July 24-25: Some Relief Northern USA (3 weather apps that may just save your life)

Best Smartphone Weather Warning Apps. Subjective? You bet. Could one of these apps save your life? Absolutely. I've tested a couple hundred weather apps so you don't have to waste your money. Below I have a list of what I consider to be the 3 best, must-have apps for your smartphone. These apps are revolutionizing the way consumers get time-sensitive, potentially life-saving weather warnings. Check below for more details.

"In April and May, it was 'all weather, all the time'," Fishman said. The tornadoes and hailstorms "were unprecedented in their size, scope, geographic dispersion and destructiveness." - article below on record insurance losses this year from insurancenewsnet.com.

Grilled or Broiled? Some relief is likely from New England across the Great Lakes into the Upper Midwest, but much of America will continue to fry today. A heat index well above 100 is likely from Washington D.C. to St. Louis, Memphis, Dallas and most of the southern USA.

Minnesota's Campgrounds: Sitting Ducks. There are thousands of campgrounds across the USA that are vulnerable to severe weather, high winds and tornadoes. Many of these campgrounds don't have:

 

1). Access to sirens. Yearround and weekend campers/visitors are too far away from a working siren for this to be a viable option.

2). Not enough (concrete/steel) reinforced shelters within a 2-5 minute dash of each campsite. In some cases bathrooms or "comfort stations" can work if a severe storm is approaching, but there's no way to cram hundreds of campers into one bathroom.

3). No NOAA weather radio. This is just asking for trouble, a huge potential legal liability. NOAA Weather Radio is the ONLY device (other than an app on your smartphone) that will wake you up at 2 am if a tornado warning is issued for your county. Weekend campers may not even realize what county they're in - potentially oblivious to dangerous weather moving their way.

A Heightened Risk. Is it going to take a major disaster, scores of dead campers, to get some of these campgrounds off the dime to upgrade and reinforce their shelters and warning systems - so the campers they serve know when severe weather is moving in, and have time to protect their families? I hope not, but I fear that's the case. Congress is enacting legislation to insure that every mobile home has a NOAA Weather Radio. They should do the same thing for campgrounds (as well as schools, nursing homes, hospitals and retirement communities). NOAA Weather Radio is a critical safety net, the cheapest life insurance you'll ever buy. (photo above courtesy of voicenews.com).

Here in Minnesota police officers describe a "metro mentality", city residents come north to escape, to get away and enjoy the lakes. They believe (wrongly) that the level of weather and storm preparedness Up North is equivalent to what it is in the metropolitan areas of Chicago, the Twin Cities, Milwaukee or Des Moines. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Siren coverage is spotty, and many campgrounds haven't spent the money to "storm-proof" their campsites. This is an accident waiting to happen.

Here are a few steps you can take the next time you take the family camping, either at a campground, or roughing it out in the backwoods:

1). Take a portable NOAA Weather Radio. The First Alert portable NOAA Weather Radio above costs a whopping $31, and it could save your life .With a little digging you can find portable, hand-held NOAA Weather Radios that should work in rural areas, even the North Woods. Here's a good list of other portable options, thanks to Google. It's true that signal reception can be a problem, but I always camp with a portable NOAA Weather Radio. I may be a weather geek, but I want to live to tell my grandkids about my camping adventures!

2). Situational Awareness. Any good camper can read the sky and (on some level) know if a severe storm is brewing. High humidity, a southeast breeze, building clouds are all tip-offs that storms may be brewing. Wherever you are, hiking, camping, enjoying the outdoors, always have an "escape route" in the back of your mind. Where could you seek shelter if skies turn threatening? Under a rocky overhang, a nearby store or lodge? With a little planning and a Boy Scout "be prepared" mindset you can lower the risk of disaster by thinking and planning ahead.

