Weather!

[Beyond]

Irene was a real wimp I've seen thunder showers with more oomph. However, thunder showers don't hang around for days. I'm glad it wasn't a hurricane when it got to Connecticut!!!!

[owlice]

Irene might have been a wimp where you are, but it was a devastating storm in many areas. The storm surge and flooding was terrible. I know people who didn't get power until two or three days ago, and some people were, and maybe still are, completely cut off because of severe damage to roads around them.

[Beyond]

I think the center of what little 'eye' was left to the storm, must have gone right over where i am. There was very little rain,and not many big wind gusts. It was more like a very windy day. If it wasn't for the power being out for 33 hours, i could have wondered what all the fuss was about. So i did have it better than a lot of people, a few of which still may not have power yet.

[owlice]

From yesterday's commute. The brown beyond the stone wall to the right is the creek; frankly, I was surprised to find the road still open, that it hadn't flooded.

[attachment=0]Morning commute.JPG[/attachment]

[neufer]

I think the center of what little 'eye' was left to the storm, must have gone right over where i am. There was very little rain,and not many big wind gusts. It was more like a very windy day. If it wasn't for the power being out for 33 hours, i could have wondered what all the fuss was about. So i did have it better than a lot of people, a few of which still may not have power yet.

That pretty much narrows the location of Beyonder-Land to somewhere between Springfield & Shelbyville.

[Beyond]

you gotta go a teensy bit further than Sprinfield & Shelbyville to get to Beyonder Land, even though i don't know where Shelbyville is.

[neufer]

---

<<One week after Hurricane Irene battered the East Coast of the United States with damaging winds and flooding rain, a less-touted, plodding storm system soaked the eastern half of the country with more rain than its predecessor, and over a wider area. Tropical Storm Lee had a short official life as a named storm, but its effects lasted nearly a week.

Officially declared a tropical storm late on September 2, Lee reached its peak sustained winds of 57 miles per hour—well below hurricane force—on September 3 before making landfall on the Gulf Coast. By September 5, the storm was no longer a tropical depression, yet it was only beginning its march from Louisiana to soggy New England and the Mid-Atlantic.

The satellite image above shows the remnants of Lee and several other weather systems mashed together in the eastern U.S. at 10:02 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time on September 7, 2011. Hurricane Katia whirls well out in the Atlantic Ocean, but plays a key role in stalling the storms over land.

As Lee moved north and east, it merged with a stalled frontal system. Meanwhile, Hurricane Katia was pushing north and west over the Atlantic, and blocking Lee from quickly moving east and offshore. The two storms aligned to pull copious amounts of moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic. A meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Binghamton, New York, summed it up this way on September 7:

• {There is a} bad combo of ingredients in place to continue very heavy rainfall. A closed upper low continues to spin over the Ohio Valley, with a deep southerly fetch along the eastern seaboard, only adding to the moisture in place from the remains of Tropical Storm Lee. Water vapor loops show tropical moisture from distant Hurricane Katia getting steered all the way into the rain area.

Weekly rainfall totals topped 10 inches in cities and towns across eight states; another dozen states saw 6 to 10 inches. Jackson, Mississippi, received 11.68 inches of rain in just 24 hours. Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, recorded 15.37 inches for the week—more than three months worth of rain. Locations across Vermont, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Connecticut absorbed 6 to 10 inches of rain just days after receiving as much from Hurricane Irene.>>

[owlice]

Rain sometimes fell at the rate of four inches an hour! And it's still wet out there (though the sun is out -- yay!) I got home from a bike ride covered in grit kicked up from the trail; parts of the trail were still water-covered, and other parts dangerously muddy. I returned home mud-splattered from head to toe. At least I didn't run into any trees!

[Beyond]

And NO trees gave you a hug, either!

[owlice]

Yay! for that!!

[Beyond]

If a tree ever does give you a hug, just tell it that it's barking up the wrong human.

[Ann]

This tree is giving the woman (owlice?) a bit of a hug back! I like it!

