etudiant

6 hours ago, nrgjeff said:

Family joined me for Comet Neowise viewing Sunday evening from a rural dark sky spot Lookout Mountain, GA. Believe it's a little bit better than Halley 1986, but not as good as Hyakutake 1996. While far from Hale-Bopp 1997, Neowise is a good comet. I am hoping Neowise improves to closer to Hyakutake quality.

Halley < Neowise < Hyakutake < Hale-Bopp IIRC. Right now Neowise is closer to Halley, but I am cautiously optimistic it gets closer to Hyakutake. Probably remains in between; I figure Hale Bopp is pretty unreachable. If Neowise improves past the half-way point between Halley and Hyakutake, we got a big winner!

Sky forecast is for southeast Tenn. May be valid for southern Middle Tenn, North Bama, and West Tenn. BNA to TYS MRX TRI may differ. Sunday featured just-in-time JIT clearing following afternoon thundershowers. Monday should JIT clear in the evening. Might go right back up Lookout Mountain. Two work nights in a row means next morning drink more coffee!

Tuesday JIT clearing is more suspect. Wed/Thu look pretty cloudy, but things can change with summer pop-up t-shower and debris forecasting. Comet is closest to Earth Thursday; but, I think any improvement will last through the weekend. Should still be good next week through the end of July. Comet gets higher in the sky each evening; therefore, above horizon haze and light. Hoping for more JIT clearing this weekend, with sleep in the mornings!

Meteoblue https://www.meteoblue.com/en/weather/map/precipitation/united-states has a basic cloud cover forecast if you don't already have a preferred model site. It is GFS based though. If you already have a favorite cloud site, probably use what's familiar. 

Binoculars work in town, including tail, but it's low contrast. Rural dark sky one can see it unaided eye an hour after sunset, northwest sky below Big Dipper. Rural binoculars it is a gorgeous sight. Nucleus jumps out. Tail is delicate and beautiful. One can imagine the comet racing through the solar system.

Gonna rank this must-see this year. My no 2020 storm chase is of no concern anymore. Comet in fact rescues 2020 from its overall debacle. I'm comet catching multiple nights the rest of the month!

Thanks for that ranking, looks like I missed the two best ones, just saw and was disappointed by Halley. Very much agree Neowise is much better. Sadly the astronomy sites show it dimming gradually ( https://cobs.si/analysis2?col=comet_id&id=1875&plot_type=0 ), even though it's closest to earth on July 22.  

Does any long, long, long range model have any better skill?

I'd be tempted to believe the CFS  outlook simply because it is the only low ball forecast I've seen, everyone appears confident we'll have a well above average hurricane season.

1 hour ago, gravitylover said:

Hyakutake was amazing. In 1996 my girlfriend (now wife) and I drove here from CO at the end of March and for 3 nights it was huge across the windshield. When we went over one of the Continental Divide passes it was -40*F and crystally clear and that thing was just incredible. The next night in central NE on US Rt 34/36 where it's about as dark as dark can be was another incredible experience.

Lucky you!  My only prior comet was Halley's, a huge letdown, sort of a blob of no distinction or shape, even seen from an observatory in Stamford CT.

4 hours ago, Juliancolton said:

Always a gut-wrenching feeling, you have my sympathies. My corn got decimated this year as well but much earlier in the season, so perhaps an easier fate to accept. At one point I walked up to the patch and saw a deer and a rabbit grazing in harmony. 8' high and buried 2' underground is really the only reliable control in this part of the country.

No idea how farmers do it either, maybe just they grow so much the critters can't eat it all. 

But I will add that an 8' high and 2' underground  fence is no obstacle to raccoons unless it is also electrified.

Or unless the garden is both fenced as well as wired over the top.

24 minutes ago, gravitylover said:

Damned critters are getting more benefit out of my garden now than I am. Yesterday I lost about 40 melons, they even ate most of the female flowers that had just been pollinated and had small fruits started. The previous two days they'd ripped open the corn stalks and devoured the cobs forming inside the stalks and this morning almost all of the second plantings were dug up. I'm so bummed, hundreds of hours are being destroyed and I can't seem to stop it. Last night I fell asleep in a pile of sweat sitting on the patio with a pellet gun in my hand and almost popped myself in the foot. 

Sounds like raccoons  at work.  They did a number on my garden as well, before we returned to Manhattan. I'd be ok if they just ate their share, but they sampled all the corn.  :((

1 hour ago, Nibor said:

Im going to be hiking in the white mountains in New Hampshire Thursday-Sunday. Think Neowise will still be bright enough to see?

Dark skies should help a lot, but even now binoculars are essential here in NYC. By Thursday it may be hard to locate without a sky guide. Good luck, it is worth making the effort to see it. 