3). Smartphone apps. This is where the real revolution is taking place in warning technology. There are some terrific apps out there for getting the time-sensitive information you need to stay ahead of the storm. They cost a few bucks, but think of it as another form of life insurance. My company, WeatherNation, offers warning solutions for major corporations, but there are some great options (that aren't in any way related to my business) that can be personalized for the locations you care about, even your real-time GPS location. They're worth every penny:

a). RadarScope. Price: $9.99 (and worth every penny). You'll agree the first time it saves your butt. In my humble opinion this is still the best pure-play radar app. It works anywhere in the USA (you can get a data signal - which can be problematic for parts of the western USA away from cell towers). Click on any NWS Doppler site and see high resolution Doppler radar, an animated loop, hail detection, velocity fields (to see if a storm is rotating and capable of generating a tornado), even storm rainfall estimates - great for determining the risk of flash flooding, which can be VERY important if you've just pitched a tent next to a babbling brook, which might be tranformed into a raging, muddy torrent if 6" of rain falls 20 miles up the road. More details from RadarScope:

"RadarScope is a specialized display utility for weather enthusiasts and meteorologists that allows you view NEXRAD Level 3 radar data along with our most requested new feature, Tornado, Severe Thunderstorm, and Flash Flood Warnings issued by the National Weather Service. It can display the latest reflectivity, velocity, and other products from any NEXRAD radar site in the United States, Guam and Puerto Rico. These aren't smoothed PNG or GIF images, this is real Level 3 radar data rendered in its original radial format for a high level of detail.

This version *now includes* support for Hawaii, Alaska, and Guam!

Whether you are scanning reflectivity for a mesocyclone's tell-tale hook echo, trying to pinpoint the landfall of a hurricane's eye wall, or looking for small features like velocity couplets in the storm relative radial velocity product, only RadarScope gives you the power to view true radial NEXRAD weather radar on your iPhone or iPod touch.

When there are any Tornado Warnings (outlined in RED), Severe Thunderstorm Warnings (YELLOW polygons), or Flash Flood Warnings (GREEN polygons) in effect throughout the US, tap the warning button in the top right corner to browse the list of current warnings, view the details, and even zoom to the selected warning on the map".

b). My-Cast. Price: $2.99 (no, I don't get a commission). My last company (Digital Cyclone) was sold to Garmin, and they have what I still consider to be the best warning app on the planet. I'm a little biased, yes, but I've tested scores of weather apps and I still think My-Cast Weather Radar, created by Digital Cyclone, is the best overall app for getting storm warnings. You can even set it up to give you "lightning alerts" (if lightning strikes within 20 miles of your location you get an SMS alert, telling you precisely how far away it was, and what direction the strike was). More details:

"The award-winning My-Cast app delivers comprehensive yet intuitive weather information specifically for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Un-cluttered base maps display animated radar, clouds and StormWatch severe weather alerts allowing effortless interpretation of how the weather affects your day. As you check out the current weather, you may see drifting clouds or falling rain as My-Cast's distinctive weather themes come to life. Whether you are interested in weather for today, tomorrow or next week, My-Cast has you covered. When severe weather strikes, My-Cast transmits the latest alerts direct from the National Weather Service.

• Real-time, animated radar
• Weather Map with conditions, temperatures, dew points, wind direction and wind speed overlays
• Animated Visible and Infrared Clouds
• Interactive StormWatch map with National Weather Service alerts
• Complete severe weather warnings, watches, and advisory alert text
• 7-day forecast with high/low temperatures and chance of precipitation
• Hourly forecast with temps, wind speed/direction and chance of precipitation
• Forecast graph including past, present and forecast wind, dew point, temperature, and sky conditions
• Save your favorite and recently viewed locations for anywhere in the U.S.
• Shake for live data refresh
• One-button push for GPS positioning
• No ads!"

c). Weather Radio. Price: $1. This is another app that sends out real-time warnings, only this one follows the SMS warning with a real-time stream from the local NWS office, so you can hear the latest warnings in audio form, providing another welcome level of detail. More details on Weather Radio:
"Listen to over 170 scanner radio stations providing access to NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards (NWR) broadcasts. NWR is a nationwide network of radio stations broadcasting continuous weather information. NWR broadcasts official Weather Service warnings, watches, forecasts and other hazard information 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Weather Radio comes with Twitter & Facebook support: tell your friends what station you're listening to, "live", without stopping your audio to invoke an external Twitter or Facebook client! Weather Radio allows users to select from NWR audio streams by State-City, or add your favorite stream."

