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distortions.net

I'm Ryan Mikulovsky. Tech geek. GIS pro. Avgeek. California Native plant gardener. All photos on this blog, unless stated otherwise, are mine. Cameras: Fujifilm X-T5 and X100V. Views are my own.

Weather

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    Geese & White Crowns are back. Soon as the weather stays cooler, I hope to be out at the refuges on weekends. And that should mean photos to share! 🤞

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    The temperatures are in the 70s and it is quite overcast with clouds and smoke. So we took advantage of the fall-like weather and went to Black Butte Reservoir. Here are Western Grebes, a Double Crested Cormorant, a Robin, and an Osprey A group of Western grebes swimming in a body of water. The image is taken from a distance, showing the long, curvy necked white and black birds spread out across the water’s surface. A cormorant flying low over a body of water with its wings outstretched. The water surface appears calm with gentle ripples, reflecting the bird’s silhouette. A red breasted Robin sits in a bush with red berries and green foliage. It has a speckled white and black face. An osprey, white and brown, is perched high on top of a utility pole surrounded by power lines. The background is a green orchard with some dry grasslands. Large trees with dark green foliage is visible on the left and right of the bird.

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    Monsoonal moisture is invading the Northern Sacramento Valley. There are high level clouds now. Normally the wet bulb starts decreasing at daylight. Not today. People living in the South would shrug at 70° wet bulb but for me, it’s borderline intolerable. #CAWx Screenshot of a weather data table from mesowest.utah.edu, showing observations for 07/13/2024 at various times from 5:50 AM to 9:50 AM PDT. The table includes columns for time, temperature, humidity and wet bulb. It shows temperatures going up as humidity goes up resulting in ever higher wet bulbs. At 09:50 it was 86° with a relative humidity of 47% and wet bulb of 70.5°F.

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    If you like Watch Duty, the free (!) iOS app Calamity goes beyond wildfires into major airport delays, bad weather, earthquakes, solar flares & more. A decently presented aggregation of publicly available information.https://apps.apple.com/us/app/calamity-disaster-monitor/id6477748950

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    Compared to my old Intel 16” MacBook Pro, this M3 14” MBP is dreamy. As everyone reports, the battery life is ridiculously good. 76% remains and still 20 hrs predicted life. Oh, and I can use this as a _lap_top. Amazing. Funny part? I didn’t notice the lack of a touchbar. 📷 #MBApr A laptop displaying a web page with weather content, including a map showing a weather forecast. The laptop keyboard and touchpad are also visible.

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    Death Valley Road Trip Part 6

    This is a slightly shorter post today for just Mosaic Canyon.

    Read More →

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    Yesterday I picked up our wine club box at the New Clairvaux winery in Vina, CA. Couldn’t beat the weather! #Fujifilm A vineyard with dormant grapevines supported by trellis systems, numbered sign “34” in the foreground, clear blue sky above. Bare tree branches against a clear blue sky, dotted with round, brown seedpods or growths. A row of red brick buildings with closed white doors reflected in a large puddle on a sunny day. A red barn with an open door beside a large tree, with green grass in the foreground and solar panels in the background under a clear blue sky.

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    If the sun can keep breaking through the clouds today, we may see some thunderstorms in the northern Sacramento Valley… looking promising for weather nerds #CaWx A backyard with gravel ground cover, leafless shrubs, a few young trees, and a metal garden shed. In the background, there’s a house with a carport. There is also garden equipment scattered around, heavy clouds above suggesting impending rain. Puddles of rain and roofs are bright as sunshine has broken through the clouds.

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    The weather has been so damp that there’s been hardly any good time to prune. Since we’re finally drying out a bit, I went ahead and pruned our cultivated native grapes.  Sunday should be the warmest day, so I will likely prune the fruit trees then.

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    Good morning from California, where Fall is finally reasserting itself.

    A backyard with a weather station and native plants. Early morning sunlight is reflecting off the bottoms of low clouds, resulting in a bright orange glow.
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    Happy new water year! According to WeatherCat software, my wx station recorded a total of 27.91” for Oct 1, 2022 - Sep 30, 2023 water year. Compare that to 13.66” for Oct 1, 2021 - Sep 30, 2022 water year! Nature gave us a 0.5” boost yesterday. I’m in the N. Sac Valley #CAWx

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    Weather was nice today! Summer is waning and so I guess outdoor photography season can begin. Here are a few dragonflies enjoying an overcast and hazy day. #Fujifilm

    An in-flight green dragon fly against a blue sky.A long view to the Northern California Coast range. It's a hazy and overcast day. Oaks and rolling golden hills are in front of some rugged mountains.Within a muddy area with green algae, a stick juts out and a red striped dragonfly rests at the stick's end. The insect has red patches at the ends of its transparent wings.

