One Way You Can Help

AP Photo / David J Phillip - New Orleans Flooding.
I don't think any of us fully comprehend what's going on in New Orleans or the Gulf coast.
We can see the pictures and hear the stories, but do we really understand?
I know I don't.
When I got home yesterday Dudley was there at the back door wagging his tail. The air conditioning was on. The phone was ringing. Bottled water was cold in the refrigerator. The lights, faucets, and toilet worked. And the television showing me so many others who would give anything for just one of those things. Just one.
So I was very glad to see the e-mail at work this morning announcing WRCB-TV 3 is joining forces with Talk Radio 102.3, KZ 106, and The Duke FM to try and help.
The Katrina Relief effort will be tomorrow from 5 am to 7 pm at Velocity Sports on Lee Highway.
We will be asking everyone to bring cash, checks, or donations of bottled water. (Flats only please as gallon jugs would make transportation more difficult.) Checks should be made out to the American Red Cross Katrina Relief Fund. It's one way you can help.

Katrina Deals Blows From Gulf To Home

This visible satellite image of Hurricane "Katrina" is from Sunday afternoon when the storm was near it's peak intensity.
As of this morning 10,000 Electric Power Board customers are without power, a result of the area being buffeted by gusty winds. Doppler radar indicates that some of the area mountains may have had gusts over 58 mph.
We will be able to clean up relatively quickly and put this storm behind us. Our weather will be very nice for the upcoming Labor Day weekend.
But it will be a long time (for some maybe never) until those along the Gulf Coast are able to rebuild, restart, and get back to normal. I cannot imagine what they are going through.
Before "Katrina" made landfall I saw news reports from Florida. Many people there have FEMA blue tarps on their roofs from last years hurricanes. The only reminder I have from last years season of storms is the remnants of a red oak that blew down in the back yard during "Ivan". I have been complaining about the firewood I have cut up and can't give away. I'd like to get it out of the yard. How trivial an inconvenience. When I'm mowing around the logs the rest of this year, and probably next Spring, I'll want to gripe. But now my lips are sealed by the knowledge that others are without loved ones and homes.

Could Katrina Join Cat 5 Club?

There is a sinking feeling I always get when I see a storm like this heading toward a populated area.
As of 11 pm, the National Hurricane Center has the center of the track still heading towards New Orleans. But the latest models suggest the storm is heading towards Mobile. Either way there will be a lot of suffering from this one. Katrina will likely be a solid category 4 storm at landfall, and may end up category 5. That's a rare event. Only three times in recorded history have we had cat. 5 at landfall. The 1935 Labor Day Hurricane that struck the Florida Keys. 1969's Camille, and 1992's Andrew.
Katrina looks like a buzzsaw, maintaining a lot of strength well inland. NHC has it holding Tropical Storm strength all the way to the TN / KY border. http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at2+shtml/204748.shtml?5day?large
That means any shift in path east means we could have our hands full. So this storm needs to be monitored very closely. Stay tuned for each updated Channel 3 Storm Alert 5-Day Forecast.

Hog Heaven For Now...Katrina Looms

Thousands of bikers are in the area for the Harley Owners Group rally this weekend. And right now it looks like Hog Heaven as far as the weather goes. Yesterday bikers flocked to area attractions like Rock City, Ruby Falls, and The Incline. (As pictured here.)
The only way this could be better for bikers is if it was October.
I went up to the top of The Incline yesterday and it was a typically hazy August view. Imagine how much more enjoyable the riding would be on a warm, sunny, crystal clear October day.
But any riders that came here from the south better be keeping an eye on the sky. Hurricane "Katrina" did not lose much punch after moving over the Everglades last night. This morning three things say uh-oh. First the storm is crawling westward, rather than following the official NHC northward path laid out yesterday. Second, yesterday the Hurricane Center thought it would be a tropical storm for a day or so before re-gaining hurricane status. As of 5 am it's already back to a 75 mph hurricane. And third the latest forecast models a turning this into a monster. It's interesting to me because one model, (the Canadian) a couple of days ago had a monster of a storm moving into the western Florida panhandle. And it was discounted because it was the only model doing so. And this morning the model that was the farthest east at that same time, (the GFS) is cranking out a monster hurricane that looks every bit as ugly as "Ivan" or "Opal" with a similar path. If this ends up being the case, we'll have some weather problems to deal with late Sunday night through early Tuesday. Stay tuned to Channel 3 Eyewitness News throughout the weekend as we track Hurricane "Katrina".

