Ice Balls and Sundogs

 [From January 31, 2007]

Driving up Speedwell after work lately I've been seeing sundogs - parhelia - luminous halos near the sun. 

For the science and art of sundogs, rainbows, glories, coronas and other celestial events, you need to link to this beautiful site: Atmospheric Optics. (Be sure to click "High Atmosphere" on homepage.) Very nice indeed.

We don't have much wilderness to be afraid of anymore. But just to keep our adrenalin flowing, the sky provides plenty to worry about. If it's not flying raptors or radioactive fallout, then it's ultraviolet radiation and ice balls.

Last Sunday morning a hundred pound chunk of ice fell from the sky and crushed a Ford Mustang in Hillsborough County, Florida. OK, first thing you think is airlines, but the airlines say "no, wasn't ours...we dye our water blue...ice wasn't blue."

Maybe the airlines can duck out this time,. After all, it might have been a megacryometeor. Think hail on steroids.

The weather guessers are calling for "wintry mix" tomorrow. Wonder what the odds are for parhelia and megacryometeors.

Our Common Good

From the Tuckasegee Democrat [Sylva, NC], January 29, 1889:

Our townsman, Mr. O. B. Coward has shown us a pair of Berkshire pigs brought from Columbia, S.C. by Mr. T. B. Coward...

We enjoyed the pleasure this week of a visit to our sister town of Dillsboro. The trade in locust pins and railroad crossties has assumed quite large proportions, and Dillsboro may justly claim to be headquarters for crossties...

We learned from some of the leading citizens that the Democrat had failed to receive as hearty a support as we could wish because of the existence of a real or imaginary feeling of rivalry between their town and ours. If any feeling, looking to the advancement of Sylva's interest by pulling down those of Dillsboro, exists among our people we are not aware of it and must protest that the Democrat does not share it. Our efforts are now and will continue to be directed to the upbuilding of the whole county, and we shall rejoice in the continued growth and prosperity of all her towns. In fact we would be glad to see the time when Dillsboro and Sylva shall grow into each other and be governed by one corporation. In the meantime we desire to foster and encourage the kindest relations between the two places. Let us all work together for our common good...