Happy to say the sky tonight was clear enough to get a good view of Neowise. It did not disappoint, big tail, both long and wide, best comet ever for me.

If you get a clear view to the west, this sky map should help:  

Sadly here in Manhattan, clear skies are not common. I've failed to see it thus far, despite several attempts.

A Central Park weather instrumentation site is in an enclosure just south of the small folly known as  The Castle. 

It is surrounded by shrubs and taller trees. It may be that this impacts the readings there.

A waterbug really is tough, they need to be stepped on with a hard shoe to dispatch them, but that is not recommended, as their fluids will attract others.   Our NYC version is mostly tan, rather than black, pretty wide and quite flat.

There are beetles that are 2" long and black, mostly wood borers, including the invasive and very unwanted Asian Long Horned Beetle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_long-horned_beetle ), but they usually are slow to fly.

Vultures do sometimes make hissing noises when interacting comfortably, although it is usually described as 'soft' rather than loud. Cornell E-bird has a free app caller Merlin, which allows you to download a bird sound and their computer will try to identify it. Perhaps your birds will become part of the data base.

3 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

so are vultures unfortunately.  I've seen half a dozen of them in my trees, just sitting there, ominously, when I'm pruning my plants.  Made a lot of noise to make them leave but they just keep coming back.  This is the first year I've seen this happen.

 

Vultures are harmless, they get a bad rap even though they really are nature's recycling squad.

They don't kill anything, just dispose of the remains. The chipmunks have nothing to worry about from them. 

Your vultures may be roosting in your trees to catch some rays or perhaps to sleep.  Also, they much prefer to avoid flapping their wings, they'd rather glide and soar, so perching up high saves them the effort of climbing back up. Turkey Vultures are actually pretty snazzy, red face and all.

Your 2" insect was probably a waterbug ( really a large species of roach), as you suspected. They are pretty hardy, able to navigate drains with ease, so plugging one drain is no cure. They are not as abundant here as further south, so with luck you won't see another.

3 hours ago, stemwinder said:

When I hear the katydids, my summer is complete.  Too bad it keeps getting hotter. One thing I miss big time is the song of the Wood Thrush, in the woods nearby.  They seem to be gone locally,.  Used to be a lot of little bunnies around .  People feed the feral cats, so enough said.

 

Wood Thrushes normally nest in low shrubs, the kind that deer like to munch on. Deer are currently predator free, so they eat themselves out of house and home. Sadly that also means the potential home of the Wood Thrush. Nature usually solves this kind of excess with a plague, for which there are several candidates such as CWD. Meanwhile, deer ticks carry Lyme disease.

Can anyone bring back wolves??

This table  https://www.sablesys.com/support/technical-library/barometric-pressure-vs-altitude-table/  may help you.

It shows that at 2000 meters, the atmospheric pressure is down from about 30 inches of mercury to about 24 inches.

Afaik, the lowest pressure during a major hurricane is around 28 inches of mercury and the normal pressure fluctuations with weather are between 29 and 30.5 inches.

So you should be ok healthwise with the pressure changes from the weather. Of course, sleeping and breathing comfort may be affected even if it is not a serious health issue.

14 minutes ago, gravitylover said:

I didn't know that, thanks! I've been trying to add pollinator attracting plants to the yard for a while now. It seems to be working but this year there has been a massive decline in the number of bugs, particularly bees and butterflies. So far it's only been a small problem in my garden because of the attractants but I can drive 300+ miles on the highway and barely have any on the windshield and that's kind of scary. 

Bugs on the windshield is a pretty reliable way to estimate whether insect numbers are up, down or steady.

As your experience confirms, they are down sharply, which probably also helps explain why bird populations have dropped by 30-80% depending on the species over the past 50 years.

I think the development and widespread use of broad spectrum insecticides is a plausible driver of this decline. We are probably damaging our ecosystem, for very short term benefits.

19 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

why are insects so bold (less afraid) compared to birds?  You'd think the smaller the creature the more afraid it should be of human beings.  I've always wondered about that.

Would diatomaceous earth help with mice too?  I've gotten rid of most of them, but I'm not sure they're all gone and I want to be completely rid of them before the cold season comes.  The last contractor who worked on my house left a few holes that I've been busy covering up.

For the outside, I am using this UV lamp trapping container thing the exterminator recommended as a good nonchemical solution.  It traps lots of flying insects (no birds, butterflies, dragonflies, bees, etc.)....so far it's been trapping mosquitoes, gnats, black flies, deer flies, all sorts of detestable pests like that.

 

The problem is most insects see us as landscape, not as creatures, so they don't try to avoid us. The ones who do recognize us as animate usually see us as the lunch counter.