Once, Twice, Three Times A Hurricane?

Hats off today to Greg and Angela Burrows of Grundy County, TN for this awesome shot of the storm that moved through their neighborhood on Saturday. I am amazed at the quality of pictures we continue to receive at WRCB-TV 3. Thanks to everyone and keep them coming!
I used to spend a lot of time at night out on a country road waiting for a shot like this. Just me and a 35 mm Minolta. I can't tell you how many blank negatives I have at home somewhere. One time about two o'clock in the morning I was standing out in the middle of a cotton field in West Texas. Here comes a DPS trooper stopping by to see what's going on. The scanner traffic was probably pretty entertaining......."This is unit 12, I have a suspicious subject in a field......Oh wait a minute....It's just the weatherman trying to get hit by lightning."
"Katrina" is a storm that will have people photographing a lot of flooding in the next few days over central and southern Florida.
It's always interesting to track these storms, especially when computer models always have different ideas about what's going to happen. Right now "Katrina" is expected to become a hurricane later today. As it moves across south Florida it will weaken, but should re-gain hurricane status this weekend in the Gulf. One of the long-range scenarios takes the storm out over Norfolk, VA where the storm has a slim chance to re-gain hurricane status. So to borrow from the Commodores (and to give it a tropical flair), "Katrina" could be once, twice, three times a hurricane.

To Be...Soaked Or Not To Be...Soaked

Mark Kesley who lives in Bradley County snapped this great lightning picture last week. Thanks Mark for sending it in.
Our stormy conditions have been slowing down lately, but for some it hasn't been enough.
At my house yesterday it rained .2" in the pre-dawn hours, and another .5" in the afternoon. The very generous rainfall I have had this summer is producing some interesting results.
By this time in August I have a few spots in my lawn that are usually brown. This year they are staying green, and mowing once a week doesn't really "cut it". Much of this summer the yard has looked a little shaggy. And yesterday I noticed a BIG mushroom in my neighbors yard.
Chattanooga's official rainguage at the airport is 1.96" above normal for August. So I was a little surprised to get a call from a Bradley County viewer saying she could use some rain. While much of the area is pretty soggy, this very nice lady said there are at least two places that have missed most of the storms the last couple of weeks. Her house and her mother's a few miles away. They are having to water.
But be careful what you wish for.
This morning at 8:00 am tropical depression #12 became Tropical Storm "Katrina". The official path from the National Hurricane Center takes "Katrina" across south Florida and into the Gulf. Once there it could become a hurricane. So we'll watch this system carefully to see if it eventually sends some rain our way. As is always the case with Gulf storms, for us it's a case of to be soaked or not to be soaked.

