[X] My Assistant

[Palomar]

*For discussion of hurricanes (I'm currently keeping tabs on Katrina; she's been classed as a Category 3 hurricane earlier today and may strike the Florida Panhandle or Louisiana next), tornadoes, rainbow phenomena, lightning galleries; etc., etc.

Whoops...made a mistake in the Subject Line (capitalization). Ah well. Too danged early in the morning.

[djellison]

Doesnt matter about the caps in the subject line - it atomatically removes excessive caps so people can do shouty subjects

Doug

[Patteroast]

I like keeping track of the hurricane season every year, myself. Quite amazing one so far.. every storm since Dennis has been the earliest nth storm to ever form since we've been keeping records.

[Palomar]

I like keeping track of the hurricane season every year, myself. Quite amazing one so far.. every storm since Dennis has been the earliest nth storm to ever form since we've been keeping records. 

*Yep. Two people were killed by Katrina within a very short time of landfall over the Peninsula. At that time she was classed as a "weak Category I"; those folks apparently thought they were safe being out...both were struck by falling trees.

------

A cloud gallery with captions beneath the pics:

Shelf cloud.

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Towering cumulus and mammatus.

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Lowering wall cloud/tornado possible.

I've seen these -- they are creepy; also, they can have a "downdraft"-jarring sort of movement which is nearly impossible to describe.

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Wall cloud with tail cloud.

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Supercell.

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Mammatus clouds & blazing sunset.

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Thick wave clouds.

I have never seen these sorts of clouds, not even a photo -- until now. Wow.

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Thunderstorm anvil.

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Turbulent gust front clouds.

Pretty. Looks like a work of art.

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Altocumulus.

Unique.

That's one of the best galleries I've yet found online; they were hosted via one of those "pop-up" attachments at space.com (or livescience.com?) which you can't directly link to, but I managed to link them individually. Enjoy.

[dvandorn]

Doesnt matter about the caps in the subject line - it atomatically removes excessive caps so people can do shouty subjects

Doug

Which is a problem when you want to reference an acronym in a thread title. Just try putting something like MER, or NASA, or NEAR, or MRO, into a subject line here...

-the other Doug

[djellison]

Which is a problem when you want to reference an acronym in a thread title.  Just try putting something like MER, or NASA, or NEAR, or MRO, into a subject line here...

-the other Doug

Small price to pay for the safety of not having shouty subjects that needlessly stand out from the rest.

Doug

[Patteroast]

I took a nice picture of some mammatus from my front yard.

Link

Always a good thing to see right above your house.

[Palomar]

I took a nice picture of some mammatus from my front yard.

Link

Always a good thing to see right above your house. 

Unfortunately it returns with a "forbidden" message.

[um3k]

I took a nice picture of some mammatus from my front yard.

Link

Always a good thing to see right above your house. 

You can't directly link to images on deviantArt. You have to link to its, er, page. Like this: http://www.deviantart.com/view/10835183/

[Patteroast]

Ahh, sorry about that. Trying again:

Link

[Palomar]

Ahh, sorry about that. Trying again:

Link

*Nice pic! Thanks for sharing. They are always beautiful to see.

The most striking mammatus clouds I've personally seen was around age 12. They were in the SE portion of the sky and looked like jumbo marshmallows stuck into the underbelly of the host cloud. They had perfectly rounded edges and were as long as they were wide. I've never seen mammatus clouds like those since, either in photo or RL. Too bad a camera wasn't available at the moment.

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Hurricane Katrina @ Category 5

9 deaths reported so far in south Florida. She's packing 160 mph winds and continues towards Louisiana.

"If it came ashore with the intensity it has now and went to the New Orleans area, it would be the strongest we've had in recorded history there"

At 8 a.m., Katrina's center was about 250 miles south-southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River, the hurricane center said. It was moving west-northwest at about 12 mph and a gradual turn toward the north-northwest was expected. Hurricane force-wind of at least 74 mph extended up to 85 miles from the center.

::EDIT:: Just heard a Special Report on ABC news at 11:16 a.m. EDT. Katrina's winds are now at 175 mph. The mayor of New Orleans has ordered an evacuation of the entire city. They're expecting flooding of up to 18 feet of water. New Orleans' dam and levee systems were built to sustain Cat 3 hurricanes; of course Katrina is Cat 5.

[volcanopele]

Hi fellow hurricane watchers (from the safety of Tucson). Here is a collection of impressive images I've found on the net:

• True-color image of Katrina taken yesterday morning by NOAA-15
• Close-up of the above image
• Part of the protective covering of the Superdome removed
• Hi-res satellite image from yesterday evening
• NEXRAD radar loop from the last 3.5 hours (out of Mobile, New Orleans radar down
• NEXRAD radar loop showing landfall in Mississippi River Delta region

[Guest_Myran_*]

Im following Katrina too, and are happy to be far away.
This is the the kind they feared in New Orleans, my thoughts are with those in its path.

[paxdan]

Before and after satellite photos showing NO underwater .

[um3k]

Wow!

Asia-Pacific nations - including tsunami-battered Sri Lanka - promised Friday to send money and disaster relief experts to the United States to help deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

From here

It just seems so...strange. But it is great!