Spaced Out
Time is running out for Russia's Phobos/Grunt Mars Probe...the latest attempts to contact the spacecraft have failed. Contrary to what I posted Thursday, NASA did lend an ear after all before returning it's assets to full support of the Mars Space Laboratory launch.
Today I read that the European Space Agency had to pull back to support other duties. The Russians say that Phobos/Grunt's fuel tanks full of toxic fuel would likely burn up during reentry, now in February. Roscosmos continues to try to hail Phobos/Grunt, should they regain control, they probably will use that control to steer the probe into a safer reentry.
USSTRATCOM is tracking the probe now. Spaceflight 101 is keeping score.
Just in
Latest orbitals have Phobos/Grunt reentry on or about January 6, 2012
WinterWatch
@kcraFinan says we set Sacramento's record high for December 2nd. The winds that blew through yesterday went on to become hurricane strength Santa Ana Winds that tore up SoCal overnight. A second wave of NE Winds came to the High Sierra today with warmer temperatures ending the around-the-clock snowmaking hopes of the resorts.
It could be worse, witness the Austrian Alps that I caught on last night's 10 O'clock News:
The AFDs aren't exactly crowing about any pattern change in the next week. While snowmaking won't be producing around the clock this week, overnight temps will allow continued whittling on the To-Do Lists.
There is a "Silver Lining" however...Before dawn next Saturday December 10th, early risers on the West Coast of North America can see a Total Lunar Eclipse! At totality, The Moon will be almost setting in the West, so it's gonna look huge!
Why is this a "Silver Lining"? Because all these astronomical wonders are always obscured by clouds in My World! Usually it'll be snowing!
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Friday, December 2, 2011
Citizens Of The World!
We're all La Niña's Children now!
I noticed that the World Cup Ski Races in Val d'Isère scheduled for December 10-11, have been cancelled due to a lack of snow, and rescheduled for Tuesday-Thursday December 6-8 at Colorado's Beaver Creek.
@Liftopia linked a story about Swiss Ski Season's Start Stalled By Snow Shortage.
Here atop the High Sierra, we're woefully short on natural snow so far this season as well. Weather so far has not favored snowmaking, either. It's been the better part of two weeks now since the fans and guns ran around the clock. Wednesday I saw a couple of fans making snow at Boreal, but a look at Boreal's Webcam at 4PM showed they'd already shut down. My 2PM-ish view showed some wind...the snow looked like it was heading into the trees between trails. The nearby PWS showed peak wind gusts were into the 40mph-50mph range, on top of 18mph-20mph steady winds at the time. High Wind Warnings are up all night.
It's funny...after reading the AFDs from Reno for snowmaking, and Monterey/SFO for Tomales Bay Crab Fishing forecasts, I remembered my "new tool" for North American Precipitation Prediction, Europe-Asia Snow Cover. I wrote about it earlier in June. I took a look and a picture is worth a thousand words...
Today's picture shows Europe almost devoid of Snow Cover.
Last year looks a lot fatter...as was our early season snowpack.
Here they are side by side...
There's many more data points to look at but geez, NOAA doesn't make it easy to correlate all the different ocean oscillations that matter.
Big winds with cold temps finally visited the Tahoe Sierra Thursday, and snowmaking crews went to work. NOAA's Remote Data was impressive...big winds and diving temps. Ski season will begin in earnest sometime...sooner than later is my wish.
I noticed that the World Cup Ski Races in Val d'Isère scheduled for December 10-11, have been cancelled due to a lack of snow, and rescheduled for Tuesday-Thursday December 6-8 at Colorado's Beaver Creek.
@Liftopia linked a story about Swiss Ski Season's Start Stalled By Snow Shortage.
Here atop the High Sierra, we're woefully short on natural snow so far this season as well. Weather so far has not favored snowmaking, either. It's been the better part of two weeks now since the fans and guns ran around the clock. Wednesday I saw a couple of fans making snow at Boreal, but a look at Boreal's Webcam at 4PM showed they'd already shut down. My 2PM-ish view showed some wind...the snow looked like it was heading into the trees between trails. The nearby PWS showed peak wind gusts were into the 40mph-50mph range, on top of 18mph-20mph steady winds at the time. High Wind Warnings are up all night.
