Clearing Storm - A Timelapse

Thought I'd post a rough version of a timelapse film I did over the weekend. It shows the storm we had clearing out of the area, turning the weather from very wet with low clouds to showery, blustery and clearing. I thought it would be interesting to see the clouds and fog in the valley behind our house "boiling" away as that weather front passes through the area and clearing sets in behind it, and I think I was right. It's worth watching several times to see the different areas - sky, valley, distant hills, etc. - all changing over what was roughly an hour or so.

For those interested, this was done by setting up my DSLR to take one frame every three seconds, importing all the pictures to my desktop PC running Adobe Lightroom, and then outputting (also from Lightroom) at 24 fps, 720p, into mp4 format.

I'll add some titles and a soundtrack, plus some zooms as well, to it once I find a spare cycle or two. Meanwhile ... enjoy the rough-cut!

(Stop press ... for some reason the original video wouldn't post so here's one I did earlier. Similar situation so you wil get the idea! I think the more recent one might have been a bit too long for Blogger.)

From Tokyo With Love

While we were away last week I saw on the news that Tokyo was hit by a typhoon. The trains were knocked out, there were severe floods, and all this was accompanied by very high winds. I was glad, therefore, to have missed suffering through that storm by being in Japan one week later rather than earlier. Little did I know that this would be a mess I'd miss twice.

Somehow, the storm made its way across the Pacific largely intact, hitting the Bay Area coastline Tuesday of this week resulting in, you guessed it, sever flooding and strong winds. (Doubtless it would have stopped the trains too except the USA barely has any of those things worthy of the name any more. It did stop the cars though when they closed Highway 17)

This two day storm dumped some 10 inches of rain where we live and, thanks largely to falling trees, took power out for over a day. Yup, missed the whole shooting match once again by being in Tokyo, much to the chagrin of those left back at home to clean up the mess. Still, at least we had a decent period of notice and I was able to clean up the roof, gutters and gulleys before leaving, which seems to have helped us get through it reasonably intact.

Looks like this will be quite a wet winter. After all, it's only just started and we've had 25% of what we got in the entire season last year hit the ground already ....

Snow? Rain? Who Knows?

But whatever comes our way tomorrow through Saturday, it's imminent approach is certainly producing some spectacular sunsets. The above shot doesn't begin to do justice to the view tonight. I'll do some more work on these to see if I can bring things out a little better but underlying the rim-lit cloud formations the fog in the intervening valley was turning pink along with the changing light from the setting sun.

The prettier the sky, the wetter the storm? Dunno, but depending on where the storm ends up sitting off the coast we could be in for something over four inches before Saturday gives up the ghost. (Anyone know why this blog is turning into a weather forecast review? Beats me, and I write it.)

We're Back!

Online, that is. The storms started here Thursday evening and built to hurricane force at times by Friday. No surprises: we lost power. Lights went out at 9 am on Friday and we just now got the electricity restored at 5 pm on Monday. Our wind gauge gave up but two nearby locations - Boulder Creek and Los Gatos - recorded gusts of 56 mph and 89 mph respectively.

Rain? Got plenty of that. When all was said and done, we collected 10.2 inches over the three days/three storms that blew through.

Damage? We had a small roof leak that I'll have to investigate at the weekend and after a quick look around there is a lot of tree debris lying around the place. Still, we did better than one of our neighbours. Their daughter's SUV was parked under a redwood and quite literally was speared by a tree branch that came straight down from near the top of what's a 70 foot tree. The limb went clear though the windscreen, demolished the dashboard and dented the roof. It's likely a write off at this stage.

Other travails? There's a mudslide on a road leading to our house that brought it down to one lane but really we look to have got off lightly considering the strength of the winds.

Anyway, we are just grateful to now have power back, especially as they are threatening another storm here tomorrow (though thankfully nothing to compare with what we just had).

2008 is starting off with a bang, at least weather-wise!

One Down, Two To Go

One storm - the first and smallest of the three forecasted - has now passed. The NOAA Los Gatos meteorological site showed a wind gust of 60 mph; own own weather set up (nailed to the chimney) said that we saw a much more modest 13 mph! To be fair, our anemometer is not that accurate and only samples every few seconds, plus we are lower down and a bit more sheltered when the winds are blowing primarily from the south. Rain so far at our house has totalled 0.71 inches.

The main blow-job ... if that's the right phraseology ... is set to start at 4 am tomorrow morning. The news just promised us 100 mph gusts in higher elevations, but again hopefully we'll experience wind speeds somewhat lower than those being predicted for the more exposed locations.

More news tomorrow, hopefully. Though if history is any guide, we'll lose power somewhere between 4 and 6 am, which will make posting the results somewhat difficult to saw the least. Not to mention that this will mean getting dressed in the dark, having very low water pressure and a garage door that won't any longer open at the press of a button. Think I'll work from home in that case. I mean, at least I can do e-mail via my PDA!

2008 Starts With A Roar

Sunset Before The Storm

Despite what everyone might think, California's winter weather can get quite nasty. Although where we live snow is rare (though not unheard of) wind and rain can be served up in abundance. Last year was relatively quiet; 2008 looks like it may break some records.

Here's a look at what's being forecasted for the end of the week. This is an extract from a special bulletin issued by the National Weather Service describing the second of a series of three storms slated to hit us between Thursday and Sunday next (their caps, not mine):

A SECOND AND VERY POWERFUL STORM SYSTEM IS EXPECTED TO BRING HEAVY RAIN AND STRONG GUSTY WINDS TO MUCH OF NORTHERN AND CENTRAL CALIFORNIA FRIDAY INTO FRIDAY NIGHT. DAMAGING WINDS GUSTING TO AS HIGH AS 60 MPH ARE POSSIBLE...ESPECIALLY ALONG THE COAST AND IN THE MOUNTAINS. DUE TO THE STRONG SOUTH TO SOUTHWEST LOW LEVEL FLOW WITH THIS SECOND SYSTEM...THERE WILL LIKELY BE SIGNIFICANT OROGRAPHIC ENHANCEMENT OF RAINFALL ACROSS SOUTH AND SOUTHWEST FACING MOUNTAIN AND FOOTHILL LOCATIONS. THE POTENTIAL FOR VERY HIGH RAINFALL RATES IN THE MOUNTAINS AND HILLS WILL BRING THE POSSIBILITY OF FLOODING OR FLASH FLOODING.

Yes, we face directly southwest and yes, we live in the coastal mountain ranges. This could get ugly ...