There's something about the detail and dimensionality of this animation that really sends a shiver down my spine. Read the rest
Scary radar animation of Hurricane Michael making landfall
World class trumpeter plays for stranded Canadians who, like him, are trapped in the snow
If I weren't in Ontario on assignment right now, I'd be home swearing under my breath at the foot-deep blanket of snow that ambushed Alberta. Jens Lindemann wasn't lucky enough to dodge the storm.
Lindemann, who grew up in Alberta, is a world-class trumpeter who's played for Queen Elizabeth II and soloed at Carnegie Hall. He, along with scores of other travelers, was stranded in the snow on the highway between Calgary and Canmore for close to ten hours with no help from emergency service personnel. It's not that no one in our provincial government gives a shit, rather, they're currently overwhelmed. We were hit so hard and so early by a massive snowstorm that Calgary had to request other cities from around the province to send in plows and personnel to help it dig out. It's that bad.
To make being stuck on the road and, in some cases, in the ditch, a little less miserable, Lindemann popped out of his car with a trumpet and plastic mouthpiece (lips sticking to metal are no fun) to serenade his fellow travelers. If the honking horns are any indication, the performance was appreciated. Read the rest
Homebrew Cadillac limo/snowcat for sale
Robert Falck from Vancouver built a 1989 Cadillac Brougham limousine onto a Bombardier Skidozer snowcat. You can own this fine vehicle for $6,000. According to the Craigslist ad, it was "last used 2 years ago." From Jalopnik:
Falck said he built this contraption for a movie, which featured a rich guy who owned a ski resort. When filming was done, the Vancouverite decided to buy the Caddy back. Now it’s up for sale on Craigslist for a price that, he says, doesn’t reflect what he’s put into the vehicle.
Falck says the thing will move, but it’s not likely to climb a mountain or blaze its own trail; the vehicle is best left on groomed trails, and it’s not likely to exceed 15 mph.
Hurricane Florence in 3D, as seen by NASA's MISR onboard the Terra satellite
Get your red-blue 3D glasses out. NASA today shares a stunning stereo anaglyph 3-D image of Hurricane Florence, captured from the MISR instrument flying on-board the Terra satellite, which carries nine cameras that observe Earth at different angles. Read the rest
Badass NOAA storm trackers fly into Hurricane Florence
As a million people evacuate the coastal regions of Virginia and North Carolina to escape the damaging winds of Hurricane Florence, the badass scientists of NOAA are flying smack-dab into the storm. Read the rest
#HurricaneLane bears down on Hawaii
Hurricane Lane is the greatest weather threat to Hawaii in decades, say storm experts. Read the rest
Watch a massive haboob engulf southern Arizona towns
Jesse Watson captured this perfectly-timed footage of a massive dust cloud roiling across the Arizona desert at sunset. Read the rest
Can't a naked man paddle his kayak during a typhoon in peace?
That'd be a no. Read the rest
Welsh heat wave reveals ancient ruins under farm fields
The UK's Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales has published some recent aerial shots of cropmarks, ancient ruins now covered by farm fields. Unusually dry weather conditions have created a golden opportunity to see these sites from the air. Read the rest
Guy captures the moment a river cuts a new channel to the ocean
Wayne Easton braved the elements to capture an interesting natural phenomenon: the Mahlongwa River in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa breaching its bank and cutting a channel to the Indian Ocean. Part two is below: Read the rest
Octopuses, starfish, and prawns rain down on Chinese city
A mass of sea creatures rained down on the Chinese city of Qingda during a storm last week. From Mysterious Universe:
The phenomenon of “fish rain” or “animal rain” is a rare, but very real, weather phenomenon which has been documented for centuries. Reports of thousands of falling fish, frogs, and other animals that have no business in the sky have occurred since the Roman empire...
While waterspouts are widely believed to be responsible for the phenomenon, the process of waterspouts sucking animals out of the sea has never been directly observed. This explanation certainly makes sense for Qingdao, China. It’s a coastal city, and this fish rain was accompanied by a large and powerful storm system.
Read the rest我们这里的天气也是非常强了……人家下雨下冰雹，我们这里下海鲜…… pic.twitter.com/cmzcovduEU
— YM (@nSZCVBtp33s2tyR) June 13, 2018
Hurricane Aletta: 2018's first major Pacific storm already Category 4, no threat to land... yet
Hurricane season is on. Hurricane Aletta is now a Category 4 storm, and is the first major hurricane of the 2018 Eastern Pacific hurricane season. A second, as-yet-unnamed and still-forming storm is right behind it. That storm could become the year's second named hurricane within the next few days. Read the rest
Spectacular slow-motion footage of lightning strikes
In Transient: Extended and Unused Footage, Dustin Farrell shares some of the great shots of weather events that got trimmed or omitted from his beautiful film Transient. Read the rest
Weatherman angry that no-one appreciates being told about forthcoming Michigan weather
Some folks have a tough lot in life than this, but today let's offer a little sympathy for the bitter comfort of a man whose job it is to inform people what the weather's going to be like in Michigan. Think Sisyphus, but with a giant yellow snowball that keeps melting and refreezing in April. Read the rest
Freaky orange snow falls on parts of Eastern Europe
Pats of Russia, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Romania, and Moldova was covered with orange snow this weekend. The odd hue was caused by sand blown into the atmosphere from the Sahara Desert that mixed with snow and rain. The same Saharan dust also resulted in a very orange tint to the Greek island of Crete, seen below.
"African Dust Turns Snow Orange in Eastern Europe" (Weather.com)
Heraklion, Crete in thick Saharan dust right now! Report: Ποπη Κοκοσαλακη pic.twitter.com/4m3ZVY6jap
— severe-weather.EU (@severeweatherEU) March 22, 2018
Drone footage of Ohio River flooding
Waters along the Ohio River are at record levels, reports USA Today. Read the rest
Watch this astounding video of lightning bolts in ultra-high definition at 1,000 frames-per-second
Filmmaker Dustin Farrell spent his summer traveling 20,000 miles to film lightning around the United States. He used a Phantom Flex4K camera to capture these brilliant bolts at 1,000 frames per second. The film is called "Transient."
“Lightning is like a snowflake. Every bolt is different,” Farrell says. “I learned that lightning varies greatly in speed. There are some incredible looking bolts that I captured that didn’t make the cut because even at 1000fps they only lasted for one frame during playback. I also captured some lightning that appear computer generated it lasted so long on the screen.”
(via The Kid Should See This)
