Comings, and goings

The summer has set in fully. Meteorologically, we're experiencing maximum temperatures approaching 90F daily, with dew point temperatures over 70F and southeast surface winds. Each afternoon has had ample cumulus convection, sometimes precipitating, and it's been over a week now since we had a real front come through. The calendar has also flipped to summer, as today (22 June) is the first full day of summer - and also the day with the most light. Fortunately we'll not loose too many minutes for the next few weeks, but as we head to late August & September, the days will get shorter very quickly.

I'm headed to NYC this weekend, spending time hanging out with the Puluc family - Jose, Casimiro, and Factor's cousins - in West New Jersey (that's where we're staying), and heading into the city on Saturday. Should be fun, and we're all pretty low maintenance (I'm probably the neediest of the group!), so whatever we do (standing in line, riding the subway, just walking around) will be memorable and worth it.

After NY, it's back to Annapolis to celebrate the 4th of July, then headed to North Carolina for the annual Barrett beach vacation. From there, it's to Los Angeles for the AMS Mesoscale Conference (at the airport Marriott- could they have picked a worse place to house us? Ugh!) then on to the COMET satellite course in Boulder. By the time I get back it'll be mid-August, only 10 or so days before the start of fall semester classes.

Should be a full summer of comings and goings!

End of the semester: a backyard storm chase and last Cru of the year

Jodi and I drove west to intercept storms on the 27 April outbreak (the LWX CWA had two dozen tornadoes, fortunately none of them were violent). One supercell moved across the Potomac and had reportedly produced a tornado in Quantico, VA (and ended up producing another in Camp Springs at Andrews AFB). We intercepted it south-southeast of Bowie and chased it for about 5 miles before letting it go off to our NE. The other pictures are of the last Crusade of the semester.

Some pictures from the road- SWIFT 2011

We left Annapolis Fri 13 May and returned Fri 27 May. Here are just a few pictures from the road, of good friends and some food!

En Baltimore quedamos parte del día

Today Casimiro, Factor, Jose Luis, Adelpho, and I went to downtown Baltimore to walk around, see the harbor area, and generally have a good time. The sky was cloudy most of the morning, making for nice walking weather. We went up Federal Hill, craked jokes as we walked past some of the sky scrapers, admired the street performers, and took in the sights of the harbor. It was a nice, short trip, exactly the kind I think we all enjoy: get in, see some cool stuff, and get back out again. Here are a few pictures, mostly taken by Jose. We came back to Annapolis and ate the Chinese buffet as a reward for all our walking.

A la montaña fuimos

Back on 01 May, Jose Luis, Factor, and I went on a day hike in the Shenandoah National Park, specifically to Old Rag Mountain. We'd been there before, late summer 2009, and had been trying to go back every since. Besides being rainy, overcast, and quite cold for a mid-spring day, we still had fun. Here are some pictures of our summit hike: it took us about 4.5 hrs round-trip, up the Old Rag trail then back down Weakley Hollow fire road.