Category Archives: Weather

One of my favorite topics — beware the wall cloud!

Weather

Visitor Ike

Overnight, what was left of Hurricane Ike stomped through the midwest, hitting The Lou around 3am this morning. By the time the rain and winds were gone nine hours later, we’d had almost six inches of rain, and a bunch of limbs downed in the yard. Nothing serious at the Deauxmayne, but once again, the city came under the focus of the national media due to flooding. If you looked at the video of folks being rescued in boats from their homes, you would’ve though you were looking at something from Texas rather than Missouri. There are still folks without power — we were down for 2.5 hours — but nonetheless, things are getting back to normal.

Like most of the country, we’ve seen gas prices spike up this week. As Ike bore down on Texas, local crystal ball readers were predicting gas in $4.50 range out of this. Mom tells me that the prognosticators are reading prices above $5 in their tea leaves. With promises of ready supply, there’s been no rationing like Mom has reported in Chattanooga. However, I did see something I haven’t seen in a lot of years…. a gas station with no gas available. In fact, there were almost a score of stations reported without gas this morning. I’m betting that’ll be more widespread before the next week or so is done, and I’m not gonna be surprised to see gas climb well above $4.

Call me a pessimist.

However, the silver lining is that the weather has changed, feeling more like fall than summer, with the promise of a couple of rain free days, which means the doors come off, and the roof is dropped.

I can’t wait.

Weather

Easter Snow

Snow? On Easter? Yup.

This morning, we awoke to about an inch of snow on the colder surfaces — enough for me to make snowballs to lob at Becky and Sio. 🙂 Quite a surprise. And it’s snowed and melted about four times today. Really weird day, and likely our last snow for the year, although I’m sure we could have more, it’s just not likely.

Easter was nice, spent with my family, and that’s just the way I’d like it. The snow’s just a bonus.

Weather

Spring Floods

Earlier in the week, we got over 10″ of rain across two days. The farther south you looked, the more rain had fallen by the time it was done, with places reporting well over a foot of rain. Unbelievable. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen rain like that.

Given where the rain had fallen, the impact to the rivers south of St. Louis was major and significant. Whole towns were underwater, with crests only being seen this weekend. After seeing so much of this, I decided to take the family out on a little safe sightseeing, and understand what was going on around us.

There were two areas I knew would be pretty safe, and reasonably easy to get to. One was just over the ridge from us, near Eureka High School, and the other was the major intersection of I-44 and Highway 141. Both were major roads, and should give us a good view of what the Meramec River was doing.

We started over the ridge on Old State Road. The radio (and the flashing signs) were indicating Highway 109 was closed at Old State, and only halfway down the hill, we were stopped by a police officer. As it ends up, he was directing traffic around an SUV that had run off the road into a tree. We breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that we hadn’t yet been stopped by the water, and continued over the hill towards Glencoe. When we came off the hill, and onto the flat at Glencoe, we came face-to-face with the Meramec, and realized just how bad things were.

Eureka High School’s ball fields were completely underwater. In fact, they were so underwater that folks were kayaking on the flooded fields. The Eureka police made that a short-lived event, calling the kayakers over, and having some words with them. There was quite a crowd parking on the side of Highway 109, shooting photos, and all talking in amazement at the level of the water. We stayed and shot for a while, and decided to head to Fenton, where I-44 and Highway 141 meet, and to see first hand the incredible depth of water covering Highway 141. We got in the truck, marvelling at the water lapping at the edge of Highway 109, and headed south to I-44 at Eureka.

We drove east on I-44, again seeing the water close to the road, and decided to pull off at the Route 66 State Park site. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t let us onto the bridge, which is where the best view of the water was. However, they did allow us access to the decking off the welcome center, and from there, we could see the Meramec flowing swiftly, beating up everything in its path. That was pretty doggone impressive. The crest had already hit there, and the water was now a foot below that crest… I’m not sure we would’ve noticed the difference.

From the park, we headed east again on I-44, knowing that we’d need to figure out some way to come up Highway 141 from the south. We passed the intersection, and hit the next exit (Bowles), and circled around to Highway 141, coming at the flooded intersection from the south. Two things struck me as we pulled off the road. One was the sheer volume of water. The other was the circus that was taking place there.

There were hundreds of people, and more than a handful of news crews, all there to cover the flood from what was probably the most photogenic spot around. I’d already seen this intersection on the NBC’s Nightly News, and could tell from the crowds that everyone had decided this was the place to come. And frankly, it was a pretty well-behaved crowd, and despite the throng, and the IQ lowering effect that usually has, I didn’t see anyone trying anything stupid. The police were good natured about it, and were letting folks gather and watch, taping and photographing this incredible muscle flexing of nature. It was truly amazing.

While we were there, a Coast Guard rescue helicopter flew over us, presumably just looking around, just in case. That’s definitely an unusual sight in Fenton!

It was a fun tour, a thing of sheer amazement, and left us with a sense of thankfulness that we weren’t party to any of its destructive force.

Weather

Snow Day!

Seven inches of snow have kept me locked in the ol’ ranch today. In truth, it was probably ok enough by lunch to have made it out and about, but as I usually do, I erred on the side of caution, and elected to not play bumper cars with across the miles today.

I spent the biggest part of my time tonight sucking images into my Mac — both from Roaul’s slides, and from Elma’s flats. The scanners have been running hot tonight, and I’m making great progress. I’m down to a couple of hundred scans left for Elma, and probably only a 1000 or 1500 left in Roaul’s stacks. I’d guess an ETA for Elma’s stuff being complete is tomorrow, with Roaul’s taking another week or two. Slides take some time, even with only taking two passes at each image. The good news is that I can batch them up, four at a time, and walk away for five minutes or so. Nice, nice.

