Taking A Dive Into Eco-Emi (Demember Box)

I recently heard about a membership program where for $15 a month, you get five to ten Eco-friendly, organic, vegetarian or vegan samples sent straight to your door step. The name is this program is Eco-Emi. The mission is introducing people to a greener lifestyle. Reading why Eco-Emi was founded is all inspiring and looking at the previous months' products, I was excited to try.  I signed up towards the end of November and received my first box, the second week in December.

Here are some pictures of the December Box:

 The packaging. The box was so cute.

 The package comes with a card, with information about the products inside.

 Coupons.

 Opening the box.

 The goodies!

 These socks are by Maggies Functional Organics.

 The laundry detergent is by Greenology Products, while the vitamin super chews are by Genesis Today.

 The lip balm is by Zambeezi, the Whispering Pine candle is by Wyk Candles and the botanical lip gloss is by Lauren Brooke cosmetiques.

 The Raw Cacao bliss is by Artisana, the organic candy cane by The Natural Candy Store and the Jojoba and ginseng exfoliating face cleanser and blood orange and vanilla body wash, by John Masters Organics. The face cleanser and body wash were featured by Hip Apotheca.

 

 When I first opened the priority mail package, the smell of pine filled my nose. The super chews and the cacao bliss were really good. The tangerine lip balm smells great as well as the botanical lip gloss is really smooth.  I'm looking forward to trying the other products. I was very pleased with the products in this box and I'm happy about my subscription to this service.  I'm really interested in buying more of the products featured. Thank you so much Eco-Emi and the products featured. I'm looking forward to the upcoming months :-) 

Rare Kelvin-Helmholtz Clouds Over Alabama

Yesterday, Alabama Meteorologist James Spann (@spann) tweeted this beautiful picture of Kelvin-Helmholtz clouds at the Alabama Air National Guard facility at the Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport. The clouds also known as "wave clouds" are defined by the Cloud Appreciation Society as, "the result of shearing winds up at cloud level. A particular type of turbulence can develop in a layer of Cirrus cloud, which happens to form below an inversion* between air currents of differing speeds and/or directions. Sea waves break as their bases are slowed down upon reaching shallow water and their crests surge ahead. Cloud waves break in the same way: when their crests are pushed ahead of their troughs by the difference in air currents." The occurrence of this kind of cloud formation is rare.  They are more frequently seen in San Francisco.

Here is a link to more pictures of this rare occurrence.

Here's a link to his post on Twitter.

The Forecast Calls For Apples?

Mmm delicious. Saw this interesting story on Yahoo today.

From Eric Pfeiffer, The Slideshow (A Yahoo News Blog).

Unexplained shower of apples falls from sky over town


More than 100 apples mysteriously rained down upon a small British town on Monday night. The still-unexplained apple shower left 20 yards of city streets and car windshields covered in the cascading fruit just after the daily rush hour.

The news immediately brought up comparisons to biblical tales of raining frogs and whether such reported freaks of nature actually occurred. In this instance, no one has officially confirmed when, how or if the apple storm truly took place as described.
However, Jim Dale, senior meteorologist from the British Weather Services, told the London Telegraph: "The weather we have at the moment is very volatile and we probably have more to come. Essentially these events are caused when a vortex of air, kind of like a mini tornado, lifts things off the ground rising up into the atmosphere until the air around it causes them to fall to earth again."

Dr Lisa Jardine-Wright, a physicist at the Cavendish Laboratory, based at Cambridge University, told the BBC, "Cars and houses have been swept up by tornadoes, so apples are well within the realms of possibility. A tornado which has swept through an orchard will be strong enough to 'suck up' small objects like a vacuum [cleaner]. These small objects would then be deposited back to earth as 'rain' when the whirlwind loses its energy."

Nevertheless, witnesses report that the weather in Coundon in Coventry was reported to be stable and calm at the time of the alleged apple shower. Coventry residents have offered several competing explanations for the event, including a passing plane, roving teenage pranksters--and, yes, witches.
But regardless of the ultimate explanation, the apple storm is no stranger other confirmed, highly unusual forms of precipitation. The BBC offers a roster of pertinent examples:

Frog falls were recorded in Llanddewi, Powys, in 1996 and two years later in Croydon, south London. In 2000, hundreds of dead silver sprats fell out of the sky during a rainstorm in the seaside resort of Great Yarmouth.
There have also been maggot downpours--in Acapulco in 1967 and during a yachting event at the 1976 Olympic Games.