It's funny...after reading the AFDs from Reno for snowmaking, and Monterey/SFO for Tomales Bay Crab Fishing forecasts, I remembered my "new tool" for North American Precipitation Prediction, Europe-Asia Snow Cover. I wrote about it earlier in June. I took a look and a picture is worth a thousand words...
Today's picture shows Europe almost devoid of Snow Cover.
Here they are side by side...
Big winds with cold temps finally visited the Tahoe Sierra Thursday, and snowmaking crews went to work. NOAA's Remote Data was impressive...big winds and diving temps. Ski season will begin in earnest sometime...sooner than later is my wish.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Wind In the Lodgepoles
With the wind howling this afternoon, I didn't want to have the hood of my pickup up like a sail braving the gusts, so I grabbed my camera and headed up to Donner Summit to check on snowmaking conditions. I made a loop up Old Hwy 40, East from Soda Springs up I-80 to Boreal where I turned around and retraced my route back down to Truckee.
Donner Ski Ranch needs Mother Nature's help.
Looking across Old 40, Sugar Bowl shows some very scary glaze on Mt Disney. (All the bright patches are shiny ice crusted "pseudo boilerplate" that didn't show it's shine in the photo) This snowpack is mostly what remains of the October 6 storm, and hasn't been opened to skier traffic yet. This snow has frozen and thawed several times since and was rained on last weekend before refreezing Wednesday. New snow that falls atop this glaze is going to have lots of trouble adhering to it. It's will be a natural avalanche slab-fracture waiting to happen. There's plenty of snow blowing across the ridges here too...fresh manmade snow?
Soda Springs had a lot of windborne snow moving too, but the Sun's position was not cooperating with my photography mission.
Boreal had 50-60 cars in the parking lot, assuming that maybe 20- 25 were employees' or construction workers' cars, all but one patron must have been in the lodge/bar/ski shop. The Accelerator Quad that runs to the top was on Wind Hold, I saw the one slider riding on the Castle Peak Quad.
Again, the Sierra Nevada doing it's best Himalayan Impression. Those streams of snow famously blowing from the tops of the Himalayas are powered by The Jet Stream, our are just the damn wind!
I stopped to snap Donner Lake and the barren Carson Range featuring the nearly snowfree Mt Rose.
I snapped the original Lincoln Highway below the original US 40.
The sheep were all over Donner Lake's West End Beach...and all three miles to the eastern shore.
I must confess here that all these photos were made from the comfort of the driver's seat of the car. On a few shots, dust and sand were blowing into my face and the camera upon the wind which was a steady 35mph!
High Wind Warnings across the Tahoe Basin were more than some sand in the face for these surfers on Tahoe's West Shore. I swiped the photo from KTVU 2's weatherman Bill Martin's Facebook Page.
As I write at 8PM the power is still trying to go off as it has been for more than 24 hours. The ADF says the winds will subside to a dull roar Friday afternoon, before petering out Saturday.
Again, the Sierra Nevada doing it's best Himalayan Impression. Those streams of snow famously blowing from the tops of the Himalayas are powered by The Jet Stream, our are just the damn wind!
I must confess here that all these photos were made from the comfort of the driver's seat of the car. On a few shots, dust and sand were blowing into my face and the camera upon the wind which was a steady 35mph!
As I write at 8PM the power is still trying to go off as it has been for more than 24 hours. The ADF says the winds will subside to a dull roar Friday afternoon, before petering out Saturday.
Random Rambling
From the "No News Is Bad News" Department:
Controllers have had no luck communicating with Russia's Phobos/Grunt Mars Probe. The errant spacecraft is still trapped in it's Low Earth Orbit after it's rocket booster fail to fire sending the probe to the Red Planet. Roscosmos the Russian Space Agency has been playing it pretty close to the vest, so precious little news has been forthcoming.
Unofficially, the Ex-Commandant of the Russian Ballistic Missile Early Warning Radar System believes that the Alaska based, high powered research radar system, HAARP caused the probe to misfire. Mars Daily has the story.
