@paulknightly@mstdn.social
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paulknightly

@paulknightly@mstdn.social

Planetary & Environmental Geologist

🪐 Planetary: field and operational analogs🏔

🌎 Environmental: radiological assessments☢️

🛩️ Mavic and Cessna Pilot

📷 Photographer

He/Him. Views are mine.

#PlanetaryScience #Geology #Photography #Weather #Pilot #Arkansas

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paulknightly, to random
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I alluded to pretty much everything in this article a month or two ago with regards to the hill AI search results have to climb in order to supplant traditional web searches.

Even if AI were delivering accurate, nonsense-free results today, it still misses the point in terms of how people search for information, which is far more subjective than most AI models. So there's no guarantee that it would be delivering the answer the person is searching for anyways.

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2024/06/googles-ai-overviews-misunderstand-why-people-use-google/

paulknightly, to random
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Reports of substantial damage across Northwest Arkansas, mostly to the south of us. Very likely a combination of tornadoes (at least one confirmed) and straight line winds, however the storm maintained a strong circulation over most of Benton County, so would not be surprised if tornado count goes up.

#arwx

https://www.5newsonline.com/article/weather/widespread-damage-benton-county-early-morning-tornadoes/527-c8c5da96-8d07-4dc2-8331-845a68ff1d89

paulknightly,
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Our house is ok and only lost power briefly, a lot of friends did not make it out as well. Several of them dealing with large downed trees, ongoing power outages, and one of my wife's coworkers lost their house to the confirmed tornado near Decatur.

Area streets in the hardest-hit areas in Bentonville and downtown Rogers are not navigable due to downed power lines and tree debris. With many people traveling for the holiday weekend, it may not be possible for them to reach home immediately.

paulknightly,
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Among the other areas hit, campgrounds near Beaver Lake appear to have been impacted with one fatality in the Beaver Lake vicinity. There's imagery floating around of campers being flipped over due to strong winds (likely a tornado in the Beaver Lake area).

https://www.4029tv.com/article/arkansas-tornado-damage/60906580

paulknightly,
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There was also a reported 'landslide' blocking a road in Bella Vista, which appears to be more accurately described as undercutting the affected road. Updated reports sounds like the affected road has been at least partially reopened.

https://www.nwahomepage.com/news/ardot-landslide-in-bella-vista/

paulknightly,
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Have been traveling so to update/end this thread, we confirmed that no damage was sustained at our house beyond some hail dents on the gutters - looks to have been around ping pong ball sized.

Final tornado details at NWS Tulsa. The Decatur, AR tornado is the largest on record in Arkansas, coming in at 1.8 miles wide. The Rogers tornado was 1.7 miles wide.

https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/4b42e5c8f93b40018ccfa3ef4a7237bd

18+ paulknightly, to random
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Our oldest ended up in the hospital due to a broken leg. The nature of the break required stabilization for transport to the hospital, which could not have been accomplished in a car seat, so we called 911 to get an ambulance. Later transferred by another ambulance ride to a nearby pediatric hospital.

paulknightly,
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@camless my takeaway as well, and one that enough people are aware of that it's a front and center concern during an emergency, a time when money should be the absolute last thing on your mind.

paulknightly, to random
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Incredible drone footage of the Greenfield, IA tornado courtesy of Reed Timmer.

The drone was able to orbit through the outer circulation of the tornado capturing some of the best views I've ever seen of a multi-vortex tornado.

There's a lot that can be learned from this type of close-range footage. Includes a brief clip around 2:15 of a wind turbine being taken down by the outer wind field.

https://youtu.be/IEFGKMWYD-E?si=4ZNdSCufFAf6sFwJ

paulknightly, to Kansas
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Not only did I not have catching the aurora in southeast Kansas on my bingo card, I did not expect that I would be taking so many photos of the aurora towards the south, or during twilight.

Also had the surreal experience of it being bright enough at one point to be able to read the markings on my camera!

Made it back home in time to catch some views of the fading aurora from Missouri en route and at our home in Arkansas.

Absolutely unreal experience!

#Aurora #NorthernLights #Kansas #kswx

Purple to green to red aurora are visible in this image over a field in southeast Kansas.
A road leads towards the vanishing point on the horizon beneath a purple and green aurora filled sky.
View looking south towards the edge of the aurora, over a wheat field in southeast Kansas.

paulknightly, to random
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Aurora chase mode activated!

Missed the last opportunity to catch them from Arkansas due to clouds. Fingers crossed for some sweet Aurora Ozarka.

paulknightly, to random
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Ok, Bee Keeping Mastodon. Looking for tips.

Had our first attempted carpenter bee residency at our new house, with a bee starting a fresh borehole on one of the beams for our elevated deck sometime this week.

In my crash course on carpenter bee prevention, I've determined that painting the deck is probably the best option going forward, although we plan to expand the current deck this winter or early next year, so preference would be not to paint this spring/summer

Other ideas?

Cc: @ai6yr

paulknightly, to Weather
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Something that I've had heightened awareness of since moving to Northwest Arkansas is that where we live is in the bullseye for seeing the highest frequency of derechos in the country (now more so even than our first house in NWA).

A derecho is a straight-line wind event that spans a length of at least 400 miles (643 km), is 60 miles wide (97 km), and has winds exceeding 58 mph (93 kph) over most of its length.