* all 3 apps are available on iTunes. Some of these may be available for Android and Blackberry as well. It's well worth your time to look into this and download these onto your phone, set up your favorite locations (home, work, cabin, beach, etc) and see how they can give you the information you need to make smarter decisions, and keep your family out of storm-related trouble.

North Woods "Supercell". My thanks to Jason Rieber, a police officer in Breezy Point, and an ardent weather enthusiast, for passing along this time-sequence of the severe "supercell" thunderstorm that drifted across the Brainerd Lakes area on June 17, 2010. This was the same storm that dropped a deadly EF-4 tornado on Wadena about an hour earlier. You can see a well-developed, rotating wall cloud - another tornado could have touched down at any moment as the cell drifted over Breezy Point on its way to Mission and Crosslake. An amazing sight - not what you expect to see in the North Woods of Minnesota. But it underscores my point: EVERY community needs a storm action plan. How can local residents (and weekend campers) get the word of an impending storm or tornado? How can they be better prepared? Do local cities and municipalities have plans in place to deal with the aftermath of a severe storm? Just getting to storm survivors would be non-trivial, with trees blocking roads, and emergency responders focused on neutralizing propane explosions, it could be HOURS before EMT's reach storm survivors. Nobody wants to think about a worst-case-scenario, but somebody needs to be thinking about how to deal with a Wadena or Joplin-like tornado scenario. It's not your imagination: we're seeing more extreme storms (113 tornadoes in MInnesota last year), and larger, meaner tornadoes farther north than ever. "It can't happen here!" Think again. Is your community - is your family - prepared for the worst? When you head north for the weekend assume nothing - you are responsible for the safety and welfare of your family and neighbors nearby. Local communities are stretched - and they may not be able to show up in the immediate aftermath of a major storm. Draft an action plan - make sure your kids (and parents or grandparents) know what to do - where to go, if a severe storm threatens. Statistically, it's only a matter of time.

Saturday Records Across The USA (it's a long list - thanks to Chad Merrill from EarthNetworks for forwarding these to me):

CITY            MAX TEMP        MAX HEAT INDEX

RICHMOND VA        101              109

NORFOLK VA         103              113

NEWPORT NEWS VA    101              111

WAKEFIELD VA       101              107

WALLOPS ISLAND VA   99              112

SALISBURY MD       103              116

OCEAN CITY MD      100              119

ELIZABETH CITY NC   99              112

...RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE SET AT BALTIMORE MD...

THE HIGH TEMPERATURE OF 102 DEGREES AT BALTIMORE MD TODAY TIES THE

OLD RECORD OF 102 DEGREES LAST SET IN 1991.

...RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE SET AT NORFOLK VA...

THE HIGH TEMPERATURE OF 103 DEGREES OCCURRED AT NORFOLK VA TODAY.

THIS TIES THE OLD RECORD OF 103 SET IN 1952.

.RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE SET AT WASHINGTON DULLES DC...

THE HIGH TEMPERATURE OF 99 DEGREES AT WASHINGTON DULLES DC TODAY

TIES THE OLD RECORD OF 99 SET IN 1991.

...RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE SET AT WASHINGTON NATIONAL DC...

 A RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE OF 102 DEGREES WAS SET AT WASHINGTON

NATIONAL AIRPORT IN DC TODAY. THIS BREAKS THE OLD RECORD OF 101 SET

IN 1991.

...RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE SET AT TRENTON NJ...

A RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE OF 104 DEGREES WAS SET AT TRENTON NJ

TODAY. THIS BREAKS THE OLD RECORD OF 99 SET IN 1991.

...RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE SET AT READING PA...

A RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE OF 100 DEGREES WAS SET AT READING PA

TODAY. THIS BREAKS THE OLD RECORD OF 99 SET IN 1955.

...RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE SET AT PHILADELPHIA PA...

A RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE OF 101 DEGREES WAS SET AT PHILADELPHIA PA

TODAY. THIS BREAKS THE OLD RECORD OF 99 SET IN 1991.

...RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE SET AT WILMINGTON DE...

A RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE OF 100 DEGREES WAS SET AT WILMINGTON DE

TODAY. THIS BREAKS THE OLD RECORD OF 99 SET IN 1991.

...RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE SET AT ATLANTIC CITY NJ...

A RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE OF 105 DEGREES WAS SET AT ATLANTIC CITY NJ

TODAY. THIS BREAKS THE OLD RECORD OF 100 SET IN 1991.

...RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE SET AT GEORGETOWN DE...

A RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE OF 104 DEGREES WAS SET AT GEORGETOWN DE

TODAY. THIS BREAKS THE OLD RECORD OF 101 SET IN 1952.

...RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE SET TODAY AT CENTRAL PARK NY...

...HISTORIC HEAT ON FRIDAY AT CENTRAL PARK NY...

A RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE OF 100 DEGREES WAS SET AT CENTRAL PARK NY

TODAY. THIS BREAKS THE OLD RECORD OF 99 SET IN 1991.

ON FRIDAY...SEVERAL HEAT RELATED RECORDS WERE ALSO SET. A RECORD

HIGH TEMPERATURE OF 104 DEGREES WAS SET...WHICH BROKE THE OLD RECORD

OF 101 FOR THAT DATE SET IN 1957...AND TIED THE SECOND HIGHEST DAILY

HIGH TEMPERATURE ON RECORD...WHICH WAS ALSO REACHED ON JULY 21 1977

AND AUGUST 7 1918. THE HIGHEST DAILY HIGH TEMPERATURE FOR CENTRAL

PARK REMAINS AT 106 DEGREES...SET ON JULY 9 1936.

A RECORD HIGH MINIMUM TEMPERATURE OF 84 DEGREES WAS ALSO SET AT THE

PARK ON FRIDAY. THIS BROKE THE OLD RECORD OF 80 FOR THAT DATE SET IN

1957...AND TIED THE HIGHEST DAILY HIGH MINIMUM TEMPERATURE ON RECORD

FOR THE PARK...WHICH WAS LAST REACHED ON JULY 15 1995.

THE DAILY AVERAGE TEMPERATURE OF 94 AT THE PARK ON FRIDAY MAY ALSO

BE THE HIGHEST DAILY AVERAGE ON RECORD...BUT THESE STATISTICS ARE

NOT KEPT OFFICIALLY.

...RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE SET AT ISLIP NY...

 A RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE OF 97 DEGREES WAS SET AT ISLIP NY TODAY.

THIS BREAKS THE OLD RECORD OF 95 SET IN 1991.

...RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE SET AT KENNEDY NY.. 

 A RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE OF 102 DEGREES WAS SET AT KENNEDY NY TODAY.

THIS BREAKS THE OLD RECORD OF 100 SET IN 1972.

...RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE SET AT NEWARK NJ...

A RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE OF 102 DEGREES WAS SET AT NEWARK NJ

TODAY. THIS BREAKS THE OLD RECORD OF 100 SET IN 1955.  

Friday High Temperatures. Hot Weather Factoids:

• Consolidated Edison said Friday power use in the New York City area set a preliminary record of 13,189 megawatts as a strong heatwave continued to crank up air conditioning. The record barely eclipsed the previous high of 13,141 MW set in August 2006 before the economic recession weakened demand.

• A stubborn, stifling heat wave that has gripped much of the region for the past week spurred a new record for peak power demand early Friday afternoon from PPL Electric Utilities customers (Penn). The new mark at 7,622 megawatts tops the company's all-time high for summer peak demand of 7,554 megawatts set in 2006, as well as the all-time winter peak of 7,577 megawatts set in 2007.
• To the south, the PJM Interconnection, a regional transmission organization serving 13 states.

• Including New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia, set a new record Thursday for peak power use at 5 p.m., when demand hit 158,450 megawatts. A megawatt is enough electricity to power about 750 to 1,000 homes at any one moment. The grid operator in the Midwest said the region set a new record for peak power demand on Wednesday.

Friday Records. In all 507 records were broken, most of them for daytime highs or record-warm nighttime lows. Click here for an interactive map from Ham Weather.

More Records: (how much time to you have?)

