the plan. For the week ending Wed Nov 1 2017 the reading was 74.84 m (245.54 ft) and the average this time of year is 74.56m (244.62 ft).  So it looks like about a foot above last year's levels.  We have a strong wind warning in effect.  With a weather buoy located in Grimsby, we can look at our readings.  The current conditions say that the wave height is 0.1 metres, while other places, such as South Georgian Bay have wave heights of 1.0 metres.  I hadn't realized that there is a temperature measurement in Grimsby - we're at air temperature of 12 Celsius and water temperature of 13C. There are colour charts of the Grimsby Buoy at  windfinder.com. Our spring and autumn lake 'breezes' delay the onset of frost.  This would be of note for our  wine harvest.  It began in September, and concludes in November when later season Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon are picked. Of course the ice wines wait for the frozen temperatures of minus 8 Celsius.  Our pictures were taken last weekend with those 'breezes' quickly moving the brooding clouds past vineyards and fields. The large tractor in the vineyard is a mechanical picker.

August Vacations

I don't think of August as a travel month.  I get the impression the travel industry thinks the same:  the articles give a few examples, and then skip ahead to September and autumn.  TripAdvisor's Travelers' Choice Awards says that the best vacations in the world are: Bali London Paris Rome New York City Barcelona Prague Phuket Dubai These all look like expensive vacations.  Back in 2012, the Globe and Mail had an article on how much is too much to spend on a yearly vacation? The article says that Canadian should allocate no more than 4 per cent of their after-tax income to yearly vacations. According to American Express, the average vacation expense per person in the United States is $1,145 per person or $4,580 for a family of four.  "In the States, financial experts suggest that the average family vacation costs between 5-10% of total income.  If your family makes $40,000 per year then experts say your yearly family vacation budget should average between $2,000-$4000." That's double what the Canadian article recommended to Canadians. It doesn't seem like there's an intersection between a trip to London and taking pictures of clouds as vacation activities.

Seiches and Surges

The Lake at Grimsby Beach is the subject of our pictures today.  This is the point where Forty Creek empties, and there is a walking path that follows the creek and joins up with the Bruce Trail.  There are usually bird here in the inlet, even though there are some sizeable waves that come in.  Lake Ontario's largest waves have been higher than 20 feet, usually in spring and fall. Twenty-five feet is considered the upper limit. The Wikipedia entry tells me this information about waves: Lake Ontario has a natural seiche rhythm of eleven minutes. The seiche effect normally is only about 3⁄4 inches (2 cm) but can be greatly amplified by earth movement, winds, and atmospheric pressure changes. (A seiche (/ˈseɪʃ/ saysh) is a standing wave in an enclosed or partially enclosed body of water. Seiches and seiche-related phenomena have been observed on lakes,reservoirs, swimming pools, bays, harbours and seas. The key requirement for formation of a seiche is that the body of water is at least partially bounded, allowing the formation of the standing wave.) A storm can produce both surges and seiches - I found this explanation here "Storm surges may cause seiches. The word seiche is French for “to sway back and forth.” After a storm moves past the lake, and the wind and pressure are no longer pushing the water, the piled up water moves toward the opposite end of the lake. The water sloshes from one end of the lake to the other a few times until the water level is returned to normal. This sloshing back and forth is called a seiche. Often a seiche can be spotted because the water level will be high along the shore and within a relatively short period of time, the water level will then drop, sometimes leaving bottomlands exposed. Seiches may “slosh” back and forth like this several times before reaching equilibrium."

The wonder that is Toronto

Isn't the Toronto skyline wonderful!  And yes, this is taken from the Toronto Islands - on Ward Island.  I was lucky to be on a garden tour for the Garden Bloggers Fling participants.  The Toronto skyline image seems to be one picture and the garden in the foreground another one.  It was quite an amazing experience.  The haze in the air turned into a thunderstorm at the end of the tour, as we waited for the Ferry.