On the sliding scale of inconveniences, an apple storm seems more palatable than maggots. Though, depending on the state of the apples, it's possible that some areas could have experienced both brands of offbeat precipitation at once.

source

Here's a link to other things that have strangely fallen out of the sky.

source

GOES-15 1st Full Disk Images of Earth

From NOAA:

" GOES-15 took its first operational full disk images at 1800z on December 6, 2011. These three images show some of the imagery acquired, including the native gray-scale infrared, colorized infrared, colorized infrared water vapor, and visible imagery. The orange areas of the colorized water vapor image show areas with low moisture. The dry air associated with the Santa Ana winds in California are clearly visible. GOES-15's water vapor channel has major improvements over its predecessor on GOES-11 (the previous GOES-West)."


The images:

Absolutely stunning!

GOES (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites) -15 took the place of GOES-11 which was launched in  May 2000. GOES-11 was only planned for 5 years but tracked weather and severe storms along the the Pacific region and the U.S. West Coast, for 12 years. GOES-11 is in the process of being deactivated and now GOES-15, a more advanced satellite, is fixed in this region. GOES-13 tracks the East Coast. GOES-12 tracks South America and GOES-14 is a ready backup or replacement. GOES satellites can also track oceanographic changes, space weather, forest fires and other hazards.

GOES-R is the next generation of satellites to be launched starting in 2015, by NOAA. More frequent images and clearer atmospheric observations is expected by this next generation of satellites.

For more information on GOES, check out this link.

October Wonderland

Parts of the Northeast are waking up to a winter wonderland more than a brisk, fall day. Yesterday a rare October Nor'easter struck, causing power outages to over 2 million people. Much snow fell in the Northern states, breaking records in New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts and others.  Many Mid-Atlantic states don't see their first snowfall until about next month or so! A state of emergency has been called in New Jersey and New York. The event has been rendered historic and by Twitter #snoctober and #snowtober.

Here is a map from NOAA, showing the total snowfall amounts:

Here is a statement summarizing the snowfall totals and the event.

The event was caused by an offshore low pressure system and cold air. The low pumped moisture from the ocean, in which the ocean temperature is considerably warmer than air temperature over land.  There were periods of rain, sleet and snow with this storm. Moisture was also pumped from a low pressure to the South.

Here in Adelphi, MD the start of the day was mostly rain.  I saw on a few social network sites my friends in Northern New Jersey and New York were posting pictures of the snow that had already fallen in their area. It changed over to sleet around 1:30 PM. I took this video of the sleet with my cell phone (you might have to rotate the video).



I thought I saw a few snow flurries after the sleet. Then there was nothing but wind. The sun started to break through a bit. Then around 2:20 PM, it really started to snow, and it snowed hard. Here is a video I took of the snow. That car to the right is my car by the way :-)



In total, by me the snow accumulation was nonexistent. The snow looked pretty coming down though.

Here is a picture of the snow from my friend and former classmate Darren Milliron. He lives in Netcong, NJ. Check out his blog here.

Happy Halloween?

Northern Lights Illuminate Southern Skies

Last night for some lucky people in the South, the Northern Lights dazzled across the dark sky. (Sorry that's a bit of my poetry language coming out).  I unfortunately did not see this beautiful phenomenon :-( The Northern Lights are one of my favorite phenomena. Hopefully one day I'll get to see them in person, whether it's here in the DC metro area or...Maine :-)

Here is an article by Seth Borenstein from the Associated Press, explaining the event:

"Northern lights take unusual trip down south"

WASHINGTON—A baffling solar storm pulled colorful northern lights unusually far south, surprising space weather experts and treating skywatchers to a rare and spectacular treat.

A storm-chasing photographer captured the strange sky show in Arkansas Monday night. People in Kentucky and Georgia reported their sightings to local television stations. A special automated NASA camera that takes a picture of the sky every minute in Huntsville, Ala., captured 20 minutes of the vibrant red and green aurora borealis.

In Arkansas, Brian Emfinger called the view "extremely vivid, the most vivid I have ever seen. There was just 15 to 20 minutes where it really went crazy."

Emfinger, a storm chaser, captured the vibrant nighttime images on camera in Ozark, Ark.

He called it "a much bigger deal" than a tornado" because he sees dozens of those every year. This is only the second northern lights in a decade that he has seen this far south.

"They are very rare events," said NASA scientist Bill Cooke, who found the aurora photos in the Alabama camera's archive and posted them on the Marshall Space Flight Center's blog. "We don't see them this far south that often."

Officials at the federal Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colo., said they were surprised at the southern reach. The center monitors solar storms, which trigger auroras.