Record Heat

Austin, TX 104
Baltimore, MD 102
Washington D.C. 102
North Little Rock, AR 100
Trenton, NJ 104
Reading, PA 100
Philadelphia, PA 101
Wilmngton, DE 100
Atlantic City, NJ 105
Georgetown, DE 104
Shreveport, LA 102
Joplin, MO 105
Topeka, KS 106
Central Park, NY 100
Islip, NY 97
Kennedy, NY 102
Northfolk, VA 103
Salisbury, MD  103
RECORD RAIN

Dickinson, ND 1.41”
Chicago, IL 6.86”
Jackson, MS 1.60” ***still raining
RECORD LOWS

Burns, ID 37
Butte, MT 35
Meacham, OR 31
Seattle, WA 50

Heatwave? Heat "Dome"? "Heat Bubble?" Whatever You Call It - It's HOT! The New York Times has an interesting story about meteorological terminology, and some of the arcane descriptive terms being tossed around: “Everybody talks about the weather, but I guess TV meteorologists have to do it more cleverly,” said Jay Trobec, a weatherman at KELO-TV in Sioux Falls, S.D., as he sought to explain why the phrase “heat dome” is suddenly being heard and seen everywhere.  “I could call it Heatmageddon, but we just had Carmageddon,” he added, referring to last weekend’s freeway closing in Los Angeles. Heat dome — the condition tormenting the middle and eastern parts of the country this week — is not a standard scientific label, but it has been used sporadically over the years to describe sprawling high-pressure systems in the mid- to upper atmosphere that push warming air to the surface and hold it there. Mr. Trobec said that because the impact on local farmers and ranchers had been so severe, he has personally avoided colloquialisms to describe the weather, simply calling it a “long, intense heat spell.”

More Details On Record Flash Flooding In Chicago:

* AS OF 6 AM CDT...CHICAGO OHARE AIRPORT HAS MEASURED 6.85 INCHES OF
RAINFALL.
* 6.91 inches of rain fell between 1 and 7am CT on Saturday morning. Wettest day on record in the city. 8.20 inches of rain has fallen during the past 24 hours.
*CHICAGO'S O'Hare Airport measured 6.78" of rain between 12:51 a.m. and 3:51 a.m. today. That pushes CHI into one of its top 7 wettest Julys.
NOAA STATEMENT: AT 557 AM CDT...NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR INDICATED
SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORMS HAVE SINCE EXITED THE WARNED AREA.
HOWEVER...ADDITIONAL THUNDERSTORMS OVER WESTERN AND NORTH CENTRAL
ILLINOIS MAY MOVE ACROSS NORTHEAST ILLINOIS LATER THIS MORNING
PROVIDING ADDITIONAL RAINFALL TO AREAS WHICH HAVE RECEIVED BETWEEN
FOUR AND SEVEN INCHES.
DUE TO THESE HIGH RAINFALL TOTALS...RAPID RISES HAVE OCCURRED ON
MANY RIVERS AND CREEKS IN THE WARNED AREA...AND MAY RISE ABOVE FLOOD
STAGE AS RUNOFF FROM HEAVY RAIN CONTINUES TO DRAIN INTO THE
WATERWAYS...INCLUDING THE NORTH BRANCH OF THE CHICAGO RIVER...THE
DES PLAINES RIVER...THE SKOKIE RIVER AND WELLER CREEK.
WIDESPREAD AND SIGNIFICANT FLOODING HAS BEEN REPORTED IN THE CITY
OF CHICAGO WITH CARS STUCK IN FLOOD WATERS ON CHICAGO AVENUE AND
THE OHIO STREET RAMP TO INTERSTATE 94 WAS CLOSED. MANY VIADUCTS
HAVE ALSO BEEN FLOODED. ALSO..BOTH IN BOUNDS AND OUT BOUNDS OF
INTERSTATE 190 INTO OHARE HAVE BEEN CLOSED DUE TO FLOODED WATERS.
From earlier this morning: MAJOR FLOODING FORCED CLOSURE OF ALL LANES OF I-94... THE DAN RYAN EXPRESSWAY...IN BOTH DIRECTIONS AT 87TH STREET AND NORTHBOUND AT 67TH STREET.

Tropical Downpours. Check out NWS Doppler radar rainfall estimates from Friday's torrential rains. A train-echo effect was observed: much like the cars in a train pass over the same section of track, Friday storms kept redeveloping and passing over thesame counties, from eastern Iowa into northern Illinois. The result: some 3-6" rainfall amounts, more than a month's worth of rain falling in one 24 hour period.

