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The Weather Journal blog and newspaper column are on hiatus through Thanksgiving. I am taking some leave to deal with some family matters.

On the weather front, it's probably a good time to take a long break, before winter gets rolling. I might jump back on here if something extraordinary is happening, but otherwise, don't expect to see blog posts for nearly 3 weeks.

The New River Current ran a weekend story focused on energy bills. National Weather Service meteorologist Robert Stonefield is quoted, stating that El Nino increases the chances of having a milder than normal winter. And I've stated the same thing myself a few times before in Weather Journal columns over the years.

But a few weeks ago, I looked back on El Nino winters historically and found that it wasn't that clear-cut. In fact, winter months in previous El Nino winters were about evenly split between significantly above normal and significantly below normal in temperature, with a few close to normal. For Roanoke, El Nino winters have included our snowiest month (January 1966) and coldest winters (1977-78) on record, as well as a massive snowstorm in February 1983. The years of stronger El Ninos, like 1991-92 and 1997-98, tended to have a warmer and wetter winter than the more moderate El Nino winters, which this is projected to be as of now.

So I don't know if I'm quite ready to say that less money will be needed for heating this winter based on previous El Nino winters. Historically, wet seems a somewhat stronger bet than warm. Maybe in about another 4-6 weeks we can have a better idea how strong El Nino will be and what other factors might come into play.

In today's Weather Journal column, I noted that summer 2009 (June 1 to August 31) had, somewhat surprisingly, finished slightly above normal in temperature. Well, that's still true, but the margin is much smaller than I had written. Roanoke's summer average temperature of 74.5 degree was only two-tenths of a degree above the summer normal average of 74.3 degrees. I misfigured the average for the summer normal temperature.

The overall gist is the same -- warmer nights in June and August were enough to offset the seventh coolest July on record, producing what was essentially a normal summer in temperatures. But the takeaway lesson here is: Always double-check your math!

I still remember the perfect blue sky. I marvelled at it driving into work that morning eight years ago, and looked up at it through the day at The Roanoke Times building where I was doing a stint as an interim metro editor.  A cold front had pushed through the previous day, and a cool, dry Canadian air mass covered most of the United States. It was a perfect day ... except it wasn't. Not after about 9 a.m.

The weather didn't really matter at all that day ... except it did. I've long wondered how much the perfect weather played into the terrorists' choice of Sept. 11 for their attack on New York and Washington in 2001. There were no atmospheric disturbances at all to complicate their mission to fly hijacked planes into buildings. Their targets were in perfect view, easily seen in the crisp visiblity.

And the weather mattered a lot when it came to the national "ground stop" order to land thousands of planes after the attacks that morning. Not only were there no major storm systems, but almost no inclement weather of any kind anywhere in the U.S. Imagine how much more difficult the already gargantuan task of landing every airplane in U.S. airspace would have been with major hubs affected by heavy rain or wind or thunderstorms.

It's always that flawless and cloudless sky I come back to. Sept. 11, 2001, was the first of a long string of perfect weather days, progressively cooler into the weekend after 9/11, an early taste of fall. It was a sky not only unmarred by clouds, but unscarred by jet contrails -- except for military flights -- for a few days after 9/11.

And it was that blue sky I lost myself in many weeks that turbulent autumn as I hiked mountain trails during a dry fall with golden leaves. The world had gone mad, but serenity and sanity could still be found.

Business writer Duncan Adams has written an extensive article in Saturday's Roanoke Times about how Roanoke entrepreneur Ron Blum and his innovation firm, The Egg Factory, applied for a patent in 2000 for a physical process intended to weaken hurricanes, similar to one more recently proposed by a group that includes Microsoft founder and former CEO Bill Gates.  Blum's patent application was rejected by the federal government.

My question to you: Do you think weakening hurricanes is something that mankind can do? And do you think it is something we should try to do?

Your comments are welcome below.  (Might be some delay between when you post them and I get them up.)

Linked here is a fascinating story by science writer Seth Borenstein of The Associated Press that covers a lot of ground (or perhaps, more appropriately, a lot of water). The central theme is that world ocean temperatures are the hottest on record, but the article covers many subjects concisely: El Nino, global warming, hurricane season, even the pattern of cooler temperatures over land that we've noted this summer (and will again in our area by next week).

Virginia Tech student Anthony Phillips was in my van for storm chase trips to the Plains both in 2005 and 2009. He and his fiancee, Sarah Prescott, are leading a project to better improve flash flood warning capability in the New River Valley. Click here to read Amy Matzke-Fawcett's article about the project that appeared today in The Roanoke Times' New River Valley Current.

Here's something I'm summarizing in Wednesday's short Weather Journal column, but is better told in its full format as written by Scott Harper of The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk: Tides ranging half a foot to 2 feet above normal expectations have been observed along the East Coast. Some scientists think it could be a new decade-long phase taking hold in the Atlantic.

Our local weather is pretty much in a repetitive pattern of inactivity ... nice for outside activities, by and large, with mostly dry days and highs no higher than the mid 80s for the foreseeable future, but not much new to really write about.

So let's take a look at some other topics, starting with efforts to classify a new type of cloud. Here are a couple of different links to that story, which was widely reported last month when I was occupied with some other things, both weather-related and not.

Associated Press report

National Geographic report

Any thoughts on these clouds? Have you ever seen any like this, or do you have any pics that could be these clouds locally?

ADDED 7/3 5:30 PM: Here is a link to a photo from Blacksburg in November 2006 of clouds that at least suggest the wavy appearance of the possible new cloud classification. These were sent by Taylor White, a recent Virginia Tech graduate who was aboard for Storm Chase 2008.

Something besides thunder rattled things in Cave Spring this morning. I remember waking up and stuff was rattling, and I wondered if it was a gust of wind, but it seemed like stuff inside the room was rattling too. It was a magnitude-3.0 earthquake.

It's not really weather, but the National Weather Service did put out a public information statement about it early this morning (the magnitude has since been upgraded slightly):

PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BLACKSBURG VA
457 AM EDT SAT MAY 16 2009

...PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT...

AT 408 AM EST...THE NATIONAL EARTHQUAKE CENTER IN BOULDER DETECTED
AN EARTHQUAKE 4 MILES WEST SOUTHWEST OF ROANOKE. THE EARTHQUAKE
MEASURED 2.6 ON THE RICHTER SCALE. SO FAR...REPORTS INDICATE THAT THE
QUAKE WAS FELT IN THE ROANOKE...VINTON...AND SALEM AREAS.

INFORMATION RELEASED IN THIS STATEMENT IS PRELIMINARY.
UPDATES...INCLUDING RICHTER SCALE MAGNITUDE...WILL BE PROVIDED AS
MORE INFORMATION BECOMES AVAILABLE FROM THE NATIONAL EARTHQUAKE
CENTER IN BOULDER COLORADO.