Summer Storm (2015)

 

Walking home in the rain, on a Sunday afternoon.

Fertile Crescent

This past weekend at the grocery store, I tried (as usual) to find local fruits and berries, especially since California is all dried up, which is also typical and annually occurring. Thirsty berries from a huge conglomerate in Watsonville, California that also bought land in Mexico for an artificially induced, year-round growing season? WHY?! 

Because the system is crooked, that's why. And here I was, looking for them new strawberries designed by Rutgers University (http://news.rutgers.edu/news/better-tasting-strawberry-developed-rutgers-makes-its-debut/20150510#.VYgkFvAYFV4), which will be commercially available next year. (Note: Jersey, y'all can grab them at a nearby farm stand NOW, you lucky "sumthin'-or-othas"). Yeah, that accent's "phresh". Keep it! It'll keep 'em on point about who you are.

Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes: the futility of growing in a semi-arid climate and calling it "climate change", which is up there with spending billions of dollars to tunnel underneath Lake Mead, so them crazy-asses in Vegas (never the most legit town, but when are desert outposts square with the rest of society, right?) can drain it like a bathtub: http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/water-environment/they-re-getting-ready-pull-the-plug-the-bottom-lake-mead-photos. 

It's so fucked up, I don't know how to address the basics behind such rottenly bad and obviously corrupt thinking, but here it goes:

1) Growing is better near available and replenishable fresh water: http://www.tenshadesofgreen.org/shade2.html

2) Deserts do not grow as well as fertile river valleys, because....

3) ....life grows in valleys. See also: "The Seat of All Mankind" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertile_Crescent) and Chapter One of The Holy Bible (http://biblehub.com/genesis/2-14.htm).

I really can't make it more simple than that, so if you don't get it, go take yet another class "Special Ed". No! I'm done with your tired ass. NOW, GO!

Christ on a....I will NOT tolerate another Great Depression or Dust Bowl from your dumb ass. I really can't this century. I CAN'T.

Your homework is posted here down below, and yes, you need to click on the link to see the information provided, so DO SOMETHING:

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/EI168.1 and http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19955191, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainmaking, 
and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl.

I love you, and I want you to GROW: bit.ly/1N8G6ds

Cloud Blanket

Well-defined, easily discernible foreground, middle ground, background.

Rows of clouds full of condensation, tendrils of rain.

Sometimes the skies thicken with a bank of clouds so thick, you can feel the air pressing down on you. A week or so ago just such a phenomenon occurred, and it was spectacular: row upon row, and layer upon layer of differently colored clouds, creating the perfect photographic composition of an easily seen, well-defined foreground, middle ground, and background. It's the kind of set up you have to wait for, and then snap it when you see it. You just can't force Mother Nature. She rolls in on her own time, homies!

Banks upon banks of thick clouds.

A Thunderstorm Rolls In

Rain Clouds

 A slow, sleepy, summertime afternoon in the lower Hudson Valley.

Summertime Blues

Hazy, hot, and humid, with a chance of afternoon thunderstorms.

The Vortex

Whoa! Check out those clouds, dude! Totally "Stairway to Heaven".

Lately, what with the common regularity of Doomsday predictions now fully realized and acted out daily on t.v. and in movies, we've become highly sensitized to news weather deliberately, in order to boost ratings through hooking viewers on the active creation of fear, which propels the vulnerable amongst us to tune in angst, seeking solace from those Doctors of Weather (called "Meteorologists") in some ritualistic pattern of fear followed by soothing comfort, the balm to our collective anxieties. Maybe news forecasters can wear big, peaked hats painted with stars, like some hammy old actor playing Nostradamus to the hilt, so we get the point more readily!

It's true, we did actively melt the polar ice caps due to our own selfish neglect, but that's hardly what one could classify as "new" (http://mariedoucette.blogspot.com/2014/05/as-we-know-it.html). What is new is our collective awareness of how that neglect has caused fires to rage uncontrolled, waters to overflow in streams, and tornadoes to rip through towns in increasing frequencies of violent intensity. There must be strong language to match!

More beautifully lit clouds. Gorgeous!

Enter the evil "Vortex", what was once dubbed the "Polar Vortex" in winter (to describe a fucking snowstorm, or a heavy downfall of snow once called a "blizzard", a common occurrence in the Northeastern U.S. and the Northern Hemisphere), now re-purposed for the summertime (with its pesky regularly occurring thunderstorms, also common in the Northeast) as simply, The Vortex, like some villain dressed in all-black from a mythical fairy tale fable.