Officially, Russian President Dmitry Medevedev sounded like he was channeling Joseph Stalin when he called for the punishment for those responsible for the recent spate of rocket crashes and space blunders. Medevedev is up for reelection in early December. SpaceflightNow has the full story.
The ESA is modifying their 15 meter Maspalomas dish antenna on the Canary Islands to have a better shot at talking to Phobos/Grunt. Missing in action are NASA's radio telescope arrays. It turns out that the Chinese satellite hitching a ride to Mars aboard Phobos/Grunt presents a roadblock to NASA helping out. US policy won't let NASA help China's space program.
Finally, UniverseToday weighs in on the Human Cost of Russia's Spaceflight Troubles
I was scanning Twitter this morning
when I saw @CorduroyPlanet mentioned in a tweet
by @LincolnHwyAssoc saying:@CorduroyPlanet blogs about the #LincolnHighway:lincolnhwy.org/news/?p=967
How cool is that? Dare I say...it made my heart twitter a little...
Skunked?
Not exactly skunked...for it to count you must first go fishing and catch no keepers. SturgeUrge and I had planned to hit Tomales Bay one more time Thursday, but the next under-performing cold front will usher in high winds, Small Craft Warnings and Gale Warnings from Wednesday afternoon through Friday. Officially we've Scratched the trip. Dang, I wanted to have another 3-4 day Dungeness Crabfest!
Controllers have had no luck communicating with Russia's Phobos/Grunt Mars Probe. The errant spacecraft is still trapped in it's Low Earth Orbit after it's rocket booster fail to fire sending the probe to the Red Planet. Roscosmos the Russian Space Agency has been playing it pretty close to the vest, so precious little news has been forthcoming.
Unofficially, the Ex-Commandant of the Russian Ballistic Missile Early Warning Radar System believes that the Alaska based, high powered research radar system, HAARP caused the probe to misfire. Mars Daily has the story.
Officially, Russian President Dmitry Medevedev sounded like he was channeling Joseph Stalin when he called for the punishment for those responsible for the recent spate of rocket crashes and space blunders. Medevedev is up for reelection in early December. SpaceflightNow has the full story.
The ESA is modifying their 15 meter Maspalomas dish antenna on the Canary Islands to have a better shot at talking to Phobos/Grunt. Missing in action are NASA's radio telescope arrays. It turns out that the Chinese satellite hitching a ride to Mars aboard Phobos/Grunt presents a roadblock to NASA helping out. US policy won't let NASA help China's space program.
Finally, UniverseToday weighs in on the Human Cost of Russia's Spaceflight Troubles
I was scanning Twitter this morning
when I saw @CorduroyPlanet mentioned in a tweet
by @LincolnHwyAssoc saying:
How cool is that? Dare I say...it made my heart twitter a little...
Not exactly skunked...for it to count you must first go fishing and catch no keepers. SturgeUrge and I had planned to hit Tomales Bay one more time Thursday, but the next under-performing cold front will usher in high winds, Small Craft Warnings and Gale Warnings from Wednesday afternoon through Friday. Officially we've Scratched the trip. Dang, I wanted to have another 3-4 day Dungeness Crabfest!
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Silly Seasons
I'm up early today enjoying the Formula One Finale from Brazil. I'm feeling mixed emotions actually, my favorite racer didn't win, but continued his record setting season...a season like Sebastain Vettel's only comes once in a career. His car betrayed him today, a knackered transmission caused him to back off early, eventually allowing teammate Mark Webber to gain the lead and the win. Still, this season, Vettel stood on the podium 17 times in 19 races, 11 times on the top step. Vettel and his Red Bull Racing Team dominated. The best driver in the best car is an irresistible combination.
In previous seasons this kind of domination would have spelled pure boredom, with the dominant car pulling away at the front of a virtual parade of also-rans. Not so this season! Rule changes and engineering wizardry combined to make this season so exciting...and record breaking. There was so much passing on the track this year! The numbers aren't in from today's race, but overtaking maneuvers numbered almost 1500 in the first 18 races! That's about 80 passes per race...a lot of overtaking for open wheel road racing!
