Taking Notice...of The Weather Channel

I just read a great post on the website 10,000 Birds, which discussed the question "Are birders more perceptive than non-birders?" You can read the post here:
http://10000birds.com/are-birders-more-perceptive-than-non-birders.htm

Ask yourself of what you are perceptive in your surroundings. Are they things of which you must be perceptive, such as marauding SUVs in traffic, in order to maintain your well-being (as well as your pulse)? Are they things of which you choose to be perceptive, such as everyone's hairstyle when you are thinking of making a change to your own? Or, are they things to which you are inexplicably drawn, such as an affinity for artwork in all its forms?

I strongly feel, as a teacher, that exposing people to new things may cause them to choose to be perceptive of them in the future. I also feel that is the way to help someone discover an affinity, which may develop into a passion and then a life's vocation. Here's my case.


The Weather Channel, that bastion of all things death-and-destruction coupled with something of the "happy news" ethos of the 1970s, debuted in my hometown in January 1987. My dad called me into the TV room from my bedroom to check out the new channel. I was instantly smitten, so much so that I wrote about it in my diary. I spent hours and hours watching John Hope (above) doing the tropical update, and spent reams of paper copying it all down. That one experience opened my eyes to the science of meteorology, which led me to load up on science courses in high school, which led me to apply to BS programs in atmospheric science for college, which led me to pursue a graduate degree...you get the idea. I've often wondered how many other meteorologists of my generation were first inspired by TWC.

So, my public service announcement is this: share. It seems that the more we (tree-hugging folks like me) encourage others to be perceptive of the wonders of nature, we (people in general) have a better chance at preserving this gorgeous, complex, and singularly unique planet.

Sun Dog Days

There is always something to look at in the sky. Clouds are so variable that you don't really ever see the same configuration twice; rather, one altocumulus is reminiscent of another (i.e., "I saw a deck of altocu like that down the shore once in the 80s!"). Optical phenomena like rainbows, however, are always singularly unique; however, that might be a function of their relative rarity. The least rare of these around here are parhelia, or sun dogs, and they seem to pop up a lot on my drive home this time of year.

Sun dogs look like little patches of rainbows directly to the right and to the left of the sun. Red is on the sun-side of the sun dog, and blue is on the outside. They form in ice clouds, where hexagonally shaped ice crystals refract (bend) and diffract (separate white light into spectral colors) sunlight. All this science creates true beauty.

We were lucky enough to witness this incredible sight while on Mt. Rainier this past summer. Instead of the patchy sun dog we are used to seeing in New Jersey, this one was so elongated that each color of the spectrum was clearly visible. I smiled to myself as other tourists around us wondered aloud about what caused this to happen. Score one for atmospheric science, whether they knew it or not!

Garden Fever

It's happened again, like clockwork. The cold of winter sets in...there's snow on the ground (and in our case, a couple feet of it plus a shell of ice on top)...and the garden catalogs begin arriving in the mailbox. This plunges me into a frenzy of planning and wishing for next year's garden projects, even though our date of last frost (15 May) is a full 4 months away.

We are overhauling the front yard this year. The only planting, besides crabgrass and violet ridden grass, is a box of yew. It had been cut into a severe rectangle by the previous homeowners and is just a collection of woody stems topped with thinning foliage. Out it goes! We have a few goals in ripping up the yard - eliminate as much lawn as possible, introduce more native plants, and provide habitat for birds.

One plant I'd like to highlight for you is little bluestem grass (Schizachryrium scoparium). It grows best in sun but tolerates partial shade well, is a New Jersey native, reduces erosion, is drought resistant, and provides visual interest year round. Since it grows from 1 to 3 feet high, it fits well into small spaces.
Little bluestem grows seedheads all over the top few inches of the grass blades, which the birds seem to like.
The grass goes dormant in winter, but if you don't have a ridiculous amount of snowfall, there will be spunky spikes of grass sticking up all over the place.
If you are interested in reducing your water usage in the upkeep of your garden or lawn, some little bluestems will help!