Archive for the ‘Meteorology’ Category

On Solid Rock

It isn’t usual to have rain on the Fourth of July in Southwest Oklahoma but the past two have been soggy.  This year we received an abundance of rain as a result of hurricane Alex in the Gulf of Mexico.  Erin brought a friend, Christin, home with her over the Fourth.  Erin loves fireworks and hiking in the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge.  This time she wanted to trek to the “Forty Foot Hole” to see how much water was rushing through the area via West Cache Creek.  Normally, there would be very little rain, but since we’ve had so much in the past few days, we were all eager to visit the rapids.

I left before home before Sherry, Erin, and Christin this morning because I wanted to be prepared for taking pictures as they came down the trail.  It began raining heavily on the trip from Lawton to the Refuge and rained throughout my hike to the “Forty Foot Hole”.  I was dressed for it with my Redwing boots, Tilley hat, and poncho.  My camera gear was protected in a Lowepro 300 AW camera bag.  By the time I reached the area the rain had stopped so I unpacked my Sony A700 and 70-200 mm f/2.8, and waited for ladies to arrive.  I know the above picture is a little soft on the focus, but I wanted to use it anyway.  In order to get the rushing water to look this way, it was necessary to shoot at 1/4 sec., f22, and ISO 200.  I’m hand holding the camera and zoomed all the way to 200mm.  Taking this into consideration, I’m pretty satisfied with the result.  Being able to do this, at all, is a tribute to Sony’s anti-shake (image stabilization) being built into the body of their cameras.  It really makes hand holding workable in a pinch at some ridiculously slow shutter speeds.

Icy Sycamore Fruit Balls

The severe winter storm meteorologists had been forecasting for five days finally arrived in Southwest Oklahoma in full force Thursday morning.  People leaving home for work Thursday morning were greeted by wind, rain, and dropping temperatures.  Ice began forming on everything off the ground by 10:00 AM.  People going to lunch at noon found a thickening layer of ice on their windshields and north side of their autos.  The office where I work began the day on reduced services to prevent staff from facing the perils that only increased throughout the day.  By 2:00 PM, our office was closed.   However, I stayed because I was able to get so much done due to the lack of distractions.  I could here the ice pelting the roof and the wind rumbling across it.  Finally, about 4:00 PM, I decided to give it up and go home.  By then I had a good 5/16″ layer of ice on my windshield and north facing windows.  There was even a thicker layer on the north side.  I was unable to open the passenger door because it was frozen shut. Read the rest of this entry »