After the checkered flag waved, my Tumblr exploded with F1 fans gushing over the phenomenal season, and F1 fans moaning that it's 112 days until the next F1 race in Australia on March 18, 2012
A silly story caught my eye before bed. From Geek-Tech site Lifehacker: Behold the DoItYourself Snowmaking Machine! This made me break out in a big old smile. Times may be better than the News would have you believe when folks might shell out $75 to give the front yard a proper Christmasy look! On the other hand, maybe the 9% unemployment rate is giving us a little too much time on our hands...
It seems many people ended up with too much time on their hands over the Thanksgiving Holiday Weekend. So many of you fended off the Post-Turkey Coma by reading this blog, my traffic doubled over the four days! Thank You All!
In previous seasons this kind of domination would have spelled pure boredom, with the dominant car pulling away at the front of a virtual parade of also-rans. Not so this season! Rule changes and engineering wizardry combined to make this season so exciting...and record breaking. There was so much passing on the track this year! The numbers aren't in from today's race, but overtaking maneuvers numbered almost 1500 in the first 18 races! That's about 80 passes per race...a lot of overtaking for open wheel road racing!
After the checkered flag waved, my Tumblr exploded with F1 fans gushing over the phenomenal season, and F1 fans moaning that it's 112 days until the next F1 race in Australia on March 18, 2012
It seems many people ended up with too much time on their hands over the Thanksgiving Holiday Weekend. So many of you fended off the Post-Turkey Coma by reading this blog, my traffic doubled over the four days! Thank You All!
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Up And Down
This can't be good...it's Saturday's 2:50AM PST AFD from NWS Reno:
DRY CONDITIONS WITH ABOVE NORMAL TEMPS WILL PREVAIL THRU THE REMAINDER OF THE HOLIDAY WEEKEND AS UPPER LEVEL RIDGE AXIS OVER WRN CA MOVES EAST ACROSS NV TODAY AND INTO THE ERN GREAT BASIN ON SUNDAY. AS 700 MB TEMPS SURGE FROM -1 C YESTERDAY TO +5 C BY THIS AFTERNOON THE MOST SUBSTANTIAL JUMP IN TEMPS WILL OCCUR IN HIGHER ELEVATIONS. MEANWHILE, LIGHT WINDS WITH LIMITED MIXING IN LOWER ELEVATIONS WILL YIELD A MORE MODEST RISE IN TEMPS COMPARED TO YESTERDAY. AREAS OF CIRRUS WILL RETURN TO PARTS OF ERN CA-WRN NV LATER TODAY AS THE RIDGE AXIS MOVES INTO CNTRL-ERN NV, BUT COVERAGE IS NOT EXPECTED TO BE THICK ENOUGH TO HAVE MUCH EFFECT ON TEMPS EITHER DAY THIS WEEKEND. WITH INCREASING SW FLOW ALOFT ON SUNDAY, THE INVERSION IS LIKELY TO BE WEAKER AND ALLOW FOR WARMER TEMPS IN VALLEY AREAS WHILE HIGH ELEVATION TEMPS LEVEL OFF. TEMPS IN MOST LOWER ELEVATIONS SHOULD CLIMB WELL INTO THE 60S ON SUNDAY.
ON MONDAY, THE RIDGE WILL FLATTEN IN RESPONSE TO A WEAK SHORTWAVE MOVING ACROSS THE NWRN US AND ADVANCING SOUTHEAST THRU THE GREAT BASIN. A BACK DOOR COLD FRONT WILL BRING TEMPS DOWN A FEW DEGREES COMPARED TO SUNDAY, BUT STILL WELL ABOVE LATE NOVEMBER NORMAL HIGHS WHICH ARE AROUND 50 DEGREES IN THE RENO AREA. MOISTURE WILL BE LIMITED TO A BAND OF LOW-MID CLOUDS JUST BEHIND THE COLD FRONT PASSAGE, WHICH IS EXPECTED TO BREAK UP BEFORE REACHING THE I-80 CORRIDOR. A FEW SPRINKLES MAY ACCOMPANY THIS FRONT PASSAGE FROM EXTREME NRN LASSEN COUNTY TO THE FAR NW CORNER OF NV MONDAY MORNING, BUT MEASURABLE PRECIP IS UNLIKELY SO WILL LEAVE OUT MENTION OF ANY SHOWERS SUN NIGHT OR MONDAY. MJD
The week ahead looks to be a down one for Sierra Resorts and Snowmakers. The Monterey/SFO AFD calls for mild not wild going forward, but not enough warming to qualify as a late "Indian Summer"...
