Archives

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched from Cape Canaveral at 12:34 p.m. today with more Starlink communications satellites aboard. I got a nice view from fairly close, though I used a GoPro to shoot a wide-angle video. It’s fun to see the mullets jumping out of the water as the roar rolls over the Banana River.

Eventually many thousands of Starlink satellites in low-earth orbit will provide internet service, though some worry about the visual pollution they are already creating in the night sky.

Whew! What a wild, wonderful, windy morning it was on the Indian River Lagoon today! With winds topping 30 mph, there were actually whitecaps on the waves, a rare occurrence around here.

The cool weather was also welcome, as I expect we’ll soon get into the summer heat, with no escape in sight for months.

The brisk weather was somehow soothing, and I shot a little video to capture these lovely conditions, which came in the wake of a cold front. It’s so relaxing to watch as the palm trees sway and the waves move and sparkle. Enjoy.

I was lucky tonight to see a couple of manatees grazing along the edge of the Indian River Lagoon in Rockledge, Florida, and stopped to shoot a little video. They really lived up to their nickname, “the gentle sea cow.” I don’t think I’ve ever seen them elbowing their way onto the rocks at the water’s edge to get their dinner, as you’ll see in this short video.

These creatures, listed as “vulnerable” because of the extreme pressure put on their population by humans, have had a rough time this year in the lagoon, with high numbers dying. I’m disheartened when I see so many lawns in neighborhoods near the river with signs declaring they’ve been treated with fertilizers and pesticides (and for children and pets not to walk on the treated lawns because they’re toxic). I mean, they’re not hiding it – customers are paying people to dump poison on their yards. All of these chemicals flush right into the lagoon, making manatees, dolphins and turtles sick and leading to the fish kills we occasionally see here.

There are such simple steps we can take to keep our natural wonders like the lagoon beautiful and healthy for us and the wildlife.

Here’s the video.
 

I do my best each spring to try to capture the magic that is night-blooming cereus. This cactus vine produces flowers that each bloom for just one night. The plant comes in various forms; the one climbing up our deck and a palm tree looks kind of like a snake the rest of the year.

Honeybees retire in the evening, so I’m not a hundred percent sure if those were the bees so excited about the pollen in the bloom I captured on video. The flower begins to open right at sunset, so there was still some light in the sky. I’d never seen anything like it in my time-lapses from previous years, and it was really amazing! Once it got dark, the bees went home, and the flower finished opening, still covered with ants and other insects.

May 18 was one of those chase days that was pleasantly low-pressure. Alethea Kontis and I chased with old friends, and we didn’t find any tornadoes, just beautiful storms from Alva to Enid, Oklahoma, culminating in amazing sunset colors in the turbulent clouds.

The time-lapse video is hypnotic, and I was delighted with the photo opportunities on the beautiful farm road where we wrapped up the chase as golds, oranges and blues roiled through the clouds.

Today was the first real chase day for Alethea Kontis and me in 2019. We’d driven out from Florida a couple of days before. It was Alethea’s second year of storm chasing, and she hadn’t seen a tornado yet. This day would deliver a beautiful one near McCook, Nebraska, that we saw from just south of Culbertson. At times it had a “Wizard of Oz” appearance. We met up with more chaser friends, and later that night, we saw a gorgeous lightning show from Lexington, Nebraska.

We drove about 450 miles this day – some of which was a large and frustrating circle. Pretty much par for the course on a storm chase.

Roll over the gallery images for more information about each photo, and click on a photo to see larger images.

I confess it … I’m hopelessly behind in updating the storm reports on ye olde Sky Diary website. But in the meantime, I’ve made my almost annual attempt to film night-blooming cereus flowers opening in a time-lapse. These huge, beautiful flowers bloom for just one night each from a cactus vine that looks kind of like a snake curling up a palm tree and the posts of our deck. Every spring, I look forward to these magnificent blooms in our neighborhood.

Check out the latest video below.

To see further (past) attempts at capturing these blooms, you can check out my YouTube channel.

I didn’t pursue the total solar eclipse, and so I had to find interesting ways to photograph the partial eclipse here in east-central Florida.

I decided to chase the eclipse in my backyard, so to speak, and although we were not in totality (about 84 percent), the effects were pretty cool.

Alethea Kontis and I went to the local planetarium first, then set up a few experiments at my house.

Roll over an image below to see its caption, and click on any photo below to start a slide show of larger images.

May 18, 2017, started with a “high risk” forecast issued by the Storm Prediction Center. I hate chasing high risks. I’ve had high-risk busts or missed fast-moving, violent wedges on high-risk days. I’ve never had a great high-risk chase.

At least today, Kathy Velasquez and I targeted northwest Oklahoma, broke the high-risk tornado curse and saw one near Waynoka. There were many pretty sights today, even if all of them were far too brief.

Roll over an image below to see its caption, and click on any photo below to start a slide show of larger images.

I’ve posted one more year-end video: Storms of 2016, consisting mostly of time-lapses of the incredible supercells and tornadoes I saw during my storm-chasing season in Tornado Alley. I doubt I’ll ever see another year like this one. The video is just over two minutes, accompanied by Very Dramatic Music. I hope you enjoy it.

In case you missed it, I previously posted a video slide show of my favorite storm photos from this year, too.