Local Weather

Locally speaking, the weather is damp, rainy and dreary. The Mid-Atlantic was in dire need of the rain, but the past two days have been very hard to get motivated if you are easily affected by the weather. The rest of the week is looking better with higher temperatures and increase sunshine.

Dean Landfall in Mexico, Again

Dean has now made it's second landfall in Mexico, this time as a Catagory 2, much less than Catagory 5 Landfall in the Yucatan on Monday.

Dean will maintain a westward trek for a little while, and weaken significantly with the large land mass, higher terrain of the Mexican interior. Advisorys by the National Hurricane Center will likely stop prior to the system reamerging on the west coast. Many Carribean areas have been affected by this storm, and will likely stay in the news until the next system is born.

At the moment the tropics are not showing any immenient developing storms, but a few waves near Africa bare watching.

Dean Very Strong, but not coming this way.

Hurricane Dean is sustaining Catagory 4 statis at the moment, but is likely to reach Cat. 5 before landfall. Although, looking at some water temperature maps, it seems the temperature drops a tad closer to Mexico. Strengthening is more likely early in a storms life, it takes a lot more energy to sustain high intensity. Since Dean has been maintaining Cat. 4, I am 50/50 on the chances to reach 5. More interesting is what is this storm going to do as it progresses inland. Mexico is going to get hit hard, and most of the models start to show a turn to the north and going right up the center of Mexico and heading toward the Unites States desert southwest. However, and more interesting if it happens, is a few model runs have the storm going nearly straight across Mexico and emerging on the west coast into the Pacific Ocean. If that were to occur, is it possible that it could reintensify into a Pacific Hurricane? It has happened before.

Hurricane Dean

Hurricane Dean has a pretty curtain track forecast at least for the 24 to 48 hour period. Beyond that there is some variation, but is still fairly predictable. I personally favor the track that trend to the right of the NHC forecast. I always felt that as the storms intensify, the forward motion added to the winds on the NE quadrant of the storms tends to push them to the right. Furthermore, as the stronger tropical systems (Cat 3 and up) get ready to make landfall, the land resistance on one portion of the storm adds resistance, and in most cases, because of the approach, means they'll trend to the right (of forward motion).

This storm will be very interesting to watch. At this time I don't anticipate intercept, and I'm not at all preparing for such. So if the track does shift significantly toward the northern US Gulf Coast, I'll be a little off guard (and behind schedule) for a hurricane intercept.

Dallas Sunset in January

In addition to active weather, I always find time to shoot other weather and environmental related shots. For example, sunsets, which are likely to be the general populations most favorite of shots. Whether a beach sunset, an ocean sunset, or city skyline, sunsets produces some of the most brilliant colors and deep contrasts.

This shot is of a sunset taken from the Union Tower in Dallas Texas (looking west of course). Union Tower sits on the edge of downtown Dallas, and not much exists in the foreground to disrupt the view.

On this day in January 1999, it was about 70 degress, which was very warm for January in Dallas. At the time of the picture however, as the sun set, and the temperatures dropped (plus being up 700 feet in an open to the elements tower) to around 55 degrees (f). It was difficult to get these pictures. The cold, the security fencing, etc. inhibited me from getting clear shots, but this one worked out.

The original pictures is much better quality. This was scanned many years ago on my first scanner, which didn't scan very well at all.