While at the bookstore that bares my family name the other day I picked up an interesting book that has been published annually in September since 1792 – The Old Farmer’s Almanac (OFA).

BUENOS AIRES – A violent storm described as a freak “tornado” killed at least 17 people in the southern part of South America and punched hundreds of houses off their foundations Tuesday, officials said.

The following is real – I could make this up if I tried! It is an Area Forecast Discussion issued by National Weather Service Meteorologist – Gino Izzi, Sr. Forecaster, NWS Chicago/Romeoville. Introduction made, I leave you to read “Ode to Summer”, by Meteorologist Izzi:

If you woke this morning in east Oklahoma and were lucky enough to see the sunrise, you had a great treat to relax to while enjoying your morning coffee!

Last month USA Today reported that Five U.S. Patent and Trade Office patent applications, made public on July 9, propose slowing hurricanes by pumping cold, deep-ocean water in their paths from barges. If issued, the patents offer 18 years of legal rights to the idea for Gates and co-inventors, including climate scientist Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution of Washington.

Overnight (June 7th, 2009) a rare atmospheric phenomenon occurred in south-central Oklahoma. No it wasn’t a tornado, it was much more rare than that – even during 2009! Suddenly at about 3am CDT in Jefferson County the air temperature became very hot and dry, the temperature shot up to 97 degrees F, literally within minutes. The event that happened is called a Convective Heat Burst, it happens when a parcel of very cold and unsaturated air within a dying storm descends very rapidly and warms due to compression (at a rate of 9.8C per 1,000 meters) and overshoots its equilibrium level and reaches the surface.

It seems that storm chasers and musicians pretty much live the same road life…

The DOD recently revealed a new vehicle specifically designed for use in the harsh war-torn environment in Afghanistan, but maybe someday there will be some hope that these vehicles can be acquired for use by private citizens, just as the original Hummer was. Why? Because it would be the perfect vehicle to hunt down nature’s most violent storms.

Whenever possible I always try to attend various launches from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and with no weather of notability happening in the plains – Renee and I decided to make a trip to the east coast and witness the launch of STS-119 from Titusville, FL.

Greensburg is for sale! Not the town that was almost completely destroyed when an EF-5 tornado hit it on May 4th, 2007, but Greensburg the race horse. And half of the money that Greensburg brings at auction will be given to the town of the same name to help them with their continued recovery efforts.

I’m not going to name the offender but one of my friends just emailed me with an update to his blog and after a few seconds of at least trying to read it – I had to close the page.

So, why don’t I read you’re blog?