Sunday, April 18, 2010

18 April, 2010

Today's Top Weather Stories
On Weather & Climate Through the Eyes of Mark Vogan

BREAKING NEWS...... KLM FLY BOEING 747'S TO 41,000FT WITHOUT DAMAGE, OTHER TEST FLIGHTS OCCURED ACROSS THE SOUTH OF ENGLAND THIS MORNING AS WELL AS OTHER AREAS WITHOUT ISSUES.... see more HERE 
The Arrogance of Man's obsession with power and a dissolutional sense of control, Eyjafjallajokull has brought us all down to earth showing us that we'll ALWAYS be at the full mercy of mother nature
- By Mark Vogan -

picture courtesy of the Sunday Telegraph
What is a "modest eruption" on one of Iceland's some 20 active volcanoes and both an eruption and volcano that is far from the most dangerous or powerful, this sobering reminder is startling considering the chaos and complete crippling of the airline infrastructure we are seeing with a simple eruption and release of ash to only a mere 20,000ft above the ground and a wind direction which is blowing over the volcanoe, picking up the upward moving cloud and simply pushing it into a busy, congested airspace, ultimately resulting in a complete shutdown of the world's most "needed" form of modern transportation in the sorest of regions.

This should be a remember to us all that we'll never, ever have control of our world and we are mere visitors to this world and always will be. As technology has advanced over the past 20 to 40 years, man has been driven by technological advancements sending all of us humans into a false sense of power, control and we see so many things happening now in which it shows how man "thinks" it can start to take charge, whether it be the cloning of sheep or attempting to alter path and intensity of hurricanes. Our attempt at redesigning nature or altering it is playing with fire and the likely result will be more harm than good.

My opinion is this. We must use the technology we continue to discover to better prepare and perhaps try to predict future events better in order to save lives and keep mankind safer, by learning from the past we can better prepare for the future. That really is about all we can do as mother nature is constantly reminding us that it holds the key and we must not DEPEND too much on technology.

The lack of ability for flight to resume across thousands upon thousands of square miles of one of the busiest airspaces on earth is showing signs of frustration and desperation as money and patience continues to run out. I can completely understand peoples worries and frustrations as they have been stranded for perhaps a fourth day now and there is still no signs of change for the better. My concern would be, just when will things return to normal or even head in that direction? What if the larger, more destructive Katla blows like it has in the past after Eyjafjallajokull. It might not only be global warming that goes out the window but the dependability and false sense of security we have gotten use to with air travel may not be so dependable afterall if an event like this becomes a recurrent problem. The safest, fastest and best way to travel these days has all been thrown onto a "shaky nail" for reliability. Will we or won't we be able to fly today??

Main News for Today.....

MUST READ
This is a great read from founder and Meteorologist of Excelsior based WeatherNation, Paul Douglas on his thoughts of the Icelandic volcano with some fantastic photos on his blog post today also...

Climate implications of the Icelandic volcano?
Paul Douglas Weather Column Here



European airlines test the ash cloud
Los Angeles Times Here

FLIGHTTRADER24.COM
Interesting Site in which you can track live aircraft movement or the lack of across vast sections of the European landmass and UK.... Check it out here!



Today's Weather across America














Thunderstorms Wind Down in Texas, Ramp Up in Florida
AccuWeather Here

Downpours Heighten Flood Threat from Oklahoma City to Houston
AccuWeather Here

Weather Could Postpone Discovery Landing
AccuWeather Here

Rain, Snow and Cold Headed for West
AccuWeather Here

Weather for the Boston Marathon Monday
AccuWeather Here

Today's Image courtesy of AccuWeather.com


Weather Talk
By Mark Vogan

Unfortunately our weather has returned to a cooler more unsettled regime after several days of nice, mild weather in which my house thermometer was able to reach the 60s again (60 degrees)... Today my high topped out at a mere 47 degrees just two days after topping 60....

What's Reaching Today's Blog's?
None at present

Today's US Extremes
courtesy of AccuWeather.com

High 88 degrees at Palm Springs, CA
Low 10 degrees at Bodie State Park, CA

Today's Extremes here at my house

High 47 degrees
Low 43 degrees


Thanks for reading.
-Mark

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