I have been pretty busy the last few weeks but I just had to share this image. These are the temperature in Kansas around 2:30pm EST. From Dodge City, Kansas to Wichita, Kansas, the temperature changes from 27 degrees to 72. That is a 45 degree chane in less than 150 miles. Further south the temperature change is 48 degrees in less than 85 miles. Within an hours drive you could go from short sleeves and shorts weather to needing a winter coat. The temperature differential is absolutely outstanding.

In the colder areas further north and west towards Denver there is a blizzard with snow totals of one to two feet in areas. Meanwhile in the plains, in the warm moist gulf air mass is the change for severe weather and tornadoes.

On June 8, 2009 Dr. Hawking hosted a party, but he only sent out invitations after the party. He offered this as proof that time travel is not possible.

Maybe he just isn’t that popular in the future.

Or if you are a time traveler you can’t let others know you are a time traveler. If you went to a time travelers party that would be a dead giveaway and then the universe would explode.

Goats are in.

Eruptive events on the sun can be wildly different. Some come just with a solar flare, some with an additional ejection of solar material called a coronal mass ejection (CME), and some with complex moving structures in association with changes in magnetic field lines that loop up into the sun’s atmosphere, the corona.

On July 19, 2012, an eruption occurred on the sun that produced all three. A moderately powerful solar flare exploded on the sun’s lower right hand limb, sending out light and radiation. Next came a CME, which shot off to the right out into space. And then, the sun treated viewers to one of its dazzling magnetic displays — a phenomenon known as coronal rain.

Absolutely epic.

The first Professor of Physics at the University of Queensland, Professor Thomas Parnell, began an experiment in 1927 to illustrate that everyday materials can exhibit quite surprising properties. The experiment demonstrates the fluidity and high viscosity of pitch, a derivative of tar once used for waterproofing boats. At room temperature pitch feels solid – even brittle – and can easily be shattered with a blow from a hammer. It’s quite amazing then, to see that pitch at room temperature is actually fluid!

In 1927 Professor Parnell heated a sample of pitch and poured it into a glass funnel with a sealed stem. Three years were allowed for the pitch to settle, and in 1930 the sealed stem was cut. From that date on the pitch has slowly dripped out of the funnel – so slowly that now, 80 years later, the ninth drop is only just forming.

You can watch the drop form and fall this University of Queensland site. The crazy aspect of this experiment is that no one has ever seen the drop break off and fall. The last drop fell in the year 2000. A camera was recording at the point when they thought the drop would break. However, the camera system failed and the break was not recorded. The drop breaks roughly ever 10 years, which makes the next break imminent. They now have three cameras set up to record the break.

What a great remake.

House of Mirth has a bunch of excellent vintage weather photos. I can’t imagine what the photography had to do to get set up in the right place back then.

Arena rock is back. The new album comes out April 15th.

ALLENTOWN, Pa. -
A woman has died more than 30 years after being shot during an attempted robbery, and the coroner has ruled her death a homicide.

Linda J. Knauss died at Lehigh Valley Hospital last week of complications from the wound she suffered during an attempted holdup outside a boutique on Locust Street in Harrisburg on the evening of Apr. 12, 1982, the Lehigh County coroner said.

The cause of Knauss’ death almost went unnoticed, officials said. The Orefield, Lehigh Co., woman was due to be cremated before investigators in the coroner’s office received the paperwork and started digging.