Click to view full size image

I like this picture, too. Could it be owlice out on her new bike, stopping a moment to give a tree a hug?





Thanks for existing, trees! Oh, how I would miss you if you were gone! Insert five "bawling smilies" here, please!




Ann

[orin stepanek]

Click to view full size image

I like this picture, too. Could it be owlice out on her new bike, stopping a moment to give a tree a hug?





Thanks for existing, trees! Oh, how I would miss you if you were gone! Insert five "bawling smilies" here, please!




Ann

Ann: how do you know if the biker is a she?

[Ann]

Ann: how do you know if the biker is a she?

I don't, but how do you know she isn't?

Ann

[Beyond]

My guess is...... That's one B--I--G tree

[orin stepanek]

Ann: how do you know if the biker is a she?

I don't, but how do you know she isn't?

Ann

Touche

My guess is...... That's one B--I--G tree

Yo!

[Ann]

We had lovely weather yesterday. It was perhaps the last day of summer this year. Around noon and for one and a half hours we had heavy showers and thunder, but then the clouds disappeared and the temperature climbed so that it was lovely to be outside dressed in a T-shirt and a skirt. That's what I call summer in Sweden!

I love to cycle when the weather is nice, so I cycled to "Tirups Örtagård", "The Herbs Garden of Tirup", some ten miles from where I live in Malmö. Tirups Örtagård is very lovely:

Tirups Örtagård has a delightful outdoor café, and I had some delicious creamy black salsify soup with cucumber and fresh mint, served with lovely home-made bread, and then I had a generous slice of Devil's Food Cake afterwards.

Click to view full size image

Then I cycled back home through a landscape that took me past some historical sights, such as Burlöv's old church from the 12th century.

I also passed the narrow road that the medieval pilgrims used to walk on their way to the holy church of Saint Olof.





Saint Olof himself, with his holy axe. The pilgrims took the axe out of the saint's hand and rubbed it gently over the parts of their bodies that hurt, and then they were cured.




After the pilgrims had come to the church of Saint Olof and rubbed the saint's axe over their aching body parts, they went to the saint's holy wellspring to sacrifice. They threw meat, butter, wine and what not in the small well, and then they washed themselves with the water and drank of it. Yeeach.

Click to view full size image

All in all, it was lovely to cycle about in the green open landscape of Skåne during what was perhaps the last day of summer this year.









Ann

[starstruck]

That was nice . . . enjoyed reading and viewing your 'last day of summer' post, it really carried me along for the ride. The weekend weather was very pleasant here too (the Yorkshire Dales, in the UK), but today it has been really windy . . strong enough to bring trees down. Unfrotunately I have lost a lovely old Hawthorn tree that had so much gnarled character. The nest box I had placed in it provided a home to a twice-successful brood of beautiful Pied Flycatchers earlier in the year - they were lovely to watch and hear. Now the old tree is just a sad pile of twisted, broken wood on the ground.

The wind is still blowing strong now, as I type this, just after dark on monday evening, but the sky has cleared and there is a fantastic full moon rising in the south-east . . it's a bright spotlight hanging over the valley.

[Ann]

starstruck wrote:

That was nice . . . enjoyed reading and viewing your 'last day of summer' post, it really carried me along for the ride.

Thanks!

The weekend weather was very pleasant here too (the Yorkshire Dales, in the UK)

The Yorkshire Dales? Is that here?

I love England, but I must confess that I almost always go to London when I go to the UK. Once, and only once, I and some friends spent two weeks travelling around in the UK is a minibus. It was lovely, but we didn't go to Yorkshire.

Click to view full size image

But once, when I was twenty years old or so, I visited York with some friends. It was a wonderful city, absolutely reeking of (partly Viking) history!

but today it has been really windy . .

Here, too. They say it's Hurricane Katia paying us a visit.

strong enough to bring trees down. Unfrotunately I have lost a lovely old Hawthorn tree that had so much gnarled character. The nest box I had placed in it provided a home to a twice-successful brood of beautiful Pied Flycatchers earlier in the year - they were lovely to watch and hear. Now the old tree is just a sad pile of twisted, broken wood on the ground.

