White October

Wind and snow galore yesterday! Which weather station is the most reliable? NOAA and the National Weather Service give the best official-sounding info. Weatherbug is nice and local, although I hated the toolbar hog that I once had and deleted it. Not sure if they've improved it or not. Accuweather seems reliable. I like their hourly and 15-day forecasts, especially for travel planning. The Weather Channel feels cozy and familiar because it is like their cable TV channel.

Back in the RAGBRAI planning days, I poured over tornado archives for Iowa before the trip out to the mid-west. Tornados were the most terrifying weather events that might occur during the bicycling trip that never happened. Before going, I religiously monitored the storm spotters on SKYWARN who religiously monitored every little pressure system whizzing by. Every night seemed ominous, and the bulletin boards were full of potential twist and shout warnings. Historically, for RAGBRAI, the last week of July seems to work out OK for avoiding twisters. I made it a habit at each overnight town to look for the signs identifying the temporary tornado shelters (as though I would have enough time and presence of mind to skedaddle. Not!).

Magnificent Menace

The Cooper's Hawk was back this morning. It was perched high on the old willow, which turned out to be a spectacular vantage point to watch the squirrels and birds at the bird feeder. Just a few days ago, it swooped through the leaf cover, scattering and terrorizing all the feeder birds.

Will the Coop thrive or decline with global warming? Tom Knutson from NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory gave a "sobering and terrifying" account of global warming at last night's WCAS monthly program. He was particularly worried about increased summer temperatures on humans and wildlife. (I'm not moving to the southeast US anytime soon.)