Rain Archives

February 21, 2013

Ready for Snow, Ice

By the time most of you read this, we’ll know if these trucks wasted a lot of time and salt Tuesday prepping the roads for what might, or might not, be a big deal.

A Southeast Missourian weather blog summarized the situation:

100% chance of… something

Posted Wednesday, February 20, 2013, at 5:21 PM

The forecast continues to deteriorate, with a “near 100 percent” chance of precipitation now forecast for tomorrow. But what kind of precip? That’s the question.

Earlier forecasts suggested that the temperature would rise above freezing during the afternoon, hitting 34°F or so at Cape Girardeau, and melting any snow/sleet/ice/whatever that accumulated during the morning. In that scenario, Winter Storm “Cupid” would be mostly a non-event.

Now the forecast has dropped a few degrees, projecting that the temperature will hover around 30° or 31° all afternoon. Surprise! That could produce a drastic change in the severity of the storm.

As usual, Southeast Missouri is straddling the dividing line between “no big deal” and “a huge mess.” The official forecast is leaning toward “a huge mess”, but it could go either way:

THURSDAY…A CHANCE OF SNOW AND SLEET POSSIBLY MIXED WITH FREEZING RAIN IN THE MORNING…THEN FREEZING RAIN IN THE AFTERNOON. SNOW AND SLEET ACCUMULATION UP TO 2 INCHES. ICE ACCUMULATION AROUND ONE QUARTER OF AN INCH. HIGHS IN THE LOWER 30S. EAST WINDS 10 TO 15 MPH. CHANCE OF PRECIPITATION NEAR 100 PERCENT.

When did this become normal?

Snow was a big deal when I was a kid. When did multiple big snows or sleet storms become the norm?

February 19, 2013

A Rainy Night in Cape Girardeau

Ever wonder why car ads always show wet roads, but it’s never raining? It’s because all the reflections are REALLY neat. This is southbound on Kingshighway south of Broadway. (You can click on the photos to make them larger.)

I had to make a run to UPS to send a thumb drive full of photos to the Athen (OH) Historical Society and Museum. When I stopped by there last month, I left off a bunch of photos I took when I worked in Athens back in the late ’60s and early 70s. Friend Jan and I had barely gotten out of town when curator Jessica Cyders pinged me to ask if I thought it would be possible to put together an exhibit on the Martin Luther King National Day of Mourning I shot in 1968 by February 27 to cap off a Black History Month conference. Since Jessica and Danielle Echols were doing to do most of the heavy lifting, I agreed.

I’m flying out to speak to the group at the end of the month, and I’m busy putting together a show catalog right now. It’s neat that someone thinks my old stuff is worth sharing.

Tuesday I’m supposed to speak to a historical preservation class at Southeast Missouri State University. I threw in a lot of new Cape-specific stuff this afternoon, so what I say is going to be as big a surprise to me as it will be to the class.

Stop light at Pacific and Independence

After I dropped the drive at UPS, I decided I’d drive around looking for rain art. Photographers always thought life was unfair. Reporters did weather stories by calling the weather bureau, digging out clips about the Last Big Storm and, if they could be bothered, looking out the windows. Photographers had to get their shoes muddy.

Old Traffic Bridge

Downtown was kinda blah, so I stopped by what remains of the old Traffic Bridge.

Since I retired, my new contract says that I don’t go hungry, get wet or lift heavy objects. These photos were all taken from inside my van with the heater running.

Haarig or Good Hope

The wind and rain were really whipping from the south when I paused on Good Hope looking west toward Sprigg. It was coming across the road in sheets.

Pacific looking south from SEMO

I figured I’d better scope out where I’m supposed to be presenting Tuesday, so I went up Pacific to the Carnahan Building. On the way back I tried to capture the rain coming up the street and down the hill. These are the times I envy the TV guys with their video. It’s tough to get across the concept of driving rain in a still.

Through the windshield

When an oncoming car lit up the water droplets on the windshield, the camera’s autofocus thought that’s what I wanted to shoot. It’s neat, and I’m glad it happened, but it wasn’t my target.

January 19, 2013

Ducking My Responsibilities

Ya’ll are a tough audience. If I skip a day, I’m sure to hear from Mother who wants to know why I’m “slacking off.”

Now, it’s Friend Shari that’s taking me to task, although a bit more diplomatically: “So, does the appearance of the short blogs mean you’re packing to head to Cape? When are you leaving?”

The answer is “Yes.” I’m trying to scan and print a bunch of photos from my Ohio years to show to the Athens County Historical Society and Museum in Athens, Ohio. The game plan is to leave West Palm Beach on January 20, stop in Athens for a couple of days, then head on over to Cape until the first week of March.

The duck? Your guess is as good as mine. It was on the same roll as the cute cat. There’s a good reason why nobody has seen it in almost half a century. You can click on it to make it larger.

August 11, 2012

Why Are They In Florida?

I got back into West Palm Beach around 7:30 p.m. I didn’t get much sleep last night. The huge mass of fish camp oysters and shrimp were rolling around in my stomach communing with each other or something. You’d think frying would kill ’em, but they were doing loop de loops and pole vaulting until about six in the morning.

Traffic moved along pretty steadily. There was a jackknifed overturned travel trailer in the median somewhere in S. Carolina, but it didn’t cause much of a delay.

It’s SUMMER in Florida

A hundred or so of my fellow road warriors decided to pull into the I-95 Florida Welcome Center at the same time I did. Geez, what are those folks doing here? This is SUMMER. I chugged my obligatory paper cup of orange juice, jettisoned a corresponding amount of liquid, then dodged the chaos in the parking lot to head south.

Wife Lila was at a meeting, so I decided to stop in Ft. Pierce for a sandwich. Just as soon as I got on the Big Road, the clouds decided to open up. Visibility was down to about 100 feet a few times, then it cleared up enough for a spectacular rainbow to pop out. When I backed into the driveway, it was raining so hard I could barely see across the street. This was a shock since I had only seen rain about twice in the six weeks I was in Missouri.