Diatomaceous earth will not help with mice unfortunately, although it may irritate their lungs. Copper wire steel wool pads are pretty good for plugging gaps around pipes and there are a variety of expanding foams that help seal cracks. It's an uphill struggle, mice can squeeze under most doors and a little corner gap the size of a quarter is a highway for them. It is trench warfare when in the country, they don't quit and there is no lasting victory.

Well, the webs mean the spiders are really trying to thin the herd in your garden.

Am surprised that you're getting zapped repeatedly though, as most insects try to pick only on stuff they can manage. Of course, for mosquitoes, deer flies and such, you are the main course. Wasps and hornets will be a problem if you're close to their nest, not always easy to see as many wasps nest underground. Just be careful about ticks, they are a real hazard, made worse because their bite is rarely noticed and the damage can be life long.

Stuff coming into the house is a real pain and one only realizes how many cracks and gaps are in a house when one wants to seal them. Diatomaceous earth is probably the most helpful product here, it is basically barbed wire for bugs, 

48 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

Yet another thing to have to kill.  I have been spraying nonstop this season.

 

It's a problem, these bugs actually are very helpful, they prey on the other insects that are dining on your plants and flowers.

Spraying is sort of creating a virgin territory, open to anyone, so usually that is the most aggressive species that rush in to take advantage, rather than the ones you want.

8 hours ago, tdp146 said:

Can anyone identify this guy who bit me and it hurt like hell?

Looks something like an Assassin Bug, one of the true bugs that preys on other insects mostly.

They bite by poking the victim with their beak. The bite is both painful and can cause swelling which lasts for days. A variant found in Latin America can infect people with Chagas disease, which damages the heart, but ours don't, fortunately.  See: https://www.bobvila.com/articles/assassin-bugs/

Moderate rain only on Manhattan UES, had been some thunder, but no intense downpours.

Gratefully accepted, the trees in Central Park were starting to feel the heat.

The trend is not showing any indication of deceleration, rather the opposite. That suggests 2+ *C is already baked in.

Indicates the 2060 global temperature will be 3-4*C above that of the 1970s.

7 hours ago, Windspeed said:

The dust is coming from the Saharan and portions of the sub-Saharan that is not within the above normal precipitation regions discussed earlier. Yes, Morocco and Northern Algeria has seen above normal precipitation due to cutoffs and the previous -NAO pattern, which tracked extra tropical cyclones into the Mediterranean off of the Eastern Atlantic. This had little influence on the main desert regions though. In the image below, the two red Xs have remained normal (dry, low precip) over Saharan and sub-Saharan. The blue X has seen above normal, but that is still mostly an arid region. The point of the original post above was to show the extreme above normal precipitation amounts for already generally moist grasslands and forest regions of the interior and west-central African continent, south of the sub-Saharan region. This suggests increased numbers of multi-convective systems and tropical waves advancing through the West African Monsoon (WAM), which should increase activity out into the Atlantic ITCZ and MDR through the heart of the Cape Verde stretch of the season.

 

As for the dust, the Azores ridge is cranking below the 700 hpa level of the atmosphere seen in purple below. This is inducing strong easterly trades off the Sub-Saharan region pulling desert dust along with it. The low-level easterly jet burst will push all the way across the Atlantic over the next 10 days.

Thank you, that is very informative. One forgets how big Africa is, lots of room for both wet and dry regions.

2 hours ago, LoboLeader1 said:

This may hinder tropical development for a while.

I'm puzzled, the prior posting by Windspeed shows much above average rainfall in the same area that this unusual amount of dust is coming from. Can someone please help explain?

1 hour ago, Juliancolton said:

I almost stepped on a milk yesterday. The old mnemonic proved helpful: "black on yellow, you're a dead fel-- no, red on black-- wait, red, yellow... Jack's a dead fellow... but was it yellow on--?" and by the time you remember the doggone thing, the snake's long gone.

Think it was 'red on yellow, friendly fellow. Red on black, stand back'. 

That said, probably best to just get out of their way. 

4 hours ago, gravitylover said:

I'm hearing lots of stories about people encountering timber rattlers and copperheads all over the region, bad stuff... I deal with pretty much most critters pretty well but snakes, NOPE.

Interesting difference, I freak out about ticks, but snakes and spiders are just fine.

Garter Snakes are actually  quite silky, if you touch them. Don't know about the others,  never touched a rattler.

Why is it that the forecasts appear so disconnected from real life.

Here in NYC, the various (suitably hedged) forecasts were for close to a half inch of rain and thundershowers.

A glance at the evolving weather shown on the various radar tracks indicated that the main event would be well south of the city. But the forecast remained the same. Why?