Weather or Not

Severe Outflow by R. Edwards

  • Home
  • About
  • Archives

Powered by Genesis

Archives for 2009

Facebook “Friends” and Me

December 30, 2009 by tornado Leave a Comment

A flurry of “friend” requests has arrived in my Facebook account lately from people I don’t know. Why this is happening, I have no guess.

Thanks for the thoughts, but don’t get bent out of shape if I don’t know you and don’t take it. If you have pinged me to be your Facebook “friend”, and I haven’t accepted your request, it’s nothing personal. You may be a wonderful dude or dudette, or not…I have no way to know. If I don’t take the request, I either am not familiar with you, haven’t met you, or don’t recall meeting you. [If the latter is the case, a reminder wouldn’t hurt.]

I’m not competing with anybody for most Facebook friends; nor do I crave any particular level of attention. Whether I’ve got ten “friends” or a thousand, it matters not the least. But I do want at least a marginal modicum of familiarity and trustworthiness regarding the set of folks with whom I share more personal information than found on the open Internet.

The following is really straightforward, no hidden agendas or ulterior motives. My criteria for accepting a “friend” request is very simple:
1. I have at least some familiarity with you, and
2. That familiarity is not decidedly negative (i.e., the loser who tried to steal my radio when I was 17 and failed miserably upon forceful intervention from yours truly), or,
3. I get a strong positive recommendation from someone I do know and trust very well.

Finally to all who would read this, “friend” or not…happy new year!

Filed Under: Not weather Tagged With: Facebook

Oklahoma Blizzard, Christmas Eve 2009

December 24, 2009 by tornado Leave a Comment

Christmas Eve, here in Norman, we had a rare event for these parts — a genuine blizzard. An event of perhaps greater rarity has ensued: a white Christmas!

The “official” NWS blizzard requires sustained 35 mph winds accompanied by visibilities at or below 1/4 mile, with blowing snow, all of which lasts for at least 3 hours. And so it was, for the first time in my experience here since March 1989 — over two decades. The storm closed all interstate highways in the OKC area, stranded dozens of motorists, caused countless crashes, and prompted a declared “state of emergency“.

Some sort of heavy snow band and blizzard-criteria winds had been forecast for days somewhere in Oklahoma, the question being precisely where. That’s a mesoscale uncertainty, as with severe storms, very difficult to predict days and sometimes even hours out. In many ways, forecasting such an event is more challenging than severe storms because it involves phase changes from liquid to ice — and two shapes of ice: sleet, which is frozen rain, versus dendritic crystals we know as snow). Last-minute shifts in weather patterns on scales smaller than states, and above the surface where measurements are sparse, can make huge differences. Asking a forecaster precisely where the snow will change to sleet or rain, or how much snow will fall, is asking too much. The best that can be done is to give ranges and estimates.

All in all, most of the forecast ranges for this system weren’t too bad. Model guidance varied in the position of the heaviest bands of precipitation, but not much in its shape, size or orientation. That was helpful. The largest snow amounts occurred not where the heaviest precipitation band was for the greatest time (generally south through east of Norman), but instead, right at the OKC (Will Rogers) airport, where the change to snow occurred soonest on the western fringe of the heavy band. [UPDATE: The 14.1 inch snow depth at OKC set a new storm-total record for OKC for any event, breaking the previous record of 15-17 January 1988, which I also witnessed. We did have a couple of heavier snowfalls than that in Norman in the late 1980s, near 14 inches.] Here in Norman, the consensus among various meteorologists whose measurements I’ve head so far (including mine) was about 6-7 inches, with drifts 2-3 feet around leeward sides of buildings, slopes and walls. Liquid (melted) equivalents actually were heavier south and southeast of the OKC airport, where more rain and sleet fell before the snow blizzard. Liquid equivalent is what really matters, far more than snow depth, which can be arbitrary when it varies so much with local airflow patterns. My liquid equivalent was 1.68 inches.

At the bottom of this post, I’ve placed a map of peak gust (in MPH) supplied by Oklahoma Climatological Survey. I’ve circled Norman for those not familiar with our geography.