Tahoe Sierra resorts need to make snow to stay open, but I fear the best they'll be able to do is hold the line...barely. There may not be enough snowmaking hours to replace the snow that melts daily...Fingers Crossed...
All Things Mars:
Somehow I missed the LIVE launch of NASA's latest Mars Mission, the Mars Science Laboratory. It roared into space atop a Saturn V rocket from Cape Canaveral Saturday at 7:02AM PST. I thought it was going up around 3PM...I must have gotten my launch times and launch windows confused...
Despite my MIA Status, MSL had a brilliant launch and left Earth's orbit, and is on course for Mars. If all goes as planned, MSL will touch down on Mars in mid-August 2012.
I love that the American Space Program brings cars along when NASA visits other worlds! Remember the Moon Buggy? The first car we sent to the Moon was a four wheel drive...Think 2-Seater Jeep with a satellite dish!
MSL is the size of an American SUV, one ton of nuclear powered, independent suspension, six wheel drive, science-doing machine with satellite dish! As an American 4X4 driver and satellite-o-phile, I couldn't be prouder...
Meanwhile back on Earth...
No contact has been made with Russia's errant Mars probe Phobos/Grunt. Ground observers report that Phobos/Grunt's orbit has stabilized so the chances of success for the next scheduled communication passes on Monday are improved.
I've found Twitter to be unrivaled in getting timely news of these spacecraft.
@PhB_Reentry will keep you up on Phobos/Grunt as it's orbit decays until it reenters in mid-January.
Russia's International News Agency RIA Novosti tweets as @riascience
@PhobosGrunt appears to be the "Official" P/G Twitter Account, charming for it's semi-butchering of the Queen's English
@ESA and @esaoperations are the European Space Agency's Twitter Streams. The ESA operates the communications outpost in Western Australia that's been "talking" to Phobos/Grunt
Here's the MSL-centric Twitter feeds that @CorduroyPlanet follows. I'll post new ones as I find them:
@MSL_101 is @SPACEFLIGHT101's MSL specific feed.
@MarsCuriosity is the probe's "Official" twitter account, from JPL I think.
That's it for business, now I can concentrate on the final weekend of the 2011 Formula One season! Thank you one and all for taking the time this holiday weekend to read CorduroyPlanet, you amaze me! Thanks so much.
12:20AM PST Sunday Update:
My look at the Remote Sensors shows temps holding at or above freezing since cooling from the afternoon highs in the high 50s to 60°F at the Snow Lab in Soda Springs. Humidity is up as has been the rule all week.
DRY CONDITIONS WITH ABOVE NORMAL TEMPS WILL PREVAIL THRU THE REMAINDER OF THE HOLIDAY WEEKEND AS UPPER LEVEL RIDGE AXIS OVER WRN CA MOVES EAST ACROSS NV TODAY AND INTO THE ERN GREAT BASIN ON SUNDAY. AS 700 MB TEMPS SURGE FROM -1 C YESTERDAY TO +5 C BY THIS AFTERNOON THE MOST SUBSTANTIAL JUMP IN TEMPS WILL OCCUR IN HIGHER ELEVATIONS. MEANWHILE, LIGHT WINDS WITH LIMITED MIXING IN LOWER ELEVATIONS WILL YIELD A MORE MODEST RISE IN TEMPS COMPARED TO YESTERDAY. AREAS OF CIRRUS WILL RETURN TO PARTS OF ERN CA-WRN NV LATER TODAY AS THE RIDGE AXIS MOVES INTO CNTRL-ERN NV, BUT COVERAGE IS NOT EXPECTED TO BE THICK ENOUGH TO HAVE MUCH EFFECT ON TEMPS EITHER DAY THIS WEEKEND. WITH INCREASING SW FLOW ALOFT ON SUNDAY, THE INVERSION IS LIKELY TO BE WEAKER AND ALLOW FOR WARMER TEMPS IN VALLEY AREAS WHILE HIGH ELEVATION TEMPS LEVEL OFF. TEMPS IN MOST LOWER ELEVATIONS SHOULD CLIMB WELL INTO THE 60S ON SUNDAY.
