Fire Update
The BBC is reporting on the fires and the weather system that makes them almost impossible to control: Two dead as wildfires burn in US
Wildfires have killed two people and destroyed dozens of homes in the US states of Oklahoma and Texas.
A number of small towns were evacuated as fire crews struggled to contain the blazes, which ignited on Thursday and were fanned by strong winds.
Dozens more people were injured, two seriously, by the fires, which prompted the closure of a motorway in Oklahoma.
Meanwhile in neighbouring Arkansas a tornado struck the town of Mena, killing three and injuring at least 22.
The map is from the BBC. CNN now has a map on a separate page linked to their fire update, but they don’t provide the names of the towns that are actually involved, just Oklahoma City and Dallas with three tags.
This is all related to a powerful cold front moving through the area that is generating the winds and tornadoes. The winds are calming down, so the aircraft can begin flying to combat the fires.
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We’ve had wild thunderstorms all evening, but seem to have escaped the worst. When they come across the mountains, the mountains generally take some juice out of the storms. Nothing like that barrier in the Plains.
Ah, springtime in North Carolina. If you don’t like the weather, wait an hour for the change.
As soon as the rumbles were heard far off, my head started throbbing with my radiation, brain swelling headaches and my neuropathied legs and arms stiffened. Barometric pressure – gotta be.
My head was pounding all day yesterday because of mild stuffiness and the pressure differential. If you looked at the pressure lines in front of the storms, they were really steep – on a map it would be a cliff.
I’ve been watching a couple of specialized weather sites on and off all day and the front has just been nasty. The pressure and temperature differences from one side to the next make it a turbulent mess that you definitely wouldn’t want to fly through. The West side of the mountains really took a beating as the storm pushed over them.
During the winter my sister can quite accurately predict the amount of snowfall by which side & which hoint is attacked by her rheumatoid arthritis the day BEFORE the storm.
I think there has finally been a long-term study that confirms the effects of weather on osteoarthritis. But I wouldn’t trust a doctor that pooh-poohed it for other things. I bet my oncologist & radiology guy will tell me if I suddenly start having double vision or something more drastic, it’s time to prepare for an imminent tornado.
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I remember as a child reading in Children’s Digest, on one of those “fun, interesting facts” pages, that “some farmers can smell rain coming.” WTF, thought I (though in more polite terms), can’t everyone smell rain coming? I didn’t learn anything about farmers or rain, but I learned something about Children’s Digest.
These days, like andante and her kin, I don’t have to depend on smell: my aches and pains give me a pretty good indication of what weather is on its way.
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My smeller is not nearly as accurate asit used to be. I go by the livestock lying down in the fields. But right now, my neuropathied arms & legs are really stiffening up. Storm’s a-comin’.
I believe we have some healthy wildfires going to the east of here, so I guess it’s that time of year again. Most of ours seem to be from lightning strikes, and not the despicable arsonists. My mind fails to comprehend.
Joints and sinuses are a reaction to barometric pressure changes and the smell is a function of humidity [and ozone around thunderstorms]. If you live for a while in snow country you can give a pretty accurate temperature reading from the sound of the snow when you walk on it and you can smell snow, just like rain.
Of course, you have to go outside to develop these clues, and most people are creating problems for themselves by staying in their sterile interior environments. When all your air is filtered, and everything you come in contact with is washed with anti-bacterial products, you can’t build up an immunity to anything and tend to be allergic to all kinds of things.
We have been having small wildfires in South Florida, and are in constant fire watches up here when the humidity drops because of the drought conditions around us.