I'm so sorry to hear that! I love trees. I love all trees really, but most of all I love old trees that are full of character. A tree like the hawthorn tree in the picture here lends character to an entire landscape.




I'm really sorry you lost it!




Ann

[starstruck]

Hey Ann, yes, I am in North Yorkshire. The county town is York, where you visited that time and, you're right, there is a good deal of Scandinavian history and influence around these parts; it seems your ancestors were always popping over to say 'hello'! It is a big county though. The 'Dales' are narrow valleys that run down from the Pennine hills, further over to the west of the county. The Dales landscape is quite different to that around York, which is situated on a wide, low-lying level flood plain. Your picture of the hawthorn tree looks very typical to me, it could have been taken almost anywhere around here. We are pretty far from the 'bright lights', there's really hardly any light pollution on a clear night.

I'm afraid my knowledge of Skåne is limited to what I have seen on the Wallander tv series, which probably gives me about as much of an accurate impression as one would have if they thought all of Britain was like London!

[Ann]

starstruck wrote:

The 'Dales' are narrow valleys that run down from the Pennine hills, further over to the west of the county.

I guessed as much. Do you know what "valley" is in Swedish (and presumably in Danish and Norwegian)? It's "dal"! (Pronounced "daahl".) Perhaps your "dales" are, in their own way, a Viking description of your landscape!

I looked for images fom the Yorkshilre Dales and found some lovely-looking scenery:

Lovely...

Beautiful!









You live in a beautiful part of the world, starstruck!


Ann

[starstruck]

Thanks Ann. I am sure there are numerous examples of place names and words in general English usage that have their origins in Old Norse, particularly here in Northern Britain. Seems it was a small world, even back in those days! I have tried to attach a photo of the dale where I live with this message, but for some reason I cannot. Anyway, it looks very much like the pictures you found; small meadows with dry stone wall boundaries, stone field barns or 'laithes', wooded ghylls and rolling heather-clad hills. Lots of rainy weather, but that helps keep the landscape green and lush!

[neufer]

HELLO!

Hey Ann, yes, I am in North Yorkshire. The county town is York, where you visited that time and, you're right, there is a good deal of Scandinavian history and influence around these parts; it seems your ancestors were always popping over to say 'hello'!

The Latin name for York in Roman times was Eboracum or Eburacum,
perhaps reflecting a source of (walrus?) ivory in times past (?). It is well
demonstrated how new peoples keep old place names when they invade
a country, but they change the pronounciation according to their own
language rules. I think I can envision a smooth transition from:

. Eboracum to Eoracum to Eorac
. to Yorick to Yorvic to York.

I don't have any credentials at all, but the author of a book I have
copied, called 'Place Names in Roman Britain' probably has some.
According to him, the Romans took the name from British Eburacon,
which could mean 'place abundant in yew trees' or 'property of Eburos',
though the latter would be more probable in Gaul.

He doesn't go on to describe the later development of the name.

The Anglo-Saxon name was Eoforwic, changed by the
Scandinavians to Jorvik (both vowels long: Jórvík), which
then mutated to Jork/York in the post-Viking period.

The OE and ON names both suggest unetymological
interpretations of the earlier Roman and British names
(OE eofor = boar, ON jór = stallion).

Cheers, Carl
--
Carl Edlund Anderson
Dept. of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, & Celtic
St. John's College, University of Cambridge

[owlice]

It's 43°F out, quite chilly ("unseasonably cool") for this time of year. I was thinking of taking a sunrise bike ride today, but I'm not ready to pull out the biking tights yet!

[neufer]

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

View from 60th St. looking north to 75th St.

A waterspout took the roof off of
our 75th St. Ocean City, Md., condo.

http://www.delmarvanow.com/article/2011 ... /109160319

We are waiting to find out what the situation is.