Fish, Hurricanes, and Fish Hurricanes

Here' a shot of some of the friendly bass discussed in the previous post. It occurred to me that the reason we enjoyed Sunday's dive so much and the reason we saw so many fish were the same. The conditions were in a word, nice.
So what happens when the river is high or floods?
We know what happens to our homes when tropical systems like "Opal" make their way into the Tennessee Valley. What goes on in their world?
I have read about wave action harming marine life in various ways, but is it possible for a tropical system to have a positive impact on the environment?
When I was in Texas a dying Pacific Hurricane moved over Mexico and dumped torrential rains on west Texas. Lake Fort Phantom Hill rose above the spillway flooding the creek below. When the water receded, deeper pockets were filled with fish. Many of them gars. Maybe by removing some of the predators, this storm helped the striped bass populations for example.
This year Hurricane Dennis did a favor for the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary that man had been working on for 3 years. The USS Spiegel Grove was sunk near Key Largo in 2002. Officials wanted the 510 foot ship to land upright on the bottom to become an artificial reef. She ended up on her side. Attempts were made to right the ship but they all failed. Enter Hurricane "Dennis". The storms wave action pushed the vessel back up. For more on this amazing story check out this link: http://www.spiegelgrove.com
"Jose" was named yesterday in the southwest Gulf and made landfall overnight in Mexico. That's named system #10. The official forecast for the Atlantic season calls for a total of 18 to 21 named storms. 9 to 11 becoming hurricanes, with 5 to 7 becoming major hurricanes. But how many end up like "Irene" and recurve away from the U.S., becoming the so-called "fish hurricane"?
Even these storms have an impact. Upwelling of cold, nutrient rich water causes the food chain to get a boost in areas where fish and other critters may not spend much time.
GPS and communication technology is allowing scientists to track animal movements like never before. I think it would be interesting to track fish before and during hurricanes to see where they go and how long it takes them to return.

Surface Tension Melts Away

The mercury hit 94 degrees in Chattanooga on Sunday. In Rome, Georgia the high was 99. Huntsville went to 100.
Everyone was looking for ways to beat the heat Sunday afternoon. I was fortunate enough to do so by tagging along with members of the CUDA club for a dive in the Tennessee River. And conditions were primo. The water was a warm 80 degrees. The Chickamauga dam was not generating electricity at the time so the current was non-existent, and the visibility was very good by river standards.
My dive buddy John and I dropped down to the bottom and spent the next 83 minutes wandering in a relaxed manner. Anyone who hasn't been to the bottom of the river might be surprised at what's down there. It's not a slimy mud bottom that I expected the first time I dove the river. The bottom is made up of rocks and millions of shells of all sizes. We saw part of an old shipwreck which I'm told is one of two sunken riverboats near downtown. And this time around we saw a lot of fish. Catfish, bluegill, stripers, sheepshead or drum, and a lot of bass. Very friendly bass I might add. They seem to be a very curious species. While other fish were hastily heading away from the masked aliens who were huffing bubbles, the bass wanted to get a close up look. Stopping in front, they will stare you in the eyes and really check you out. As if to say to the other bass, "Hey, look at this one. Look at the yellow markings around the eyes. He's a big one isn't he?"
When the water is warm like this you also notice a place or two where a spring is adding water to the river. Suddenly you feel the chilly water in a narrow space. Normally I might not notice but this dive was done in swim trunks and a t-shirt.
When we returned to Rennaissance Park everyone agreed we picked a great day to go below the gentle waves of the river. It's amazing how much surface tension gets left on shore to melt away on an August afternoon.

Culture Fest A Real Melting Pot

Wow! Culture Fest was fun but it was steamy. Literally making the celebration a "melting" pot.
Days like this are what a friend from Texas used to call, "H-O-Tee-Tee ...Hot".
We are paying for a wet summer with sky-high humidity, and anyone who was in Coolidge Park today was dripping in sweat. (Unless you were in the fountain which was elbow to elbow.)
How hot was it? I spoke to a lady who just moved to Red Bank from Arizona. She absolutely loves it here in Chattanooga, but she is really surprised by the steaminess. She says she'd take 110 plus in the desert rather than swelter in the steam.
The official high about 4 pm in the city was 96. We have only been this hot 4 times this year including the 97 we hit on July 26th. So far that's been the hottest of the summer season. For those keeping score, 33 days at or above 90 degrees so far. In an average year we have 46 days that hot.

