You wouldn’t think I would need a reader tip to make me aware of breaking weather news in my own city. But although I’d seen some dark clouds and heard Becky mention something about strong winds in the East Valley, it wasn’t until I saw Mike Tichon’s comment that I realized a serious duststorm was in progress, practically right outside my door.

Upon reading the comment, I promptly turned on the local news, which had a reporter standing at West 75th Ave. & I-10 — about 5 miles south-southwest of where we live — reporting that the wind and dust had just arrived there. I checked the radar, which showed the dust cloud moving rapidly toward us from the south; wrote up a quick blog post; then grabbed my cell phone and camera, and hurried outside.

The first thing I saw, after walking to a spot in the parking lot where I have a decent view of the southern sky, was this:

Then I looked to my left, and got an even cooler view: the approaching dust cloud, seen from the (west) side, moving steadily north:

I liveblogged that view, then liveblogged again after the cloud arrived. More photos here.

The duststorm wasn’t that severe, at least not out here in Glendale; I think it was stronger further east. Here, at least, visibility was nowhere near zero, as it can get in strong haboobs, and the wind was little more than a light breeze. Still, it was cool to watch the dust cloud move in.

While I was out taking photos, a fellow resident of our apartment complex pulled into his parking spot. “Taking pictures of the dirt?” he asked me. Heh. Yup.

Anyway, thanks for the tip, Mike!

After the jump, a couple of cool radar views showing how the duststorm developed as a gust front from a strong thunderstorm south of Phoenix:

(more…)

6-Foot, 6-Inch Man Turns 66 On 6/6/06

“Fantasy football is like Dungeons & Dragons for all the meatheads who used to beat up on the kids who played Dungeons & Dragons.” –some guy on NBC’s Last Comic Standing

[CORRECTION: This whole post is wrong!! The CIAC website initially reversed the result, and thus so did I. But the truth is that NEWINGTON WON!!! See new post above.]

Southington won.

As usual.

Harumph.

And here I had this whole great lede planned… it would have been something like: “In an upset of apocalyptic proportions, the NHS boys volleyball team exorcised the demons of Newington’s beastly postseason history against archrival Southington, defeating the devilishly good Blue Knights on 6/6/06 to advance to the state championship game. The Indians, who were generally not given a snowball’s chance in hell of beating the previously undefeated, top-seeded Knights, will play either Staples or Trumbull on Friday for the Class L title.” Now I’ll never get to use it. Er, except I sorta just did… but you know what I mean…

P.S. In other, uh, fiery Newington news, for anyone who may have missed my reference to it yesterday, I just wanted to point out again that today is the 10th anniversary of el dia del fuego — the glorious day, during my freshman year in high school, when the building was evacuated not once, but twice, due to two separate, totally unrelated fires. You can read what I wrote about it at the time (a window into my pre-blog, Living Room Times days) and view some of my pictures (actually taken with a camcorder and then freeze-framed on my computer) of that memorable day in the life of NHS.

I can’t believe it’s been a decade since I was a freshman! I feel so… old!

…all we are is dust in the wind… :)

A Duststorm Warning is in effect as a five-mile-wide duststorm moves across the Phoenix area on 6/6/06.

It’s moving toward us from the south, and will be here soon. Radar image here.

Newington High School senior Maki Kobayashi won the individual state championship in Division I boys’ golf Monday with a 3-under-par 68 — the best score in the Division I state championship in at least eight years, and four strokes ahead of his nearest competitor. He was at even par during the front nine, but was 3-under on the traditionally more difficult back nine. He capped the round in dramatic fashion with a 25-foot putt for eagle on the 18th hole. (Hat tip: Bonnie Stone.)

Kobayashi, ranked 130th in the country among junior golfers (and 51st among HS seniors) according to the Golfweek/Titleist rankings, is headed to the University of Hartford on a golf scholarship, part of one of the best recruiting classes in the nation.

Anyway, congrats, Maki! Now hopefully the boys’ volleyball squad can make it a uniquely successful week in NHS sports history by following up Kobayashi’s individual state championship with Newington’s first team state championship since 1994 (and first in a CIAC-sponsored sport since 1982). Step one: Beat Southington tonight in the semis! The game was scheduled for 4:00 PM EDT (1:00 PM MST), so it should be well underway by now, if not already over. We’ll know soon enough whether the Indians have exorcised all those Southington demons and advanced to the state title game…

(This has been your very late lunch-break update of the day, courtesy of Brendan’s weird eating schedule.)

And now, for some more local Newington news that 99.9% of my readers don’t care about! :) Tom McBride, the former mayor of Newington (and father of former NHS Class of ‘99 president Ryan McBride), is dropping out of the race to replace retiring state senator Biagio “Billy” Ciotto.

The tropics are very quiet, reports HurricaneTrack:

There really is nothing to report on concerning the tropics this morning. Water temps continue to climb and we see tropical waves and other areas of showers and thunderstorms scattered across the Atlantic. However, there are no indications that we will see a tropical storm form anytime soon. Although we had Arlene form in early June last year, we typically do not expect to see much action during the first two months of the season. Whether or not we have a repeat of last year’s record activity remains to be seen. For now, all is quiet.

Charles Fenwick says the lack of activity is poised to last a while longer yet:

In the Atlantic Basin, dry air is prevalent over almost all of the Gulf of Mexico making for a very quiet situation there. The only area in the basin with favorable conditions all-around is the southwest-Carribean. However, there aren’t any disturbances to avail themselves of that situation. Things are looking [good] for Dr Masters to return to his blog next week without having missed anything in the Atlantic.

Speaking of Dr. Masters, here’s Part Two of his interview with the Northwest Florida Daily News. After reading Part One, I said he “sounds rather skeptical…of AccuWeather’s hair-on-fire predictions about hurricanes hitting the East Coast.” Well, in Part Two he leaves no doubt:

Hurricanes are sensational enough in their own right, and do not need dramatization. My philosophy is to simply report from my own deep knowledge and understanding of these great storms, and not try to generate more hype in an effort to drive up ratings. In contrast, Accuweather’s recent press release that the Northeast U.S. might be the target of a major hurricane this season was an excessively sensational.”The Northeast is staring down the barrel of a gun,” the article said. Language like this is effective in scaring people and driving up ratings, but is not an effective way of warning people in the Northeast of the true risks they face this year. Everyone living on the Atlantic Ocean is at risk, every year.

Ouch. Masters also links to a long account of his near-death experience flying into Hurricane Hugo on a hurricane hunter. They underestimated the storm’s strength, and thus flew in at the wrong altitude; the storm literally almost ripped their plane apart. (One of the engines caught fire while they were in the eyewall.) A good read.

Happy 6/6/6!

More on 666 here and here.

Some people are praying that the world won’t end today. Others are just hoping they don’t give birth to the Antichrist. Still others are getting married, while at least one blogger wants to have sex sex sex. More topical blog posts here; more 06/06/06 happenings are described here.

In a related story, apparently The Omen kinda sucks.