Serious Flash Flooding In Lexington Area. Kentucky.com has the details: "Concentrated, intense storms flooded Lexington streets and intersections Friday, forcing rescues and submerging some cars. An afternoon storm stranded cars and flooded neighborhoods in several north Lexington locations, prompting a National Weather Service flash-flood warning. Lexington firefighters rescued four from a flooded car on North Broadway about 3 p.m. The water was about as high as the vehicle's headlights, police officer Justice Daniel said. Officials did not identify the people who were trapped but said a 3-day-old infant was in the car."

Sunday Weather Map. NOAA's WRF model shows the best chance of heavy T-storms from Pennsylvania westward to Chicago, St. Louis to the Denver. Texas stays dry (of course), with a few scattered storms from the Mid South into Florida. The west should enjoy sunny, seasonably warm weather, while the Northern Plains and Upper Midwest enjoy a cooler, more comfortable breeze of Canadian origin.

Snow In July? Check out this article from NASA's Earth Observatory about record snowpack - in late July! Details:

"By July in a typical year, the snow that covers the slopes of the Rocky Mountains has given way to grasses and wildflowers, leaving only the peaks capped in white. But 2011 has not been a typical year. As this image of the Uinta Mountains in northeast Utah shows, winter’s snow is lingering into summer. On June 26, the snowpack on the southern face of the range was 849 percent above average. The northern face had 892 percent more snow than average. The image above was taken by the Landsat 5 satellite on July 15, 2011. The lower image, also from the Landsat 5 satellite, shows more representative conditions on July 9, 2003. In the lower image, snow snakes along the high ridgelines, while the slopes are bare. Snow is a much more dominant part of the scene in 2011."

Bangladesh: Floods Displace Thousands. The New York Times has more information (subscription may be required): "Floods set off by monsoon rains in Bangladesh have killed 6 people, displaced more than 10,000 and washed away shrimp farms close to the Bay of Bengal, the authorities said Friday. The region’s Matamuhuri and Bakhkhali Rivers overflowed after five days of heavy rain and inundated about 200 villages, the chief government administrator, Zainul Bari, said." (file photo courtesy of climatevictims.blogspot.com).

Traveler's CEO: Second Quarter Cat Losses Exceed Those Of Katrina. It's been an extreme year for weather losses, but I didn't realize things were THIS bad. Insurancenewsnet.com has the details: "Tornadoes and hailstorms that plagued a wide area of the Midwest and Deep South in April and May battered Travelers' second-quarter results as well, causing a record loss for the company. The insurer posted a net second-quarter loss of $364 million and an operating loss of $377 million on $1.09 billion in catastrophe losses. That compares with a second-quarter 2010 net profit of $670 million, and a 2010 operating profit of $690 million, Travelers reported. The losses were due almost exclusively to the violent late-spring weather, Travelers Chairman and Chief Executive Jay Fishman noted during an earnings conference call. "In April and May, it was 'all weather, all the time'," Fishman said. The tornados and hailstorms "were unprecedented in their size, scope, geographic dispersion and destructiveness." Travelers will be reviewing its rates and those products being sold in areas where such storms are more prevalent "than history has suggested," Fishman said. The unusually severe losses pushed Travelers' GAAP combined ratio to 125 for second-quarter 2011, versus 95.2 for the same period last year, the company said. Its 2011 catastrophe losses were concentrated in the company's business insurance and personal insurance segments." (before/after image above of Tuscaloosa tornado damage courtesy of NOAA).

How News Of The World Hacked Everybody's Phones. Another incredible story. So how can you make your smartphone hack-proof? Seems like there's an opportunity for an app that makes a phone, any phone, totally hack-proof (or untraceable). I'd pay a few bucks for that. Gizmodo.com has the must-read story: "For a while, leaving your cell unattended seemed like the biggest threat to phone security. But this recent business is a reminder that there are savvier ways someone can violate your phone—without even touching it. Details are still emerging as to how, exactly, News of the World reporters got into everybody's giblets. But here are the common—and shockingly simple—phone hacking techniques they likely used. Voicemail hacking, according to security experts, is not the worst of the things that could happen to you and your secret-spilling cell. These days, it is the least intrusive because voicemail as a message-delivering tool is fading out behind simple caller id, texting, and emailing. But it's still a massive invasion of privacy—even if the only one that still leaves messages is your dad."