Football Fans Need Fans

It's the start of the high school football season in the Tennessee Valley tonight. And it will be a steamy start to the season. Kickoff temps will be in the upper 80s to around 90 in most spots.
I don't know if any of the high school teams do this, but I've heard of college and some pro teams serving up pickle juice during early season workouts. Seems as though it's an old-timey preventative for cramps. And trainers say it works.
For a couple of reasons this wasn't necessary back when I was in high school. In the first place, schools started later. The players and the band would practice in the August heat, but I don't remember ever starting school more than a couple of days before Labor Day. In fact it always seemed like a hassle to go to school for one or two days, and then have a 3 day weekend. Secondly, heat in the northwest corner of Illinois is relative. This year being the exception, by late August things begin cooling off compared to here.
I never played football. I spent Friday nights perched above the field shooting the games for the team. The press box still looks the same. For anyone who's interested here's a look: http://www.sports.thecity1.com/index.php?module=photoalbum&PHPWS_Album_id=1&PHPWS_Photo_op=view&PHPWS_Photo_id=26
My friend Mike Renkes and I alternated shooting from the windows above the "N". Mike and I would freeze our fingers on many nights hanging out of the open window with the camera. Mike ended up working as a sports journalist with several newspapers. I blame my television career on early work with video cameras in junior high and high school.
Around here fans can enjoy an evening of football in comfort on most nights. But fans will need fans tonight. If they're lucky and their team is good enough they'll get to freeze their fingers during the playoffs.
Good luck and let's play ball!

Awesome Light Show!

Three straight days of big time thunderstorms are leaving some of us feeling a little shell-shocked. This shot shows the storms last night lighting up the Chattanooga area.
The thunder really shook the house last night, literally causing the windows to rattle, and sending our dog Dudley cowering under the table. He hates nights like this. Chattanooga averages 56 days with thunderstorms a year, although right now it feels like this number is way too low.
The reason your house shakes is the 50,000 degree F heat the lightning generates causes the air to expand rapidly. And BOOM! Thunder with the same loudness in decibels as a jet aircraft at takeoff. Except the runway is in your yard.
There has been a network of special antennas across the United States since the late 80s to dectect and map where lightning is hitting the ground. In the lower 48 states an average of 20 million lightning strikes has been recorded. According to the National Severe Storms Laboratory, (NSSL) about half of those strikes have more than one place where the lightning hits the ground. So it's estimated that 30 million points on the ground are struck each year. And there's 5 to 10 times as many lightning flashes in the clouds or between clouds. Wow!
Lightning like what's pictured here can travel across the sky 60 miles or more according to NSSL. The longest bolt recorded stretched over the skies of Dallas-Ft. Worth 118 miles. (Everything's bigger in Texas don't ya know.)
There are devices you can buy to detect lightning at your home. I have a pretty reliable lightning detector of my own. 20 to 30 minutes before a storm starts rattling my house, Dudley starts searching for tables to hide under.
He thinks it's pretty awesome when the light show is over.

Can You Hear Me Now?

Sandie hates the fact that I can't get messages on the cell phone, but I can take pictures with it and send them to another phone or e-mail the images.
I snapped this severe storm approaching Chattanooga last night from the intersection of Mountain Creek and Signal Mountain Road. This storm had already pushed over some trees in Marion County to the west.
As of this morning rainfall in Chattanooga is 1.92" above normal for August, and 6.30" above since June 1st. Tropical systems "Cindy" and "Dennis" helped boost our summer rainfall this year.
But if you were to hop on a boat at Ross's Landing and head downstream you would see a vastly different scene. The Tennessee River dumps into the Ohio River near Paducah where the water levels are down. Wayyyyyyyyyyy down. In Metropolis, Illinois the casino boat had to close for two days recently because of low water levels. Barges have been hitting bottom in both the Mississippi and Ohio rivers lately. Some grounding in less than 8 feet of water. In parts of Northern Illinois like Chicago, this summer has been drier than the infamous drought year of 1988.
I was working in Southern Illinois at the time and I remember covering the dredging operations on the Ohio. Workers were attempting to deepen the channel enough to keep the river traffic moving. Similar attempts were ongoing on the mighty Mississippi near St. Louis. But it was a losing battle on the Ohio. No barge traffic meant wheat which was being harvested couldn't get out to market. And once the elevators at Mound City, Illinois were full the grain was simply dumped on the streets. Plywood walls were set up on the curbs and the grain filled the streets up to the top. The video I shot ended up on "World News Tonight With Peter Jennings".
After nearly two full months without any measurable rainfall, the breaking story one night was tape I shot of a minor miracle. Water falling from the sky. Drops hitting the cracked earth of a devasted cornfield north of Harrisburg, Illinois. I can still see the first ones striking the ground causing tiny clouds of dust to rise up. Ever since then I have never cursed rain. I had seen people really praying for rain as I'm sure they are doing in parts of the Midwest today. And they are probably asking, "Can you hear me now?"

