Winter Storms on the Prowl

Staff Writer, DL Mullan

Winter Storm / Weather

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Winter storms are set to hit Arizona with a one two three punch. Snow for the high country and rain for the central and lower deserts will start today, then continue with another storm on Friday and a weaker system on Monday.

Forecast Discussion: The initial wave of showers has arrived, albeit light showers. Doppler radar is indicating scattered rain entering the Valley as of 8:00 AM. The scattered nature of rain prevails today. Watch for a general west to east progression of showers tracking over the area. An improvement of air quality values commences when precip and breezes reach our monitors. Around a quarter inch of rain for the day is foreseen. Air quality values shift deeper into the Good AQI range tomorrow with continued wet and breezy conditions. Accumulations in the region do rise more quickly Friday afternoon through early Saturday. The second storm is more dynamical of the two. We could add another half inch plus in the lower deserts. Another feature with the latest storm is wind. Winds are to be quite gusty (20-30+ mph) out of the southwest ahead of and adjacent to the impending cold front. Had it not been for a wet winter to date and measurable rain falling in southeastern California and south-central Arizona in the present, there would have been concern for blowing dust threatening air quality concentrations. Not the case this time. Bring that coat if you are planning on being outside the rest of the week. A third storm reinforces cool weather and rain chances late Sunday/Monday. Any given day, afternoon temps reach low 60s at best.

Source: AirNOW,

Canada Quake, Ice, Spaceweather

Staff Writer, DL Mullan
Meteorology / Heliosphere
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Canada Quake, Ice, Spaceweather

Articles below are featured in today's report.

Today's Featured Links:

Long Term Ice: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/...

A NASA scientist is launching a one-to-two-year pilot project this summer that takes advantage of U.S. high-voltage power transmission lines to measure a phenomenon that has caused widespread power outages in the past.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-04-first-of-its-kind-nasa-space-weather.html#jCp

Heliophysicist Antti Pulkkinen of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. and his team are installing scientific substations beneath high-voltage power transmission lines operated by Virginia's Dominion Virginia Power this summer to measure in real-time a phenomenon known as geomagnetically induced currents (GICs). "This is the first time we have used the U.S. high-voltage power transmission system as a science tool to map large-scale GICs," Pulkkinen said. "This application will allow unprecedented, game-changing data gathering over a wide range of spatial and temporal scales."

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-04-first-of-its-kind-nasa-space-weather.html#jCp

A NASA scientist is launching a one-to-two-year pilot project this summer that takes advantage of U.S. high-voltage power transmission lines to measure a phenomenon that has caused widespread power outages in the past.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-04-first-of-its-kind-nasa-space-weather.html#jCp

A NASA scientist is launching a one-to-two-year pilot project this summer that takes advantage of U.S. high-voltage power transmission lines to measure a phenomenon that has caused widespread power outages in the past.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-04-first-of-its-kind-nasa-space-weather.html#jCp

Heliophysicist Antti Pulkkinen of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. and his team are installing scientific substations beneath high-voltage power transmission lines operated by Virginia's Dominion Virginia Power this summer to measure in real-time a phenomenon known as geomagnetically induced currents (GICs). "This is the first time we have used the U.S. high-voltage power transmission system as a science tool to map large-scale GICs," Pulkkinen said. "This application will allow unprecedented, game-changing data gathering over a wide range of spatial and temporal scales."

GIC Monitoring: http://phys.org/news/2014-04-first-of... 

A NASA scientist is launching a one-to-two-year pilot project this summer that takes advantage of U.S. high-voltage power transmission lines to measure a phenomenon that has caused widespread power outages in the past.

Great Lakes Ice: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD...

In the early afternoon on April 20, 2014, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this natural-color image of Lake Superior, which straddles the United States–Canada border. At the time Aqua passed over, the lake was 63.5 percent ice covered, according to the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab (GLERL). Averaged across Lake Superior, ice was 22.6 centimeters (8.9 inches) thick; it was as much as twice that thickness in some locations.

Source: Suspicious Observers

DYI Air Conditioner, Just in Time for Summer

Staff Writer, DL Mullan

DYI / Community Interest
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Summer for Arizona comes quicker than to other parts of the Nation. We are a desert. Our temperatures can reach 100F even in the spring months. 

So all you garage junkies might want to view this video showing you how to make a compressorless air conditioner for your Man Caves:

Be Ready For Summer With Awesome DIY Air Conditioner

How to make a non-compressor based "5 gallon bucket" air conditioner. simple DIY. items needed: bucket, styrofoam liner, pvc pipe, small fan, and ice. (small solar panel is optional). one frozen gallon jug of water lasted 6 hours. temperature in house was 84F. cooled air was in the mid. 40F range.

Random Acts of Kindness: Lake Deer Rescue

Staff Writer, DL Mullan

Environmentalism / Education

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A person does not have to write a large check or force change upon the world through his/her position in the government, a person just has to care more for others than him/her self.

A nice gesture to save the world can be as simple as rescuing deer off the ice covered Albert Lea Lake in Minnesota. James and his father did:

Be the change you want to see in the world.

You don't need a governmental agency or a United Nations working group, you only need empathy. Step out and do a random act of kindness, you don't know what reward you will receive from a grateful society.

Or the reward might be a better you and a safer world.

Source: Youtube, Viral Nova,