#intensifying

I SHOULD GIVE IT UP PERMANENTLY. So far I have not scrolled twitter for two days and in those two days I got out of bed faster than usual and knocked like four things off my running to do list. I am worried about missing out on my friends’ lives, which is the thing that keeps me tethered there, but perhaps this is the start to working out how to handle that a different way. 

Cider. I disliked most vegetables growing up, because we almost exclusively ate them out of a can. I don’t know about your life, but the green, salty gloop that is canned spinach does not bring me joy. The first time I tried fresh baby spinach it was a REVELATION. And like, spring greens instead of iceberg lettuce? Fresh broccoli? FRESH GREEN BEANS? PLEASE. I’LL EAT THEM INSTEAD OF FRIES. I have missed so much in my life and I am now just eating spinach out of the bag to make up for it.

Cinnamon. I have very romantic daydreams sometimes about being an early 19th century explorer who just travels around and documents birds and trees while also somehow NOT exacerbating the problems of colonialism and imperialism that have been rife through history. Not that I know how to do that even in 2020. But you know, take only exquisitely hand drawn pictures of wildlife and foliage, leave only footprints. 

Cocoa. I have always wished my hair was just a bit thicker. It holds curl well, and it will almost straighten with the right application of heat and product, but it gets so frizzy and dandelion like if left to its own devices. And sometimes, since I live in Florida, in spite of my other attempts. But I like my current cut. I feel most at home with this very dumb haircut. However, if I could do a spell and have my hair be an ombre of magenta to purple for the rest of forever I would do it in a snap. I miss looking like this so much. 

A glimpse inside a super typhoon.

This is an internal profile of super-typhoon Uusagi, which struck Taiwan and the Philippines in 2013 (see http://tinyurl.com/mgdebue). As it approached Taiwan, a satellite borne radar system took this image of a meteorological phenomenon called hot towers in the outer eyewall of the typhoon along with the rain that was belting down in varied parts of the weather system. Hot towers are rapidly rising cumulonimbus anvil clouds that carry the moisture rapidly upwards up to an altitude of 15km. They can rise so high as to punch into the stratosphere depositing ice crystals. They are named after the immense amount of latent heat held by their moisture that is released as they condensate into rain.

The appearance of hot towers indicate a strengthening storm, and reveal the heat engine of rapidly rising moist air driving the typhoon. Shortly after this image was taken, Usagi briefly strengthened to category 5, the highest on the scale Both the eyewall and rainfall pattern are very symmetrical for a cyclone, and indicate an energy efficient system. Such annular eyewalls tend to indicate longer lived cyclones, as they do not dissipate their energy as much as turbulence.

Loz

Image credit: Owen Kelly/ NASA

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/blogs/earthmatters/2013/09/23/a-view-inside-super-typhoon-usagi/?src=fb

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/blogs/earthmatters/2012/09/12/discovering-hot-towers/

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