The Eagles Have Landed

Clear Brook Road is heavily used by dog walkers on the weekend, but it is the only easy access to view the eagle nest along the west side of the Nepaug Reservoir.

We used snowshoes today, and walked the 3/4 mile out to a good viewing spot.

Maximum zoom for a blurry photo

Two eagles are near the nest, but apparently there are no eggs yet.

Updated School Forecast for Central Connecticut - February 10 5:00 PM

It still looks like there is a very slight chance of a late opening in some places on Monday, although don't count on it.  [And there was none.]

Districts with good road crews and determined administrators will be having a full day of classes.  

The closer you are to the coast, the better your chance of a late opening.

Tuesday and Wednesday are nonevents for weather.

Thursday:  The latest computer projections are showing that the storm just might move closer to us.  It is still early, but there is now a 50% 90% chance of no school in our area on Thursday, with a mix of snow and ice.  More later this week.

Have fun.  I'm off to do some more skiing while the snow lasts.

Sunny Snow

It is so rarely that Burlington gets more than a few inches of icy snow that I can't stand to waste a minute that I could be out in the sunshine playing in the snow.

Yesterday we took out the skis.

Today it is snowshoes.

A friend came with me.

Since snowshoes do a wonderful job of breaking trail for skis, tomorrow it will be more skiing.

The Week Ahead

Not this week.

No snow days.  Sorry.  Or congratulations, if you have plans for the end of June.

However, there is a chance of a late opening on Monday and again on Thursday and Friday as small amounts of snow will fall overnight.

I will update my predictions for the end of the week, but for now, there will be school on Monday.  Watch out for only a slight chance of a late opening.

Pyroclastic Tornadoes - Ouch!

Pyroclastic flows are the worst a volcano can do other than simply blowing up.  Debris at hundreds of degrees C go roaring down the side of the mountain at hundreds of miles an hour, carbonizing anyone in its path.

The Indonesian volcano Sinabung released a flow that killed 15 people and also spawned tornadoes.  

"The pyroclastic flow deposits red-hot material on the slope of the volcano. After a few minutes, air heated by the deposit establishes a convective regime and due to the speed of the rising air a series of small tornados (also spelled tornadoes) are formed. During daylight it is difficult to imagine how hot the deposit is. To see a pyroclastic flow deposit glowing at night from same location as present video one can view:"

 www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDJ4hmw9i6I

 

Europe's oldest footprints uncovered on English coast

Now this is just cool.

Researchers at The Queen Mary University in London just happened to be in the right spot at the right time.  While surveying an area known for evidence of ancient humans, they found footprints.

Waves had uncovered what are not considered to be the 3rd oldest set of footprints ever found, and the oldest in Europe - 800,000 years old.  Only those at Laetoli in Tanzania at about 3.5 million years and at Ileret and Koobi Fora in Kenya at about 1.5 million years are older.

Had the researchers not found them just then, the waves would have washed them away.

The official press release from Queen Mary University is here.

Additional information from Science Daily is here.

Wobbly

The extreme cold in North America this winter (as opposed to the warm weather in Europe and the deadly heat in Australia) has been caused by a "wobble" in the polar vortex.  Why the wobble?

Start with the fact that historically the atmosphere is not as tall over the north pole as it is over the equator.  

Simple:  cold things contract, warm things expand.   

As the atmosphere warms up due to the combustion of fossil fuels, it expands.  Among other things, it is reaching up to those cell phone and GPS satellites and the friction will slow them down until they fall out of the sky.

The atmosphere is expanding everywhere, but mostly over the poles.  White snow reflects sun warmth.  When the snow melts the dark rock absorb sun warmth.  So the poles are heating up faster.  That means that the difference in atmospheric height between equator and pole is decreasing.

The lessened difference in atmospheric height is changing the northern jet stream - slowing it down and moving it north.

Two effects:  the wobble in the jet stream that causes polar air to move south in some places while warmer air moves north in others, and a slowing down of weather patterns, so that the hot / cold / wet / dry weather tends to stick around longer and cause extreme flooding or drought or heat or cold.