Expedition 5280: Check out the new photos at the bottom

Saturday, August 4, 2007

Check out the new photos at the bottom

I haven't had time to write, but I have added some new photos with brief explanations at the bottom of this page. Scroll down for fun:)

3 comments:

a cheerful teacher said...: Wow! The sky there IS dramatic! It is definitely beautiful. Ours has been the usual brown...
I'm glad to see you are biking so much! I haven't ridden since Mon., but I plan to go out tomorrow. I miss you!; August 4, 2007 at 11:19 PM
Tamara Walton said...: oooh, like the photos!; August 5, 2007 at 9:00 PM
gavin said...: hey guys...it's great to see the pics from the new place and to hear that you are loving it so much.

talk to you soon; August 7, 2007 at 10:26 PM

A Recent Rare Phenomenon

Last night we were at a local coffee shop with some friends. While sitting by the widow, we noticed that it had unexpectedly begun snowing. A few minutes later we all looked up to notice bright flashes, similar to that from a camera flash reflecting in the window. Since you never see lightning (or hear thunder) during a snow storm we all looked around for the abnoxiously bright flash from someones camera. It was nowhere to be found. Next thing we hear the boom of thunder and immediately car alarms start sounding. At this point we all look outside to see what looks like hail....but its not. It is simply pea sized snowballs that are falling like rocks from the sky. Needless to say, this was the first time any of us had experienced anything like this. The snowballs were not hard but soft...just like snow. The lightning and thunder continued for a while longer, as most everyone who was in the coffee shop either was glued to the windows or went outside for closer inspection. Bethany, who was sitting with our group, said that she had heard something like this happening before and said it was called a "thundersnow storm". Well, it is a true and rare event that is even more rare in a "land locked" state like Colorado. Here is the local newspaper headline from the Rocky Mountain News: "We were enjoying the lights, sights and sounds of a thundersnow that rolled through downtown around 9:30 p.m. And, we didn't make up that word thundersnow, either. It's a real, but rare phenomenon (and very rare in landlocked Colorado), according to a quickie Google search. In the simplest of terms, cold air meets warm air. As those two air masses interact, it causes friction, or a convection (up- and-down movement of air), which if violent enough, can cause lightning and thunder".

If you are still interested, check out the Wikipedia article for it : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thundersnow