Yeraze's Domain 3.0

As happens every year, Spring is coming upon us.  For most of the US it’s a time of frolicking through meadows of freshly bloomed flowers and flying kites in the park.  For us in Mississippi, it’s a fight for survival and control of the skies as the giant yellow menace descends upon us: Pollen.

Folks arise in the morning to find their red trucks turned Green as the yellow pollen simply coats everything in sight with a miserable yellow powder that can send even the most hearty sinuses into clogged sneezing frenzies.  The putrid yellow powder doesn’t discriminate as it sends hundreds of Mississippians into sneezing and sniffling fits, and the Doctors rake in the dough as they prescribe antihistamine after antihistamine. 

Of course, I’m suffering through this as well.  I sit here at my desk constantly sniffling and coughing, woozy in a Dayquil-induced waking coma, barely aware of what’s going on around me.  I feel like my head is wrapped in a towel, barely able to breath and hardly awake.  It’s a miserable time, and it seems noone is immune.  To compound the problem this year, Mississippi is in a drought. If you don’t understand the signifigance, it means 2 things.  First, the rain does an excellent job of pulling the pollen from the air and sticking it back to the ground and trees where it belongs.  Second, it means that us citizens must not only ciontend with Pollen, but simple Dust as well. 

Hopefully the old Adage will come true and April Showers will bring May Flowers.
[tag:pollen][tag:drought]

The first atlantic storm of 2006.

[tag:weather][tag:hurricane][tag:2006]

I had hoped that I could say that Rita was no problem. For Laura & I, it really wasn’t. We got rain all weekend, but no damage. In fact, we kept power and cable all weekend, not even a flicker.

Unfortunately, Mississippi State University, my old home, wasn’t so lucky. A tornado spawned off by Tropical Depression Rita ripped through the campus and caused a pretty good bit of damage. Bad enough to cancel classes on Monday. I heard from some old friends that apparently alot of roofs are gone, and alot of trees are down.

At least nobody got hurt.

With Hurricane Rita heading in towards the keys, alot of people are worrying that New Orleans and the coast is in for another hit. But I got to wondering, if they’re already up to R then what names are left?

The National Hurricane Center has a list of 20 names, alternating male and female, that they use for hurricanes. 6 years worth even, but they retire & replace names linked to devastating storms. So what’s left for this year?

• Stan
• Tammy
• Vince
• Wilma

Hurricane Tammy? Guess it’ll bury us all in a few pounds of mascara as it sweeps across the land.

And Hurricane Wilma? That’ll ruin an entire TV generation there if it’s dangerous…

Hurricane Stan just sounds boring, so I doubt we’ll hear much of it. Hurricane Vince is a little more intimidating, but just because it sounds like it’s just as soon bust your kneecaps than flood your house.

And what happens if we use all 20 names this year? Well the NHC claims they’ll go greek: Hurricane Alpha, Hurricane Beta, etc.

Great.. now combination frat/hurricane parties…

So, I’m sure the big question on all your minds is “How did you weather Hurricane Katrina?”

Short answer: Pretty Well.

Longer Answer: It was still a mess.

For the full story, read the details inside…

Well, it seem Hurricane Katrina is looking to one-up Ivan from last year. On a nearly identical path, it’s set to run aground near New Orleans and plow right through Mississippi.

Of course, New Orleans has already started an evacuation, so that means I20 and maybe I55 will be packed all around Vicksburg and Jackson. And, of course, alot of people aren’t taking it seriously. I guess it’s a little of the “boy who cried wolf” after Ivan didn’t come, but with so much of Near Orleans below sea level, the storm surge alone is gonna do alot of damage. The wind & rain will do even more.

Guess I get to spend tonight cleaning out the rain gutters and preparing for the “week-o-rain”.

Well, Dennis has passed.. and rather quietly at that. Shame to think they went through all the trouble of bringing that sign and dropping it in my front yard, only to have to come and pick it up yesterday afternoon again. Oh well.

We hardly got any rain at all. Sunday was kinda spooky. Cloudy, windy, with a constant rumble and whistle in the background as the wind whipped through the trees. But hardly a drop of rain during the whole thing. Never lost power, never lost cable. Geez, I played Star Wars Galaxies through the entire thing. So much fuss about nothin.

Well, for anyone who’s been able to see past the recent tragedy in London, us here in the South have been carefully watching Hurricane Dennis. Surprisingly, the models this time are pretty convergent.

Last year in Miami, the models were always divergent, making prediction nigh impossible. But it looks like it’s pretty certainly gonna soak us here in Mississippi. And they claim that it’s going to make landfall as a Cat3.

This is gonna be worse than Ivan… Guess I get to spend today cleaning out the Rain Gutters in addition to cutting the grass.

So I start digging through email and such today, and wrap it all up by checking my blogline, and what do I find?

The

Well, I came home yesterday after a fun weekend with the folks in Meridian, and it was a nice pretty day. I came inside, cleaned up a bit, and opened some windows to let the place air out.

I sat down at the computer to do some gaming, and 20 minutes later a lightning flash lit up the room like a halogen lamp, and thunder shook the walls like an earthquake! I had to quickly shut all the windows again, and watched out the window as one of the heaviest rains I’ve seen since HurricaneIvan came through. Clinton was deluged for 20 minutes straight, including some nice marble-sized hail that I’m sure will keep the body shops in business.

I was afraid a window was gonna break the way everything was hitting it, but I hear we lucked out. Vicksburg had inch-sized hail (lots of damage here), and Louisiana had 4-inch size hail. That’s friggin baseballs from the sky!

And to think, if I had left Meridian 30 minutes later I would’ve been driving in it.