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Winter fireworks!
Let me tell all you MURCers about the weather in a place called Kansas City (KC). KC sits above the Canadian/Gulf of Mexico jet stream, so the weather tends to get very crazy at times. The past 2 days have taken the prize for craziness...and a little Jammrock fun 
Basically, a warm pocket of air has been sitting on top of a cold pocket of air. The warm pocket lets down rain which hits the frozen ground and VIOLA!!! Ice rain. I've seen some nasty ice storms in my day, but this one takes the cake. It's been ice raining now for 2 days!!! The entire area is covered in 1-4 inches (2-10 cm) of ICE!!! Ever stepped on grass and heard it crunch? Ever chizzled off an inch (2.5 cm) of ice off your car's windshield?
So now it's been ice raining so much that 2 interesting things have happened. 1) The ice has packed on so much on trees that massive branches are breaking off and falling. Weaker trees are simply falling over all together. So when walking in a forested area (like much of my area is), you suddenly hear pop, snap, crack, snap...BOOOOOOOM and yet another tree falls over. The boom is about as loud as one of those big thunderclap rockets. I heard 5 in one minute at most, and it's been going on for hours.
2) The water and ice has begun to seep into everything...you know, like power transformers on power poles. The ice basically creates paths for electricity to flow to other cables and so forth. So while driving around town you see beautiful flashes of orange and green, caused by 6+ foot (~2 m) archs of electricty. Needless to say there have been several power outages and all my expensive electronics (like the new stereo) are all unplugged. It's a little disturbing to see the picture of the TV start distorting while watching...
So if you find a nice spot by a forest (but not IN the forest) on this beautiful KC night, you can see a winter firework display. Hear the lovely hum before the electric arch light shows of orange, red and green (can be seen from miles away). Hear the sound of tree limbs crashing to the ground from 50 feet up, in a cascade of breaking ice (had half a 50 foot elm tree drop 100 feet behind me....yikes). It's quite the scene.
Tomorrow it's supposed to start snowing. Snow covered ice...my favorite! Yummy!
Jammrock
Basically, a warm pocket of air has been sitting on top of a cold pocket of air. The warm pocket lets down rain which hits the frozen ground and VIOLA!!! Ice rain. I've seen some nasty ice storms in my day, but this one takes the cake. It's been ice raining now for 2 days!!! The entire area is covered in 1-4 inches (2-10 cm) of ICE!!! Ever stepped on grass and heard it crunch? Ever chizzled off an inch (2.5 cm) of ice off your car's windshield?
So now it's been ice raining so much that 2 interesting things have happened. 1) The ice has packed on so much on trees that massive branches are breaking off and falling. Weaker trees are simply falling over all together. So when walking in a forested area (like much of my area is), you suddenly hear pop, snap, crack, snap...BOOOOOOOM and yet another tree falls over. The boom is about as loud as one of those big thunderclap rockets. I heard 5 in one minute at most, and it's been going on for hours.
2) The water and ice has begun to seep into everything...you know, like power transformers on power poles. The ice basically creates paths for electricity to flow to other cables and so forth. So while driving around town you see beautiful flashes of orange and green, caused by 6+ foot (~2 m) archs of electricty. Needless to say there have been several power outages and all my expensive electronics (like the new stereo) are all unplugged. It's a little disturbing to see the picture of the TV start distorting while watching...
So if you find a nice spot by a forest (but not IN the forest) on this beautiful KC night, you can see a winter firework display. Hear the lovely hum before the electric arch light shows of orange, red and green (can be seen from miles away). Hear the sound of tree limbs crashing to the ground from 50 feet up, in a cascade of breaking ice (had half a 50 foot elm tree drop 100 feet behind me....yikes). It's quite the scene.
Tomorrow it's supposed to start snowing. Snow covered ice...my favorite! Yummy!
Jammrock
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