Space weather forecast chief Bob Rutledge said given the size of the solar storm, the lights probably shouldn't have been visible south of Iowa. The storm was only considered "moderate" sized, he said.

He called the storm unusual, its effects reaching Earth eight hours faster than forecast. But that timing made it just about perfect for U.S. viewing, he said.

"The peak of the intensity happened when it was dark or becoming dark over the U.S., coupled with the clear skies. We did have significant aurora sightings," Rutledge said. "The timing was good on this."

In Huntsville, the aurora lasted from 8:25 p.m. to 8:45 p.m. CDT, Cooke said. In Arkansas, Emfinger went out shortly after sunset after getting a space weather alert. He saw auroras that lasted until after 11 p.m.

An aurora begins with a storm shooting a magnetic solar wind from the sun. The wind slams into Earth's magnetic field, compressing it. That excites electrons of oxygen and nitrogen. When those excited electrons calm down, they emit red and green colors, Rutledge said.

Often solar storms can cause damage satellites and power grids. This one didn't, Rutledge said."

This picture by @WxJax shows the Northern Lights in Laurel, VA.

Here is a picture from Madison, WI from DakotaLapse.com:

  

This was the view in Alabama:

  

This time lapse video of the aurora in Michigan by Lakefxnet is amazing!!!:

Ok I'm done drooling, hehe.

Inside A Tornado On I-95 in VA

Last night storms spawned some possible tornadoes in parts of the Mid-Atlantic. Here is one video of a motorist on I-95 in Virginia, when a tornado struck. Note: There is heavy language in this video.




The video is from Youtube user TeamInsaneRCRacing.

NASA Tweetup STS-135 in Washington, DC

          Yesterday, I got the chance to see astronauts Christopher Ferguson @Astro_Ferg and Sandy Magnus @Astro_Sandy at the NASA Tweetup STS-135 event in Washington, DC.  If you are wondering what a Tweetup is, according to NASA a tweetup is "...An informal meeting of people who use the social messaging medium Twitter. NASA Tweetups provide @NASA followers with the opportunity to go behind-the-scenes at NASA facilities and events and speak with scientists, engineers, astronauts and managers. NASA Tweetups range from two hours to two days in length and include a "meet and greet" session to allow participants to mingle with fellow Tweeps and the people behind NASA's Twitter feeds." People that follow @NASATweetup also are provided the opportunity to attend and the account features the latest information about NASATweeup events.  The first NASATweetup was On January 21, 2009 at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
         I saw that NASA was having a tweetup at their headquarters in Washington, DC through my @weathersavvy1 account and I registered during the September 29th to September 30th period.  I saw that 150 participants would be selected at random and I crossed my fingers. On October 4th I received an email from Social Media Manager and Public Affairs Specialist at NASA, Stephanie Schierholz @schierholz, that I was not selected and I was on the waiting list. I crossed my fingers again and on October 6th, I received the confirmation that I had been selected!
       The event started at 4:00 pm EST, and was an hour long. At the event highlights of the STS-135 mission and the space program were discussed. STS-135 had actually started out as a rescue mission, delivering 9,400 pounds of spare parts and 2, 677 pounds of food. This is to help operations at the space station for the next year. The mission also brought back 5,7000 pounds of material from the station that was not needed. STS-135 was the final shuttle flight and also the 135th space shuttle to go into outer space.  25 states where represented at the event with the farthest United States attendees, coming from California. Attendees also came from Canada and Germany. The event was also broadcasted live on the NASA website.
      I wrote about STS-135 back in July when the space shuttle successfully landed on July 21, 2011. Here is that blog entry. I would have never thought, that some three months after writing that entry, I'd be seeing two of the astronauts aboard the space craft in person, and getting my picture with Sandy Magnus. Here is that picture:

I also got her signature :-)

      The event was amazing and I really want to thank everyone who made this event possible. It is a great way to connect with the NASA and people that share common interests. Our world is definitely changing and like Astronaut Sandy Magnus said, "It's about learning." It was my first NASA Tweetup and I will assure, it definitely won't be my last :-)

Here are more pictures from the event:

 Me in front of the NASA building

 Astronauts Christopher Ferguson and Sandy Magnus.

 The program.

 List of the participants.

 The NASA swag bag.

 The commemorative pin, it contains metal flown aboard a space shuttle!

 For more information about the STS-135 mission, check out this link.

Thanks again everyone involved, for this amazing opportunity and thank you to my boyfriend, Rex for taking some of the photos.