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    I managed to write an ugly Python script that converts MesoWest (via Synoptic download; nice people there btw) CSV weather data to WeatherCat (macOS software) data. I did some QAQC and it’s a good conversion. I’m pleased. Nice to finally have locally stored & accessible historical weather data.

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    “Potentially historic summer storm event to unfold in SoCal this weekend as weakening Hurricane Hilary threatens to move ashore as tropical storm–causing severe flood risk in SE desert region”

    weatherwest.com/archives/…

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    macOS WeatherCat and Meteobridge with any Supported Wx Station

    I figured out how to have WeatherCat work with my Meteobridge that connects to my Ambient weather station. Turns out it is easy to do with Meteobridge’s template system.

    In the WeatherCat Station Communications dialog, for Station Type select Generic XML (HTTP) and then enter your Meteobridge’s IP address appended with a URL encoded XML template...

    user:password@192.168.x.y/cgi-bin/template.cgi?%3Cvalue%3E%3Cname%3EAirTemp_C%3C%2Fname%3E%3Cdata%3E52%3C%2F[th0temp]%3E%3C%2Fvalue%3E%3Cvalue%3E%3Cname%3EIntTemp_C%3C%2Fname%3E%3Cdata%3E52%3C%2F[thb0temp-act]%3E%3C%2Fvalue%3E%3Cvalue%3E%3Cname%3ESolar%3C%2Fname%3E%3Cdata%3E52%3C%2F[sol0rad-act]%3E%3C%2Fvalue%3E%3Cvalue%3E%3Cname%3EUVIndex%3C%2Fname%3E%3Cdata%3E52%3C%2F[uv0index-act]%3E%3C%2Fvalue%3E%3Cvalue%3E%3Cname%3EBarometer_hPa%3C%2Fname%3E%3Cdata%3E52%3C%2F[thb0press-act]%3E%3C%2Fvalue%3E%3Cvalue%3E%3Cname%3EWindSpeed_ms%3C%2Fname%3E%3Cdata%3E52%3C%2F[wind0wind-act]%3E%3C%2Fvalue%3E%3Cvalue%3E%3Cname%3EWindDirect_deg%3C%2Fname%3E%3Cdata%3E52%3C%2F[wind0dir-act]%3E%3C%2Fvalue%3E%3Cvalue%3E%3Cname%3ERain_mm%3C%2Fname%3E%3Cdata%3E52%3C%2F[rain0total-act]%3E%3C%2Fvalue%3E%3Cvalue%3E%3Cname%3ERH%3C%2Fname%3E%3Cdata%3E52%3C%2F[th0hum-act]%3E%3C%2Fvalue%3E%3Cvalue%3E%3Cname%3EIntRH%3C%2Fname%3E%3Cdata%3E52%3C%2F[thb0hum-act]%3E%3C%2Fvalue%3E

     

    If you want more information on this XML format, see the WeatherCat 2.1 Change Log for the XML definition. For more information on building Meteobridge templates and the various possible values, see this page.

    I’d put this into the WeatherCat forums but I don’t feel like creating a new account right now.

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    Volunteer Sunflowers in the backyard. The scrub jays garden really well. I continue to be impressed with the new Fujifilm XApp for transferring photos from my X-T5. #Fujifilm #Sunflowers #BloomScrolling

    Two sun flowers, one at the bottom and nearby and one about 15 feet away. There’s vegetation surrounding the flowers and a weather station behind the forest Sunflower. The flowers are extremely yellow and well lit.A close up of a sunflower, brightly lit by the sun.

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    Perfect morning in California to cool the mass of the house off with our whole house fan. Normally it’s in the 90s this time of the year with lows in the high 60s and low 70s. Sorry for those in Texas though 😬 A Weather Strip iOS appweather chart that shows unusually cool June weather with lows in the 50s and highs in the low 70s and 80s.

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    We just hit 1 inch of rain today in the North Sacramento Valley. 😳

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    I juiced & pasteurized two liters worth of mandarins today. The mandarins still on the tree should hold quite a while longer even with the upcoming cold snap. #HomeOrchard #Fujifilm

    A backyard with a mandarin tree loaded with fruit and a Valencia tree. it's extremely green. Bark covers the ground and there's a weather station nearby.A counter covered in juicing equipment including a bowl full of rinds, a strainer sitting in a bowl, and very yellow juicer by Proctor Silex branded with Alex's Lemonade Stand.

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    In X-Plane 12.04 Beta 2 I’m following United 2376 (777-2, EWR-SFO) in an A340-6. I’m barely keeping up with the 777. There's some light chop just west of Laramie, which is reflected at BumpySkies.com. This latest XP beta improved weather greatly. More chores to do in cruise!

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