Weather & Space News Blog
 since Feb. 2003
 WX - Telegraph abbreviation for weather often used with Morse code
 The Wire - Name once given to the telegraph

Severe Thunderstorm Watch For Chicago Area Issued. Get cams and radar images in the Chicago page

Strong overnight storms move through Kansas City area | Severe Thunderstorm Hits City

Illionis twister scores a rare F-4 | More stories

Tornado Destroys PA Homes; Injures Dozens

Storms Leaves Trail Of Damage Across SE Georgia, NE Florida

Little Rock hits 100 degrees, but cooler weather is forecast

Weather feeds fires in Alaska

Cleanup Continues After Damaging Pennsylvania Storm

Illinois tornadoes slideshow (opens in new window)

From Kentucky: Odd conditions spark strong summer storms

The National Weather Service is warning of possible flash floods in parts of Southern California. Details

Here are some pictures recently taken from my Samsung Sprint camera phone. Click on the thumbnails for larger pictures, which open in a new window:

Line of storms kick up dirt as it moves across north Fort Worth in mid-June	Bass Performance Hall in downtown Fort Worth, taken July 3 from Sundance Square’s free parking lot
Fort Worth’s skyline visible at end of the tracks, taken July 8 from Trinity Railway Express’ Richland Hills stop	Trinity Railway Express’ American Airlines Center stop looking at Reunion Tower in downtown Dallas, taken July 8
American Airlines Center in downtown Dallas, where Simon and Garfunkel performed their last U.S. concert, July 8	Dallas skyline, taken July 8 from American Airlines Center parking lot

In weather news: Tennessee Storms (several stories) | Storms knock out power to over 200,000 in Kentucky | Storms bring hurricane-force winds, knock out power for thousands | Utilities work to restore power in wake of thunderstorms | Severe weather hits central Illinois

Indianapolis avoids worst of weather

More rain for flooded Mid-Atlantic

From SpaceWeather.com: Awake at sunrise? Be sure to step outside and look east. Venus, the “morning star,” is absolutely brilliant. On Thursday morning, July 15th, it reaches maximum brightness for the rest of 2004.

And, in the world of webcams: Logitech’s video instant messaging in demand

Severe weather has moved across Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana and Michigan with large hail and wind gusts up to 60 to 90 mph.

From Illinois: Tornadoes Rip Through Woodford County

Storms Cause Tree Damage, Outages In Western Indiana

Heavy Rains Cause Flooding On East Coast | Philly area is taken by storm

Nebraska: Strong Storms Down Power Lines, Tree Limbs

And finally, where are the pelicans?

Warm weather recharges Alaska wildfires

Monday Storms Bring Tornado Sighted in Sandbridge and Flooding in Southeastern Portion of Virginia Beach

Heavy Rain In New Jersey Triggers Flood Watches, Warnings

Rain triggers severe flooding in Maryland

Idaho bakes: Daytime highs to hover near 102 by Wednesday

Canadian tornadoes: Two tornados touch down near Edmonton

Three tornados touch down in northern Wisconsin

Storms help, hurt firefighters in Arizona

North Dakota storms hit with heavy rain, hail

Florida man dies in lightning strike

Women help counties tune in to severe weather

Snow and heatwaves hit Europe, Romanian death toll climbs

From Canada: PEI storm knocks out power for about 500 residents

Question: Are your trees blowin’ in the wind?

Kids absorb weather facts (Registration required for this article)

Some Pelicans Mistaking Asphalt for Lakes

Cicadas Going Underground Until 2021

And finally, I saw the hilarious movie Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy in downtown Fort Worth this afternoon. I can’t confirm how accurate this flick is since I have only been working at television stations for the past six years, but I do know this: the movie is ridiculous, insane, and made me laugh out loud more than any other movie I can remember seeing. Another thing I know for sure is that the meteorologists are much, much brighter than this movie depicts…

Historic Hurricanes Tracked on NOAA Web Site. I’ve added this to the Hurricane section in the National/International page

Iowa Storms Bring Heavy Rain, Flash Flood Warning

And I thought the promised 500 cable channels sounded time-consuming: East Bay Technologies has released iTube! 1.1 which they call “the largest resource available for viewing Internet Television, with over 1500 channels of TV, Live Video Channels and Webcams, plus an Internet Video Search, with over 2 million videos.” Details

New System to Provide Better Weather Forecasts

National Weather Service names new CIO

U.K. crazy weather update: More weather misery expected

The Weather Channel(R) Encourages Fans to Become Part of the Team

Eye surgery affected by weather?