For this meteorologist, born and raised of lower latitude, this was a simultaneously fascinating and agonizing experience. See, I get amped by extreme weather, but hate cold passionately. I would be happy never to see another freezing temperature; but I live here in order to have the chance to be in position to observe severe storms for a nontrivial fraction of the year. That requires baroclinicity (not “baroclinity“, but baroclinicity!), which places that I tend to prefer do not have in enough abundance. Today’s weather won’t happen in the Florida Keys; but neither will multiple supercell intercept opportunities every springtime.

Sometimes this location and its access to violent spring weather means sacrifices elsewhere across the calendar. Yesterday, those sacrifices took the form of several dollars of a heating bill, episodic power outages, staying up all day after being awake all night (for my last overnight shift of a set), and a cold-weather photographer’s stinging to numb fingers. Rain at 8 a.m. gave way to sleet in under an hour, and as the cyclone pivoted northeast from east of the Metroplex across southeast Oklahoma, the wind here picked up to above 35 mph, gusts near 50. The Christmas Eve segment of the system ended up leaving a wide snow swath from New Mexico across NW Texas and much of OK, then over Eastern Kansas.

Being sleet-blasted in such wind was a new experience for me, much like being sandblasted on a beach during a strong tropical storm — but far colder and without the salt spray. The numerous electricity losses kept us from cooking Christmas Eve dinner at home as planned, so we went to the nearest restaurant for lunch. While there, sleet changed to snow, as expected; and the event truly formed a blizzard. The drive back necessarily was slow, with visibility often no more than 50 feet. Intense gusts carried true white-out conditions.

We got back in time to see the snow begin to drift, and for me to get outside for a few minutes at a time to observe and photograph the snow.

One of the most entertaining parts was right down at ground level — streamers of snow howling across near-bare ground from adjacent areas where some snow had accumulated, a fluid multitude of airborne crystals destined for re-accumulation in some drift, somewhere. It’s the classic stuff of grainy old movie films from desolate Wyoming or Dakotas highways in some horrifying wintertime maelstrom, except rendered true much farther south today.

I plan to get out some more this weekend and document some of the snowfall in pictures, and will post more images from the blizzard and its aftermath next week. In the meantime, though it may not be easy…stay warm. And most importantly, merry Christmas to all, from the snowy Edwards household.

[LATE EDIT] As of Dec. 30, I have posted select photography from the event here, in this online gallery. Enjoy!

Filed Under: Weather Tagged With: blizzard, ground blizzard, Norman, Oklahoma, Oklahoma blizzard, record snow, snow photographs, snow photography, snow photos, snow storm, snowfall, snowstorm, white Christmas, winter photography, winter storm, winter weather

Removing “System Defender” Malware

December 7, 2009 by tornado Leave a Comment

Earlier this evening, Elke got a horrific computer infection from clicking on link in a SPAM comment posted to one of her BLOGs. Apparently it looked innocuous, but it was a gateway to digital hell.

The hellion is called “System Defender” — a truly nasty, vile and evil program that turns off McAfee, Spybot and Ad-Aware, then looks like a spyware removal program and constantly pops up brightly colored alarm windows saying, in effect, “Your system is infected! Click here to clean.” But if you do, it only gets worse.

Also, if you Google-search for it, be advised that some of the leading search results are themselves vectors for this infection! bleepingcomputers.com is, however, safe, and it’s what I’ll direct you to below.

Skip the following paragraph unless you’re morbidly curious about the inner workings of how System Defender builds a force field around itself.

This program is very good at hiding and protecting itself. Some versions disable web browsing (to prevent downloading cures). All versions disable anti-virus and anti-spyware that already is running. It creates a folder for itself that is visible only from the DOS Prompt — not from My Computer, unless you do some trickery I won’t get into here, since it’s useless to view the files anyway. Assuming you find this malware’s executable and DLLs (I did), you can rename and relocate, but not delete them. Don’t even bother trying to change its files’ attributes; “System Defender” still can’t be deleted, and will change its folder back to “Read Only” automatically if you try to turn that off. So, don’t waste time messing with the files. It also will replace its own entries in the registry if you delete them via REGEDIT.

