Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Where's the Rain?/Polls/Important Museum Info./White Deer

HURRICANES AND WEATHER
Tropics are quiet in the Atlantic Basin and although there is an area of disturbed weather in the eastern Pacific, it does not pose any immediate threat to land.

On Tuesday, there were 7 documented tornadoes. Unfortunately, most of them were short-lived and/or small. So I don't know if the VORTEX2 team was able to collect any good data. It doesn't look very promising for the rest of the week. The study wraps up on the 13th.

Severe storms are possible from Texas and Colorado all the way to the eastern seaboard. There will also be a few storms over the Rockies and the southeast (including Florida). Very hot and sticky across the south and southeast. Pleasantly cool over the northwestern half of the country (draw a diagonal line from southeast to northeast).

Houston, it is a sauna out there. Thank goodness for air conditioning. You'll need to keep watering for at least a week. There just aren't any big rain events on the horizon.

SPANISH WORD OF THE DAY
Let's do deer or ciervo, pronounced see-AIR-voh. Find out about some rare pure white ciervo in the AND MORE section.

Unfortunately, in the United States, it is often rare to find children who are multi-lingual. And yet, research study after research study shows that children benefit tremendously from being able to speak more than one language. Give them the love of language by ordering our award winning Let's Learn Frank & Paco, Volume 1. It makes a great gift for youngsters. Order today from www.frankandpaco.com/. You can also order from http://www.venturaes.com/, http://www.dololanguages.com/, http://www.carlexonline.com,www.thecuriousmindstore.com/, http://www.amazon.com/,http://www.bestbuy.com/, and http://www.barnesandnoble.com/. For our English as a Second Language (ESL) version, got to http://www.frankypaco.com/.

AND MORE
Now that we are in Hurricane Season, I am going to keep the tropical satellite imagery and info. up a little higher. You can see that on the right. I will continue to maintain a poll and have it fairly close to the top. When there is important weather, I will move the appropriate graphics to the top. Next, is the section of photos. And then if you go to the bottom, you'll find an automated Spanish Word of the Day, a followers list (please sign up), a place to subscribe so you can get my updates automatically every time I blog--this is important because in urgent weather situations I may update frequently and I won't be able to email you each time--then my favorite blogs and links. Please feel free to pass on this blog to your friends and family. According to Google Analytics, there are people all over the world checking out this blog.

Speaking of hurricane season, I was checking out the lists of names and there are 12 naming entities around the world. Also interesting is that in the Atlantic Basin (Atlantic, Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico) 68 storm names have been retired since the modern naming convention began. The names are reused every 6 years (unless they are retired). By the way, men's names were added starting in 1973 because the men wanted to be included too. Tee hee! This year's first 3 names (Atlantic Basin) will be Ana, Bill and Claudette. I flew through the last storm named Claudette on a Hurricane Hunter WC-130. That was 6 years ago. To learn more about names, check out this link:

http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/B7.html

If you would like to share your love of weather with other Houston area weather buffs, I encourage you to join the Houston Chapter of the AMS. You do not have to be a meteorologist to join. Here is the web site:

http://www.amshouston.net/

And speaking of weather fans, there will be a fun even at the The John C. Freeman Weather Museum on Fri. June 26th and Sat. June 27th--The Weather Pioneers Event. I and other local meteorologists will be on hand on Friday, June 26th at about 10 am to talk about weather pioneers who inspired us. The museum will be FREE and open from 10 am to 4 pm on Saturday, the 27th. To learn more:

http://www.wxresearch.com/wxpioneers.pdf

Don't forget the weather museum has wonderful camps for your youngsters!!!

For those living in the Sugar Land area, some bad news...the Houston Children's Museum discovery center in Sugar Land will not be offered this summer. Bummer!!! The good news is that they are planning to come back again (hopefully next summer). And the newly remodeled Houston's Children's Museum (on Binz street in the Houston museum district) is something you can do for a whole day.

With the weather being so hot and humid again, I thought this video was very refreshing and fascinating. Thanks so much Tom Ryan for sending me the link. It's about rare white deer.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/video/flv/generic.html?s=inwi10s22a3q81f

Our poll about feelings about the Air France crash is closed. More than one answer was allowed. 83% said they still feel safe flying. 33% said they are okay with flying as long as there are no storms along the way. 0% said they did not want to fly overseas and 0% said they are not wanting to fly as much anymore. Thanks to all who participated.

Our new poll is about phone technology. I was inspired to do this one as Gordy and I are looking at getting rid of some of our plethora of communication/media expenses. More than one answer will be allowed. Enjoy!

Please keep my stepdad Gerry in your prayers. Today he begins a 2 month proton radiation treatment for prostate cancer. The good news is that he is doing it at MD Andersen, one of 2 locations in the world which has the proton radiation machine.

Have a wonderful Wednesday!
Cecilia Sinclair
Wonder Weather Woman