From Florida: Severe thunderstorms down trees, power lines

Today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day reminds me of the then “high tech” movie opening montage for HBO in the late ’70s/early ’80s. Direct image link here

And finally, we’re in a blue moon month

What was that bright light in the sky? My neighbor Kyle asked me this after seeing a bright light streak across the southern Texas sky around 9:20 p.m. CT. The Dallas-Fort Worth NBC station, KXAS-TV ended up getting calls and e-mails about the mysterious object. No worries: it was a fireball generated by a meteor, according to Chief Meteorologist David Finfrock.

‘July shocker’ weather to hit London | More coverage

Freak weather kills 41 people, injures 150 across China

Lexington, VA, City council wants national weather radar

And, in the world of weather business news: WeatherBug Expands Management Team and Infrastructure to Keep Pace with Continuing Growth

Yet, the company is dealing with something that is bugging them: WeatherBug fights the storm of spyware and adware

Nebraska Installs New Tourism and Weather Kiosks

The rain hit Fair St. Louis with a double whammy

Stormy South Carolina

Southeastern Michigan wonders where summer is: Odd weather puts summer on hold

And finally, I didn’t really want to do this (I don’t get a lot of comment posts in this blog anyway), but I have decided to switch to moderated comments. The reasons are two-fold: First, I have started receiving spam posts placed in weeks-old entries. Not a big fan of that, and with many educational facilities linking to my site at this point, links to gambling and adult sites are not welcome… Second, I’ve recently added advertising to the weblog, and my provider’s publisher policy states ads cannot be placed on a page where the Webmaster of the site doesn’t have total control. Without comments moderation, anything can be posted alongside the ads, which violates this rule. I check this board at least once a day, so your comments will make it in fairly quickly. Thanks for understanding!

Texas weather reporters honored

Thunderstorms continue to pound parts of Kansas

Weather slows Alaska fire

Saturn’s rings are today’s Astronomy Pic of the Day. Direct link

Astronauts succeed in risky spacewalk

And, the WXnation Fort Worth Webcam archive for June 2004 is now live, including these pics (click on them for double-sized images in a new window):

The complete WXnation Webcam archive is here

Happy Independence Day!
Live Fireworks from NYC at 9 p.m. ET, and other cities, including Philly, D.C., Boston and Seattle, via EarthCam.com

The EarthCam link is also in the NYC page, along with many, many other live cams. Have a happy 4th!

Flooding Reported In Parts Of Eastern Oklahoma, Western Arkansas

Former TV weatherman warms up to new job as police officer

Heavy rain hits Chicago-area Saturday. Details | Spring Flooding Leaves Towns Fighting For Aid

I am not ashamed to admit that I tune in to the Weather Channel on a regular basis. This weather site is a good reason, but I’ll even admit that I watched the Weather Channel with almost as much frequency years before I had this site. Now, for the second time, I have been compelled to buy a CD because of the music played on “Local on the 8′s.” The first time was about 10 years ago: Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons.” I especially liked “Summer I,” which always seemed to play when dangerous storms were moments from striking. This time around, I did some research after trying to find what turns out to be the song “Full Sail” and discovered many of the songs I like from the local forecast segment are from Ryan Farish. I’ve just purchased his new CD “Beautiful,” which features about five songs you’ve probably heard before if you watch TWC. It’s a great Electronic/Jazz/New Age album (samples of the songs are here), and can be found at Barnes & Noble, Borders, Wherehouse Music and Best Buy.

The Weather Channel’s Web site, weather.com has an extensive list of songs they have played in the local forecast segment going back to 1998.

Cooler Weather Helps Alaska Firefighters

Some areas seeing strong storms this afternoon include Chicago and Indianapolis

Weather in space now for all to see

From Alaska: What’s up with the weather?

In the world of webcams: I-94 Raceway in Sauk Centre, Minn., brings racing action to the entire world with the addition of the a live web cam on it’s official web site i94raceway.com. Race fans can now watch from the comfort of their own homes to see what is going on at Minnesota’s fastest growing racing facility.

And, a movie review! ‘Forces of Nature’ is best when weather is worst. Saw this at the Fort Worth Omni Theatre, and it wasn’t bad. We were sitting near the top, so it wasn’t the same effect as being in the middle of the theatre, but it was cool.

Finally, now that the year is half-way through, I have finally posted the Top 10 weather days that have produced the most page views to this site so far this year. The top storm so far is the winter storm that blanketed half of the U.S. in late January. See the complete list here