Man Used A Loophole In the Law To Pay $16 For A $330,000 House. Say what? Gizmodo.com has the complete (and unbelievable) story: "Kenneth Robinson beat the system. We should all be Kenneth Robinson. Kenneth Robinson for President! Kenneth! Kenneth! Why the fuss? Because Robinson found a loophole in the law that let him pay 16 dollars to own a $330,000 house. It's a little known law called "adverse possession" where you can avoid the inconvenience and expense of applying for a traditional mortgage. He supposedly spent months and months researching the law and combing through listings to find the perfect house that would fit within the requirements of the law. The $330,000 house in Flower Mound, Texas did just that. The perfect storm of events that happened to make the house available was that the house foreclosed, the original owner abandoned his mortgage and the mortgage company closed shop. All Robinson had to do was file paperwork at the courthouse saying he claimed ownership of the property. That cost all of 16 bucks."

"Metro Mentality

Folks up north have a quaint term for metro residents who flee to their favorite northern lakes in search of watery fun. "Citiots". Nice.

On Saturday I had a discussion with a Brainerd Lakes police officer, worried about an increase in severe storms, and a growing sense of apathy; the "it can't happen here" syndrome. "People who live in the Twin Cities come north, expecting the same level of protection & preparedness they have in the metro area," he said. "It doesn't exist." Many campgrounds and smaller towns don't have access to emergency sirens. What would you do if a Wadena-size, EF-4 tornado was steamrolling toward your cabin or camp site? Does your family have a plan? Do you have a $30 NOAA Weather radio, or warning apps loaded on your smartphone? The more sources of warning information, the better. More on my blog.

Climate Stories...

Why Global Warming Slowed In the 2000's: Another Possible Explanation. The story from knoxnews.com: "The world is getting progressively warmer, and the vast majority of evidence points to greenhouse gases spewed into the atmosphere by humans — carbon dioxide (CO2), especially — as the main culprit. But while the buildup of greenhouse gases has been steadily increasing, the warming goes in fits and starts. From one year to the next it might get a little warmer or a lot warmer, or even cooler. That’s because greenhouse gases aren’t the whole story. Natural variations in sunlight and ocean currents; concentrations of particles in the air, manmade and otherwise; and even plain old weather variations can speed the warming up or slow it down, even as the underlying temperature trend continues upward. And while none of those factors is likely to change that trend over the long haul, scientists really want to understand how they affect projections of where our climate is heading. The latest attempt to do so just appeared in Science Express, the online counterpart of the journal Science, where a team of climate scientists is reporting on their investigations of airborne particles, or aerosols, in the stratosphere. It’s well known, says co-author John Daniel, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo., that these particles have a cooling effect, since they reflect sunlight that would otherwise warm the planet." (photo courtesy of reason.com).

Global Warming Denial. Thanks to cartoonist Clay Jones and fredericksburg.com for keeping a sense of humor during these extreme Dog Days of summer, and pointing out the hypocrisy of climate change deniers. It's ok to poke fun at warming when it snows, but during a month-long heat wave you don't hear much from the likes of Senator Imhofe and other (oil-soaked) politicians: "One of the many reasons that makes a right-wing nut job a right-wing nut job is their denial that man is changing the climate…or that the climate is changing at all.  To deny climate change you have to adjust data, make stuff up, leave out information that supports your cause and listen to a few discredited scientists who are rarely, if ever, published in serious publications.  It also doesn’t hurt if you’re party of a think tank that’s funded by corporations that desire lesser EPA regulations. To believe climate change is real all you have to do is walk outside. A lot of cartoonists, right-wing nut job cartoonists, do cartoons when it’s cold in January saying “Aha!  Take that you global warming freaks!  It’s snowing in Chicago!”  These same cartoonists are silent on the issue in July and August. To pursue science in this issue, one should leave out the financial and political implications of your argument.  Use real research.  There are some climage change believers who use it for their politics, but a HUGE majority of scientist believe in climate change…and there’s not any politics to it.  Those who deny climate change use it for their politics.  Even the annual conference of some sort that denies climate change is funded is large part, if not entirely, by corporations that need fewer EPA regulations."