macrobursts

in

(This is not about my newsletter, but about this week’s storm): Hellacious damage in nearby town reinforced how lucky we got ( I do not, unlike several people in the area – tourist traffic now including storm tourism – stop to take photos of others’ misery for my own use).

Anyhow, it seems that the cause all of the devastation wasn’t a tornado but a “macroburst”:

A macroburst is an outward burst of strong winds at or near the surface with horizontal dimensions larger than 4 km (2.5 mi) and occurs when a strong downdraft reaches the surface. To visualize this process, imagine the way water comes out of a faucet and hits the bottom of a sink. The column of water is the downdraft and the outward spray at the bottom of the sink is the macroburst. Macroburst winds may begin over a smaller area and then spread out over a wider area, sometimes producing damage similar to a tornado. Although usually associated with thunderstorms, macrobursts can occur with showers too weak to produce thunder.

Outages continue, though they’re making restorative progress. Useful site: poweroutage.us. – I’m in the orange county above the red one. Like I’ve said, we’ve had power since 1400 on Tuesday. Estimates for rest of area range from later today to this weekend – though excessive heat and scattered storms today might throw a spanner into those works.

outage

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Update/202206141337: We again have the power; we’re lucky: sounds like it might be at least a week for some people.

Power's been out for a couple of hours, estimated to be restored by 1400; some gnarly storms heralded by so many phone alerts late last night and early this morning… writing this by the light of one of the thousand and one (only a slight exaggeration) lantern-inspired flashlights in an array of colorful colors found when I cleaned out my mother's apartment, the thrum of the neighbor's generator / neighbors' generators and my snoring dogs accompanying... office didn't flood: victory is mine…

stream deckery, day one

in

First full morning with my 15-button Stream Deck: skeptical of its utility at first but once I figured out profiles and made one for Obsidian, the productivity value became obvious; will add a post once I figure out how I'm going to use it fully. Also: returning the iPad Pro in my work setup, likely open also to Obsidian for online writing and such. I love Drafts, but in the interest of consolidation mental or otherwise, I'm trying to stick to Obsidian for everything. Wish it had better iOS integration, though: I'm not technically/codingly savvy enough to make my own useful widgets and shortcuts.