Atmospheric Rivers
Two years ago we experienced one in British Columbia and I had considered them a west coast phenomena. That is not the case:
"How a Category 5 Atmospheric River Supercharged Deadly East Coast Storm: Every State From Florida to Maine Saw at Least 4 Inches of Rain: Here is What Was Behind the Storm," Matthew Cappucci, Washington Post, Dec. 21, 2023.
Atmospheric rivers — jets of intense precipitation that curl around powerful ocean storms — are generally considered a West Coast phenomenon. But it turns out a top tier atmospheric river — rated Category 5 on scale of 1 to 5 — was part of the East Coast storm that killed at least five people and cut power to more than 800,000 customers this week.
The storm unleashed at least 4 inches of rain and wind gusts over 50 mph in every Eastern Seaboard state from Florida to Maine. Along the coast, the storm’s wind shoved ashore an ocean surge of at least 2 to 4 feet, inundating low-lying roads.
Boosted by the atmospheric river, the storm generated exceptional rainfall that caused creeks, streams and rivers to overflow. The river in the sky drew record-setting warmth from the tropics northward, melting snow in the mountains of the Northeast, which made the flooding even worse.
…..
Are atmospheric rivers normal on the East Coast?
An atmospheric river is a long, narrow ribbon of deep, tropical moisture that is pulled into the mid-latitudes by a storm. In the Northern Hemisphere, storms can tug these narrow moisture plumes and stretch them over thousands of miles to the north and east. An atmospheric river that hits California sometimes has extended from as far west Hawaii, and the phenomenon has thus earned the moniker the “Pineapple Express.”
Atmospheric rivers affect the East Coast just as much as the West Coast, if not more frequently. But they’re seldom talked about.
Serious Betting
I recently posted about the increase in gambling. This piece shows what is required:
"The Over-the-Top Home Offices of Full-time Sports Bettors," Danny Funt, Washington Post, Dec. 21, 2023.
It was a gamble in its own right for Kenneth Huber to try to mount a 165-inch TV in his basement office. It’s actually a three-by-three grid of 55-inch 4k computer monitors, and the first time Huber tried to install them on a $1,500 stand in his suburban Philadelphia home, all nine of the heavy screens cracked. Fortunately, the retailer sent him replacements, and this time he hedged his bet by supplementing the stand with large spacer brackets.....
A specialist in “live” betting during games — bets on the next play, drive or score of games that have already started — Huber depends on following the action with as little delay as possible. All nine screens on his monitor grid have hard-wired connections, and next to the grid is a curved 65-inch Samsung TV that receives broadcasts through an HD antenna on Huber’s roof. Over-the-air broadcasts often have lower latency than cable or satellite, he explained, and are far quicker than YouTube TV’s sluggish Sunday Ticket feed.
Tall Tales From High Above and Long Ago
Don't try this at home. This fantastic flying feat is from the obituary of Bob Pardo who invented the "Pardo Push."
"Bob Pardo, Pilot in Daring Rescue in Vietnam War, Dies at 89: In An Extraordinary Act of Ariel Ballet, He Helped a Fellow Pilot Whose Plane Had Become Compromised Until They Could Be Safely Rescued," Trip Gabriel, New York Times, Dec. 21, 2023.
Bob Pardo, a fighter pilot who during the Vietnam War kept a wingman’s damaged plane aloft in a daring feat of aviation that became known as the Pardo Push, died on Dec. 5 in a hospital near his home in College Station, Texas. He was 89.
In March 1967, Captain Pardo was on a mission over North Vietnam in an F-4 Phantom when antiaircraft fire hit his plane, inflicting damage, while more badly ripping into the fuel tank of another fighter in the strike force. Both jets pulled away to head home. But the second plane had lost too much fuel to make it to safety. Captain Pardo realized that its two-man crew would be forced to eject over enemy territory and face capture or worse.
Flying beneath the compromised plane, Captain Pardo told its pilot, Capt. Earl Aman, to lower his tailhook — a metal pole at the rear of a fighter used to arrest its landing. At 300 miles per hour, Captain Pardo nudged his plane’s glass windshield against the tip of the pole. For almost 90 miles, he pushed the other plane as both jets hemorrhaged fuel, until they crossed the border with Laos. Both crews ejected by parachute and all four men were rescued.
….Captain Pardo knew Captain Aman’s plane would not be able to make it out of North Vietnam to rendezvous with a flying refueling tanker. At first, he tried to push Captain Aman’s plane by sticking the nose of his own jet into a rear port, but there was too much turbulence. Next he tried to maneuver directly under the other jet and give it a piggyback ride, which also failed.
Then he conceived of pushing Captain Aman’s tail hook. A tail hook pole was used by the Navy’s version of the F-4 Phantom to land on aircraft carriers. The Air Force used it for emergency runway landings, when the hook snags a cable stretched across tarmac.
Captain Pardo told his wingman to shut down his engines and carefully made contact with the tail hook using his own plane’s windshield.
“If he so much as bumped the windshield, he would have had that tail hook in his face,” Mr. Houghton, who was in the rear seat of the injured plane, recalled in a 1996 interview. “We’re talking about glass here. It was phenomenal flying, nothing less.”
Mr. Pardo recalled, “I can’t remember how many times the tailhook slipped off the windshield, and I had to fight to get it back in place.”
After one of Captain Pardo’s own engines caught fire and he shut it down, the two planes began rapidly losing altitude, sinking 2,000 feet per minute. They crossed the border with Laos at an altitude of only 6,000 feet, leaving them just two more minutes of flying time. Both crews bailed out soon after, floating down to the jungle by parachute. They were rescued by U.S. helicopters.
For this he was almost punished! (for putting his plane at risk.)
The Bonus:
For additional aviation derring-do, see this post about "Senator John McCain" and others who flew off carriers during the Viet Nam war.
The Bonus:
For additional aviation derring-do, see this post about "Senator John McCain" and others who flew off carriers during the Viet Nam war.
For a Canadian example of fine flying see: "James Francis Edwards - Canadian Fighter Pilot."