Could It Bee A Cold Winter?

This picture was taken in Southern Illinois last December after 22 inches of snow fell. My brother-in-law Steve and I went for a frigid four-wheeler ride in the 24 degree air. I was thinking about this yesterday when it hit 96 degrees in Chattanooga.
It's human nature to wish for weather other than what's happening right now. When it's in the mid 90s people wish for cold weather. When it's below freezing we look forward to July's heat.
Humans have been looking at nature for answers to what's ahead weatherwise for probably as long as man has been around. So here's a story and some possible insight.
I was trimming some branches on the river birch tree in front of the house the other day. There is some low evergreen ground cover that surrounds the base of the tree. So stepping into it was the only way I could reach the branches that were about to get whacked.
Whammo! I looked down to see one hornet stinging me repeatedly on the stomach, and another one zapping my hand. OUCH! A whole bunch more flying up at me from around my feet. When the swelling finally went down I went out to see a hornet's nest about the size of a volleyball in the ground cover. The only hornet's nests I had seen in the past were way up in trees, or up under the overhang of a roof. Never virtually on the ground.
My neighbor Roy says that's a sign of a bad winter. Hmmmm.
So I looked it up in an old book I have in my collection. Signal Service Notes No. IX - Weather Proverbs 1883. And among the long forgotten wisdom this nugget: "Hornets build nests high before warm summers. When hornets build their nests near the ground, expect a cold and early winter." We'll see if my hornets put out an accurate forecast in 5 or 6 months. If they're right, this will truly be a case of killing the messenger. (I really didn't want to get stung again.)

Heated Arguments

Here's another picture of the Matanuska Glacier in Alaska. It's a close up view from down low. When you look at a glacier from this angle you can see how much material is mixed in with the ice. I hope I get another chance to visit Alaska and hike this wonderful spot again. But the fact of the matter is Alaskan ice is disappearing, some say at an alarming rate. By the next time I might get back to Chickaloon I'll have to hike farther to climb on this glacier. Talk about global warming and you'll raise the temperature of almost every room in which this debate begins. If you want my opinion, I'll begin by saying I think the global warming debate is like this picture. To get the low down, look at all the details close up and down low. You'll see a lot of material that's mixed in with the general arguments. For example, one group contends man's greehouse gas emissions are the root cause of global warming and melting glaciers. But they seem to leave out the Pleistocene Epoch. The period of time between 1.8 million years ago up until about 8,000 years ago. (If you would have had a car back then, it would have needed all wheel drive and some pretty awesome snow tires. At least if you wanted to drive anywhere north of the Ohio River.) That's when an ice sheet covered the northern half of the United States, including a little piece of ground where I grew up in Northern Illinois. Yet those massive blankets of ice melted. I'm pretty sure man didn't have much to do with that. But there is compelling scientific evidence for the "greenhouse effect." So I'll include a link someone has put together that includes 250 glacier links. So maybe you can get up close and down low to see some of the details for yourself. http://www.mysteries-megasite.com/main/bigsearch/glacier.html Whatever your stand we can make green choices. I believe the earth's climate is a giant cycle we don't fully understand. But I also try to tread lightly while I'm around. I chose to drive a smaller pickup truck rather than the full-sized one. Our other car is a low emission vehicle. Next time around we might go hybrid. The ice is melting. I hope others will be able to enjoy a glacier someday. The ice has melted before. I'm glad it wasn't covering up my hometown while I was there.