Again, McAfee, Norton, Ad-Aware, and Spybot all are absolutely helpless and useless against it.
So spare yourself the time I wasted at first. Instead…


Here are the removal instructions for anyone else who ever may get infected by “System Defender”:

    1. If you can open and use your web browser, go here…
    http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/virus-removal/remove-system-defender, and print those instructions. Download and install Malwarebytes exactly as it tells you, then run it and reboot per the instructions.

    OR…
    2. If “System Defender” has disabled your web browser (as hers did), you’ll have to
    a. Go to a separate, uninfected PC or laptop.
    b. Put a clean jump drive in the USB port.
    c. Open a browser.
    d. Download Malwarebytes’ install file from either of these two links:

      BleepingComputer or CNet download.com

    e. Save or copy the install file it to your jump drive
    f. Take that jump drive and stick it into a USB port on the infected PC
    g. Open My Computer on the infected PC
    h. Move the install file from the jump drive to anywhere on the infected PC,
    i. Run the install program as you would for any other software (agree to terms, specify location, etc.), then, once installed,
    j. Run Malwarebytes
    k. Go to “Scanner” and run the “Perform Quick Scan” option
    l. Wait 5-15 minutes for it to run. It will check lots of boxes signifying various places on the PC where bad files from “System Defender” and other malware exist. Follow the instructions to quarantine them.
    m. Restart the PC normally (from the START Menu).

I’m loading the free version of Malwarebytes onto my laptop and onto my main PC too (once it’s back from the shop for unrelated reasons). The free version is easy software and cleans up lots of other malicious garbage from a PC as well. [The pay version does automatic detection and scheduling of scans and updates…the free edition, you have to do those proactively.]

And yes, we already were considering Macintoshes as replacements for when our Windows machines becomes obsolete or die completely. This further reinforces that notion.

Filed Under: Not weather Tagged With: bogus anti-spyware, evil, malware, pencil-necked geeks, rogue anti-spyware, spyware, System Defender, virus, viruses, Windows virus

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • …
  • 17
  • Next Page »

Search

Recent Posts

  • Heavy Blow to Scientific Credibility
  • The Fallacy of “Compromise” with Gaslighting Forces of Tyranny
  • American Education: Emulate the Asian Model of Rigor and Effort
  • Gasoline Prices: A Layered Issue
  • Fatherhood

Categories

  • Not weather
  • Photographic Adventures
  • Scattershooting
  • Weather
  • Weather AND Not
@SkyPixWeather

- August 17, 2022, 7:11 am

@Meteodan I’ve seen very similar video of multiple “steam devils” circa 2016 on Kilauea’s fresh/hot lava fields, in light rain and low clouds, shot by a tour guide there. Some of them were tall enough to connect with the low, scuddy cloud bases above, at least briefly.
h J R
@SkyPixWeather

- August 17, 2022, 7:08 am

@SitkaBustClub @shawnahaynie Happy anniversary!
h J R
@SkyPixWeather

- August 17, 2022, 6:58 am

One thing I noticed right off: the lava bombs landing on the outside of the cinder cone take much less time to lose their glow (cool down below incandescence) in these conditions. Not surprising amidst high winds and cold rain!
h J R

Blogroll

  • CanadianTexan
  • Chuck's Chatter
  • Cliff Mass Weather & Climate
  • Digital Photography Review
  • DMN Dallas Cowboys BLOG
  • Dr. Cook's Blog
  • Dr. JimmyC
  • E-journal of Severe Storms Meteorology
  • Eloquent Science
  • Image of the Week
  • Jack's Cam Wall
  • Jim LaDue View
  • Laura Ingraham
  • MADWEATHER
  • Michelle Malkin
  • Photography Attorney
  • Severe Weather Notes
  • SkyPix by Roger Edwards
  • Tornatrix
  • With All My Mind

Meta

  • Log in