ON MONDAY, THE RIDGE WILL FLATTEN IN RESPONSE TO A WEAK SHORTWAVE MOVING ACROSS THE NWRN US AND ADVANCING SOUTHEAST THRU THE GREAT BASIN. A BACK DOOR COLD FRONT WILL BRING TEMPS DOWN A FEW DEGREES COMPARED TO SUNDAY, BUT STILL WELL ABOVE LATE NOVEMBER NORMAL HIGHS WHICH ARE AROUND 50 DEGREES IN THE RENO AREA. MOISTURE WILL BE LIMITED TO A BAND OF LOW-MID CLOUDS JUST BEHIND THE COLD FRONT PASSAGE, WHICH IS EXPECTED TO BREAK UP BEFORE REACHING THE I-80 CORRIDOR. A FEW SPRINKLES MAY ACCOMPANY THIS FRONT PASSAGE FROM EXTREME NRN LASSEN COUNTY TO THE FAR NW CORNER OF NV MONDAY MORNING, BUT MEASURABLE PRECIP IS UNLIKELY SO WILL LEAVE OUT MENTION OF ANY SHOWERS SUN NIGHT OR MONDAY. MJD
The week ahead looks to be a down one for Sierra Resorts and Snowmakers. The Monterey/SFO AFD calls for mild not wild going forward, but not enough warming to qualify as a late "Indian Summer"...
Tahoe Sierra resorts need to make snow to stay open, but I fear the best they'll be able to do is hold the line...barely. There may not be enough snowmaking hours to replace the snow that melts daily...Fingers Crossed...
All Things Mars:
Somehow I missed the LIVE launch of NASA's latest Mars Mission, the Mars Science Laboratory. It roared into space atop a Saturn V rocket from Cape Canaveral Saturday at 7:02AM PST. I thought it was going up around 3PM...I must have gotten my launch times and launch windows confused...
Despite my MIA Status, MSL had a brilliant launch and left Earth's orbit, and is on course for Mars. If all goes as planned, MSL will touch down on Mars in mid-August 2012.
I love that the American Space Program brings cars along when NASA visits other worlds! Remember the Moon Buggy? The first car we sent to the Moon was a four wheel drive...Think 2-Seater Jeep with a satellite dish!
MSL is the size of an American SUV, one ton of nuclear powered, independent suspension, six wheel drive, science-doing machine with satellite dish! As an American 4X4 driver and satellite-o-phile, I couldn't be prouder...
Meanwhile back on Earth...
No contact has been made with Russia's errant Mars probe Phobos/Grunt. Ground observers report that Phobos/Grunt's orbit has stabilized so the chances of success for the next scheduled communication passes on Monday are improved.
I've found Twitter to be unrivaled in getting timely news of these spacecraft.
@PhB_Reentry will keep you up on Phobos/Grunt as it's orbit decays until it reenters in mid-January.
Russia's International News Agency RIA Novosti tweets as @riascience
@PhobosGrunt appears to be the "Official" P/G Twitter Account, charming for it's semi-butchering of the Queen's English
@ESA and @esaoperations are the European Space Agency's Twitter Streams. The ESA operates the communications outpost in Western Australia that's been "talking" to Phobos/Grunt
Here's the MSL-centric Twitter feeds that @CorduroyPlanet follows. I'll post new ones as I find them:
@MSL_101 is @SPACEFLIGHT101's MSL specific feed.
@MarsCuriosity is the probe's "Official" twitter account, from JPL I think.
That's it for business, now I can concentrate on the final weekend of the 2011 Formula One season! Thank you one and all for taking the time this holiday weekend to read CorduroyPlanet, you amaze me! Thanks so much.
12:20AM PST Sunday Update:
My look at the Remote Sensors shows temps holding at or above freezing since cooling from the afternoon highs in the high 50s to 60°F at the Snow Lab in Soda Springs. Humidity is up as has been the rule all week.
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