I do understand the challenges behind selling something as banal as a heavy summer rainstorm, (because I'm a publishing professional, and selling something as simple as a good diet combined with regular exercise in book form must be fashioned anew with some fucked up gimmick, like the Neanderthals), and while I do understand it is hard to make that seem "new", I really don't fucking appreciate a thunderstorm artificially heightened to some weird new height as a fake movie villain (which, once again, is really weird, man, and you should totally know upfront that I'm on to you, so, enough already), because it's incredible as it is: a beautiful, and sometimes scary, act of nature.  
See it, and wonder.

After the cloud vortex, the sun sets beautifully.

Bravo! Another winning performance on Planet Earth! Shows over, folks.

Thunder and Clouds

Tendrils curling with condensation.

I saw a storm system move in last night, the gathering line of clouds churning and rolling its way quickly towards the porch I stood upon. Yellow-beaked blackbirds raced past, towards safe havens to wait out the coming storm.

The line of the storm front nears.

After the line of advancing clouds past, a blast of wind shook through the trees, blowing off leaves and buds in furious gusts onto the street. Thunderstorms bring yellow skies in the east, and as I stood there watching the clouds above my head bring a cool wind, I could feel thunder building.

The sky roiling with storm clouds.

A flash popped right over me, causing me to take a step or two towards the door, but it was so beautiful, I just had to wait for the denouement; and so it began to spatter drops onto me, and then I went inside. A few seconds later, bedlam broke out. It didn't pour rain, it gushed water violently from above, obscuring some nearby bushes on the lawn. Wow!

More curling clouds form in the line of the advancing storm.

It was majestic, awesome, powerful, fun, a little scary, and ultimately, humbling; such is the fury of a really good thunderstorm. Enjoy the gathering storm, fellow humans.

Clouds, and the dark they bring.

Rainy Days

Getting my feet wet.

I've always loved rainy days for the air it brings in from the sea, with whiffs of seaweed and ocean brine that hang slightly in the air; in short, sharp notes that dissipate right after you breathe them in, bubbling up through grates gushing with the water that is such a bounty to us here in this area. What are you grateful for today?

Nature: Thunderstorms

Yellow sky after thunderstorm.

Birds on wire.

Do you know that yellow color that seeps into the sky right before and right after a solid rain with thunderstorms? Got it.

Nature lovers and other fans of Mother Nature, seek me out here: http://www.pinterest.com/mariedoucette/nature/.

Nature: Hazy, Hot, and Humid

Oh, look at those clouds! Maybe it'll rain?

Welcome to that wet blanket time of year, when every minute outside feels like it's your last ragged, hot breath. Sometimes it's hard for me to understand people who like this type of weather, but this great big earth of ours has all types, living and thriving in all climates. 

No. Still unbearably humid, and still no rain.

Enjoy your time in the sun, worshippers. I'm longing for the beauty and warm cool of fall. See you then!

Small Town America: Summer Storms

Storm clouds gather in the afternoon...

People often forget how humid our climate actually is, because tourist pictures of Manhattan skyscrapers rarely capture the water that surrounds us here on all sides, down in the tri-state area. Every summer afternoon holds the promise (or a threat, depending upon your weather-related phobias) of a sudden, gushing downpour. 

...and build, but not always with rain.

It provides a climate that causes green to thrive like a tropical rain forest, but sometimes the thick dampness becomes so oppressive, you break out in an uncomfortably sweaty, sticky, prickly heat on the back of your neck that can only be cooled by swimming in a deep, cool body of water. That's what these images remind me of: walking along hot country roads shimmering with heat waves that radiate off the pavement, with an eye to the sky that prays for a rain to break through and wash it all away. What does your summer sky look like?

Small Town America: Flood Zone

Flooding near the Palisades Center, in West Nyack, New York

Every year during this time, we have pouring, flooding rain storms, and every year the exact same people complain about it. 

The funny thing is, it's the same type of folks who watch the evening news and get angry over residents living out west in the tornado zones: "Why would anyone live there?!" 

For the exact same reason we live near the coast, at sea level: because a) we love it here, b) it's our home, c) our families, friends, and loved ones live here, d) no place on Earth is really safe (because life isn't like that), and e) because we love it. We love it here, and it's our home. There. Now you know.

Picture Window: Rain Drops

Rain drops on window pane, October 26, 2012

cloud strata

it was a dark and stormy night...

storm

here comes the rain

Around the Way

White Flowers

White Flowers II