More thunderstorms and flooding
I would say “another day, another thunderstorm” but we get multiple events in a matter of hours lately. We’re well past water capacity in a number of areas in the Chautauqua-Allegheny region as flood advisories and flash flood warnings are already posted in places getting even more heavy rain now. Lightning is flashing intermittently as I type this. Stubborn and “stuck” patterns are becoming more and more common thanks to climate change and our jet stream. We need a trough in the west and a ridge in the east soon please. Be safe out there and remember…turn...
Read MoreHailstones
With all this talk about severe weather lately I wanted to show everyone what some real hail looks like. I collected these stones from my yard after a storm in Connecticut (really) in October (really!) a couple of years ago. These are not the uniform, smooth, rounded and typical hailstones we routinely find in severe storms. They look like something that came out of a Midwest or Great Plains monster supercell. The “severe thunderstorm” that dropped these in the middle of a quiet, cool afternoon was technically that but not a drop of rain fell, no lightning was seen and thus no...
Read MoreSevere tornadic thunderstorm: six years later
The best – or worst, however you’d like to classify it – thunderstorm I have ever directly been impacted by and experienced fully happened six years ago today on August 7, 2008. As a weather nerd I will never forget that date. As a human being who values his life I will always remember what it was like to feel a tiny taste of the true power of the atmosphere. I was living in Stratford, Connecticut, a coastal town, and after a relatively typical warm, humid August day we entered the evening as I kept an eye on a large cell moving very slow to the east/southeast further...
Read MoreHeavy rain at RTPI
What’s that you say? More rain headed our way? It was earlier today with thunderstorms concentrating heavy rain directly over RTPI as this radar grab depicts and this photo displays. Fortunately it will indeed soon go away.
Read MoreMale Eastern Spiny Softshell Turtles
Here’s some of the boys – male Eastern Spiny Softshell Turtles (Apalone spinifera) – hanging out and basking Saturday afternoon before we were inundated with more rain. All of this constant precipitation is keeping water levels high making it harder to find them and impossible for us to do any trapping or tagging for research on the state-listed species. Our continuing observations and tracking will have to suffice.
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