Let Cooler Heads Prevail

It's been hot lately. Not beastly hot and dry like the Midwest, but seasonable steamy. So far this year Chattanooga has seen only 20 days at or above 90 degrees. The hottest day this year was July 26th when we hit 97. Still it's enough to get me daydreaming about hiking the Matanuska Glacier in Alaska. I had been near the glacier in 1999, and had the chance to hike it on a return trip two years ago. The sky was bright blue and the day was warm by Alaskan standards. But near this 4 mile wide block of ice which stretches up the valley some 24 miles, it's almost chilly. Almost. It was afterall a sunny July day. We hiked back nearly a mile. And for the first time in my life I felt like I was on another planet. This one looking a lot like the ice planet Hoth from "The Empire Strikes Back". I go back there in my mind on a steamy August day like this. I feel the coolness of the blue sky and blue water that's frozen in my memory. Hang in there. 38 days until Autumn officially begins.

Danger! Parrot-Sharks!

Some stories are worth sharing so here goes: This is a picture of my better half enjoying a day of snorkeling in Cozumel. Sandie has always had a fear of water, which was magnified one thousand times after a whitewater rafting incident. But I managed to get her back in the water and comfortable enough to really enjoy snorkeling.
Everything was going great until the morning she got ahead of me.
She kicked out into the water about 10 yards before I got in, and by the time I was 10 yards out she was kicking back in as hard as she could. At first I thought she might strike the beach, kick across the island, swim across the Gulf, hit land and stroke all the way back home. Her eyes were wide and full of fear. And as soon as they locked on me she was frantically pointing over her shoulder. It was obvious something was out there.
I knew we weren't in any real danger, but we had seen a number of juvenile barracudas. Maybe she had seen an adult.
And then there they were. Four of the biggest and most beautiful parrotfish you could ever see. The largest was about 4 feet long.
It only took a few moments to calm Sandie down and convince her that these sea monsters were only interested in crunching on coral and not her. Through my snorkle I was able to tell her, "Listen to them eating." And for awhile our world consisted of floating motionless listening to the rasp, rasp, rasp of Sandie's parrot-sharks terrorizing coral polyps.

Santa Rosa Wall

I was hooked on diving the first time I put a regulator in my mouth. A friend of mine who's a long time diver smiled and called it "an addiction to compressed air".
As a kid I was fascinated by marine life and space exploration. As an adult I have finally discovered this way of feeling like an astronaut while coming face to face with all sorts of wonderful creatures. (Why did it take me so long?)
This picture was taken on my second day of diving in Cozumel along the Santa Rosa Wall. (I'm behind the camera.) I like this shot because it takes me back to that sunlit April morning. Flying underwater in the warm current, trying to take it all in as it passes underneath.
I can only imagine how awesome it was for astronaut Steve Robinson to spacewalk underneath Discovery with the whole world passing by below. Wow! (If NASA ever needs a scuba diving weather geek, I'll be in line fins in hand.)

Barracuda At Cleaning Station

This 2 foot barracuda was stopping by a coral head to get cleaned. He didn't seem to mind me taking a few pictures, although he did have a comfort zone. He would slowly move away when I would drift in for a closer shot. But if I moved back a few feet he would return.
Picture was taken in about 12 feet of water in Cozumel this past April.

New To Blogging

A friend at work has been blogging for awhile, so I thought I'd try this.
I'm not sure why having a website appeals to me. But I love taking pictures and I like to show others what I have seen. So I'll try to learn more about posting pictures and see if I can't make this a visual feast for anyone who happens along. (As the name implies........expect clouds and fish. And maybe even clouds that look like fish.)