Tomorrow, I begin working on getting the great office swap started. There’s soooooo much to move between the two offices! And frankly, Beck’s handyman comes next week, so my old office has to be empty, meaning that there will be stuff strewn all about the place until he finishes toward the end of the week. I can’t wait to get this work finished, as it seems like it has been months — and it has, in one way or another — since the den and offices were firing in a normal fashion.

BTW, stay tuned for some cool news from photography-land…. Details soon I hope.

Weather

The Icebox Cometh

Here in the Midwest, conventional wisdom about the weather is that if you don’t like it, wait five minutes, and it’ll be different. Today was one of those days.

So Beck and I were out at lunch, watching a storm front move in. It was a record-setting 73. By the time we were finished, it was blustery, and 61. Now, about six hours later, it’s 14. Yup, the temps have dropped SIXTY degrees in just about six hours. And to add some flavor to the day, we’ve had snow and winds between 30 and 40 miles per hour.

Of course, I love it!

And now, we’re looking at six inches or more of snow on Friday. I can’t wait!

Weather

Dangerous Travel

I began my journey to Eggtoberfest (by way of The Mountain) tonight. Wow… what a night! I left St. Louis, and drove through storms all the way across I-64, and thought I had seen the worst the night had in store for me. Little did I know that I was driving into a very sever weather situation.

As I made the turn south at Mt. Vernon, I noticed that light show in the sky was intensifying, and by the time I got into Kentucky, things were in pretty bad shape. Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite bad enough when I got to Paducah, so I was well down the road when the big stuff hit.

I don’t know if there were tornadoes where I was, but I do know from the news that there were definitely tornadic events all around me. The rain started coming down like gangbusters, and eventually almost everyone on the interstate ground to stop, waiting for the worst to pass. I had crossed the severe storm line, and was ahead of the storm until I got to Clarksville, which is where I stopped to sleep.

An hour later, the squall line hit Clarksville, and I got to witness the storm from the safety of my hotel room. No white knuckles, no hail, and all the TV I could stand — much better conditions!

Weather

Hottest Day

I’m ready for winter. Today was 105° — the hottest day I can remember since moving to The Lou over twelve years ago.

While I’m not ready to directly blame today’s record temperature on global warming — there were hot temperatures long before this one — I do believe we humans are having a measurable overall impact on the Big Blue Marble, and one we’ll be paying for for a long, long time.

Now, if the weather will swing as significantly this winter, I’ll be a happy photographer! 🙂

Weather

Snowinsanity

For a week, the weather dudes and dudettes have been proclaiming snow in the forecast, with the magnitude being everything from small amounts, to a full-bore ice storm, to dogs-and-cats-living-together. Today was the day to check their report cards, and see whether Mother Nature would play along.

The rain began yesterday, and it rained and rained and rained, with the temperatures hovering teasingly just above the freezing point. As it ends up, the cold part of the storm was late, arriving right during rush hour this morning. Beck and I went in to work together, and it was pouring rain. Within an hour of getting to work, we had full blizzard white-out conditions. That’s just about the most dramatic switchover I’ve ever seen.

The snow continued to fall, and I made a command decision to head us home just after lunch. There’s a bridge between work and the house, and getting trapped on the wrong side of that due to road closures makes the 17-mile drive grow by at least a factor of three, and in this weather, it could really mean the difference between getting home, and spending the night in a hotel along with gazillions of other workers trapped on the wrong side of the river from their homes.

The drive wasn’t too horrible, but a great many folks had obviously either stayed home (the smartest move) or hadn’t yet made their escape from their frozen workplaces. No matter — we made it home safely, albeit slipping and sliding all along the way, and that was all I was shooting for.

So how much snow did we have? We it really depended on where you were. We have about 7″ on the surfaces where the snow didn’t blow quite so much. Not much farther south, there’s only a few inches, and NE of here, the snow is still coming down heavily. Tomorrow’s commute is still in question, but Smokey did well in the snow and ice, and made me once again affirm why I drive an SUV. The little-truck-that-could will probably get another chance to prove his mettle tomorrow during the re-frozen remains of today’s storm.

Could be fun! 🙂

Weather

Perfect Snow

Well, we didn’t get the six inches of fluffy white stuff last night, but we did awaken to about three inches of terrific snow. Beck and I built a snowman — the first time I’ve done that in years — and lobbed the occassional snowball at each other. Fun, fun, fun.

After spending a big part of yesterday chainsawing the last remnants of the felled tree limbs, it was nice to be outside with a somewhat less odious mission. Aside from a quick shovel of the sidewalk and driveway, this was a day to just enjoy being out in the snow.

By far, this was the most hospitable snow we’ve had in a long time — no wind, temps right at freezing, and a heavy packing snow to play in. Now that’s a fine winter’s morning!

Weather

We’re Baaaaack!

After thirty-four hours being “off the air”, the Deauxmayne has power again. Tonight was gonna be brutal — 12 degrees or so — and the house was already down to 50 degrees. In fact, we had stuff packed, a plan for the dogs, and were within twenty minutes or so of bugging out to our temporary quarters for the night.

It’s just amazing how much warmer the house feels with the lights on, the TV going, and the ‘Net purring right along!

There’s photos and tales to tell, but I’ll spend more time on those later. For now, I’ve got a date with a pizza, and some quality time with The Simpsons. 🙂