#derecho #weather

https://www.spc.noaa.gov/misc/AbtDerechos/derechofacts.htm

paulknightly, to random
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Today there is a high (level 5/5) risk for all modes of severe weather across the south central plains, including the potential for several cyclic supercells and long-track tornadoes.

One thing I miss about the #WxTwitter community is that there were handful of stats folks who could relay the last time we had a high risk day. Relying entirely on my memory, but it seems like it's been at least a year or two.

https://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/outlook/day1otlk.html

paulknightly,
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Watching today's outbreak from a distance. Too many pressing deadlines at work, plus the April 26 outbreak ~week ago gave me my fill for destructive tornadoes for a while. Not something I ever desire to see in the least, and today could be quite bad in that regard. I may be able to get out on Wednesday for local spotting if the need arises.

paulknightly,
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I guess it is worth noting that we aren't entirely out of the woods locally. It's easy to zero in on the bullseye for the threat area, but we do have a 10% risk for tornadoes locally in NW Arkansas, greatest risk after midnight as the storm system moves through.

From a climatological standpoint, most of the strongest storm systems in NWA are nocturnal, having formed during afternoon heating on the plains and spreading east through the evening and overnight. Usually brief QLCS tornadoes. #arwx

paulknightly,
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The latest Day 1 forecast from the Storm Prediction Center has expanded the moderate risk east into SE Kansas and NE Oklahoma, approaching the Missouri and Arkansas state lines. This reflects the increased risk for strong, damaging winds as storms move east overnight.

This doesn't change my plans other than I'll either stay awake or set an alarm to go off around the ETA for the storm complex.

#kswx #okwx #arwx

paulknightly, to random
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I encountered my first TSA screening lane with facial recognition. Politely requested traditional verification without incident, but how long with that be an available option?

Widespread applications of facial recognition, particularly expanding beyond security applications, has serious privacy and civil liberties ramifications. 14 senators agree.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/3/24148346/tsa-facial-recognition-airports-us-senators-oversight

paulknightly, to random
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As the Biden administration weighs reclassifying marijuana, Arkansas is in an odd spot with regards to marijuana advertising.

AR dispensaries are not allowed to advertise using billboards, but the prohibition does not apply to out of state dispensaries, allowing Missouri and Oklahoma dispensaries free-reign to advertise.

I spotted this billboard yesterday, which now warns Arkansans they face fines and jail time for transporting product from state line dispensaries.

https://www.5newsonline.com/article/news/local/billboards-arkansans-buying-missouri-marijuana/527-e11210c3-1e25-43ff-a9cc-040a528c4f33

paulknightly, to photography
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Yesterday was a day. It's hard to put into words the power of experiencing an outbreak like this. We witnessed 3 tornadoes between Lincoln, NE, the Missouri River, and Minden, IA.

I'm very glad to hear that only injuries were reported and that there have been no confirmed fatalities from the outbreak.

View of the Minden, IA wedge tornado on 4/26/2024, looking across open country with brown fields and a row of electric poles crossing rolling hills, framing the foreground in front of the tornado.
View of a tornado above green fields along the Missouri River. The tornado is cone shaped with a diffuse debris cloud beneath the condensation funnel.
View through the windshield of the Lincoln, Nebraska tornado on 4/26/2024 as the tornado was weakening and beginning to rope out.

paulknightly, to random
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I started following a few geology influencers on Instagram lately, one of whom lives on the East Coast, and y'all - the level of excitement after experiencing their first earthquake is off the charts and relatable. Love seeing the passion!

paulknightly, to random
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A good breakdown on interpreting cloud cover forecasts for Monday, and why cloud cover is hard to forecast. The short story is that most of Texas and areas near the Great Lakes will probably be a wash, but New England and a narrow zone in the central Midwest might provide sufficiently clear skies.

Most people will be limited in how far they can drive and if that area intersects with a higher probability for clear skies. So for the rest of us - good luck!

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/04/here-are-the-winners-and-losers-when-it-comes-to-clouds-for-mondays-eclipse/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

paulknightly, to random
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The degree of cloud cover on Monday is still not totally settled for north central Arkansas, but I have fully committed to participating in a local fly-in. Among the other factors that are now playing into my eclipse planning are how much of a cross wind component will there be on Monday morning. Fingers crossed we can keep it under 15 knots.

paulknightly,
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Focus for me over the next few days is to also get my camera settings dialed in. I've been exceptionally lazy in doing my homework on this front, but my goal is to have everything setup so that all I need to do is start the intervalometer during totality for some close-up shots and a couple of wide angle shots. I really don't want to spend all of totality fiddling with camera settings.

paulknightly,
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@sundogplanets certainly happy to if I pick up anything, I'd be curious as well. I'm still trying to decide the field of view for that photo. If there's enough foreground interest, I'm leaning towards a landscape astrophoto, so it'll be a balance between capturing the sky + foreground objects on Earth. Hopefully that translates to picking up some stars but we'll see 🤷‍♂️

paulknightly, to random
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Today will likely be a busy severe weather day.

If I wasn't coming off a long work trip with a stacked deck of meetings this afternoon, I would probably be out chasing. Probably southeast Kansas into western Missouri if I had my pick.

I'll see what rolls into NW Arkansas and SW Missouri tonight, might get out for some local spotting this evening.

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