At The End Of The Day...

The sun slips slowly below the western horizon. The sky dims from a rich cerulean, toward indigo and then black. Wispy clouds paint it yellow and orange, before fading to gray. The moon is poised in the east, waiting for its moment to rise.

 The cicadas start up their nightly chorus. A low hum that rises and falls, punctuated by the challenges of the frogs.  Their peeps and croaks starting slowly at one end of the of the ditch, rising to a near deafening cacophony as more join in the skirmish, before quietly fading in the other direction, the sound marching off to other ponds and mudholes in the approaching dark.  

  A single whippoorwill calls out his territory way out in the park.  No one answers him this time.  They're almost done for the season.   They start calling in February and continue through July, though once I heard one in August.

  No sign of the owl or coyotes in the park this evening… so far. Perhaps they, too, are done for the season. There is a dog backing in the distance.  No one answer him either.

  It is humid, though there has been no rain today.   You don't need rain any day for it to feel like a sauna.  Not that we haven't had our share this month.  The lawn is actually greening up, in stead of browning while waiting for the summer storms to start.  This year they have started early.  There is water to spare.  At least here.  

  In the morning the process will reverse itself.  The sky will brighten, the frogs and cicadas will slowly quiet and the whippoorwill will settle down for his daily nap.  Perhaps we'll get rain.  Come sunset, it will begin again, as twilight passes and night falls across the land.

  Such is a late July evening in Florida at the end of the day. 

Storm Watch...

Thunderheads after Hurricane Ike, 

September 15, 2008

  Tropical Storm Isaac.  He won't be so for long.  If the models are right, he'll leave his tour of the northern Cuban coastline, head out into the Gulf and put on a little "weight", in the form of higher winds.  

  By the time he reaches a level latitude with Tampa, he'll be a strong Category 1, heading north.  I am glad he will be offshore.  But it brings back memories of another storm we watched approach along a similar track.  

  Hurricane Charlie.  

  In 2004, we watched Hurricane Charlie approach the bay area.  He crossed Cuba as a category 1 storm and was predicted to run straight north into Tampa Bay.  While a Category 1 storm is nothing to take lightly, it was not too concerning for us.  In the day before he crossed into the Gulf, we made our preparations.  He was not predicted to get much stronger.  We made ice, put away the outside items and covered the windows in a hurricane film that was supposed to keep the windows from breaking completely out if something struck them.  

  We got up on the morning of Aug 13th confident we were ready.  Little did we know what mother nature had in store for us and Charlie that day.

  Charlie turned out to be an unpredictable storm.  What's more, he exhibited a behavior that scientists at the National Hurricane Center still struggle to explain.  Explosive intensification.  In 48 hours Charlie, a weak Category 1, became a monstrous Category 4 headed straight for Tampa.  We were anything but prepared for what was headed our way.  In the end it was only that same unpredictable nature of Charlie that save our skins when he took a turn to the right and made landfall well south of us.  He made landfall within the predicted zone of impact, the infamous cone of uncertainty.  He is the poster child for why you should not focus on the center line and prepare no matter where you are in the cone.   I would expand that to areas near the cone as well.  Models aren't perfect. 

  So now as we sit, watching Isaac work his way though the Caribbean, and across Cuba, my mind wanders back to Charlie.  In hindsight, we were woefully unprepared for what Charlie would have brought to our area.  Our paltry preparations would have not stood much of a chance again the winds Charlie brought ashore.  We got lucky.  

  All the models predict Isaac will continue on his path north.  We are barely out of the track's cone.  But that doesn't mean I'll let my guard down.  I won't relax until he's at least even with Tampa on his trip north.  And even then the story is not over.  Isaac is taking aim on Atlanta, and DragonCon, where we'll spend Labor Day weekend. 

 It seems that we are destined to be under Isaac's influence, not once but twice.    

Down...

I love clouds. There is something amazing about watching a thunderhead boil into the summer sky, knowing that rain is on the way. The contrast between the bright white and brilliant blue of the summer sky is beautiful, powerful and inspiring.

But every once and a while I get to see clouds in a different way.

Instead of the flat bottom of the point of view we all normally see, the clouds take on an entirely different character from above.

It's a landscape that changes in moments as you zoom by, with mountains ranges as transient and ephemeral as their earthly cousins are solid.

You can find yourself in the midst of a forest of cumulus towers punching holes through higher, thinner clouds,

... or looking down on rolling hills set among flat planes with only clear sky above, while you wonder that those clouds you thought were so high up now seem so low, their shadows playing gracefully across the surface, creating patterns and shapes as fascinating as the clouds themselves.

I'll always love flying amongst the clouds. They can look so solid...

...yet you could pass right through them.

So I'll keep my eyes looking skyward when I'm on the ground, looking for the play of nature in all her glory.

But when I'm flying, I'll be looking down instead of up. Because those are the times when I can see the clouds from an entirely different perspective. One that's as unique and ever changing as the days themselves.