Tropical Storm Tasha

Tropical Storm Tasha formed quickly in the South Pacific Ocean last weekend and made landfall on the coast of Queensland, Australia on Christmas day (local time). NASA's Terra satellite passed over Tasha after its center made landfall and captured a visible image of the storm revealing some powerful thunderstorms.

On Dec. 24, Tropical Storm Tasha formed quickly and headed for landfall near Cairns, Australia. At 1800 UTC (1 p.m. EST or 4 a.m. on Dec. 25 local time –Brisbane/Australia), Tasha was near 17.1S 146.3E, about 35 nautical miles east-southeast of Cairns with maximum sustained winds near 39 mph. At that time a NASA Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite image showed banding of thunderstorms and the storm was getting more organized.

Somersby Falls

Remember that TREK I took to see Somersby Falls?  Well, I have started working my way through some of the photographs I took and this is the first painting from them.

I have a number of works on the go at the moment and decided I really should finish a few of them at least before I start any more .... lol.

In saying that I did do a very quick sketch - I received a set of Schminke soft pastels for Christmas and as I have never used pastels before I just had to have a play.

My, my - watercolours they are not!!

This will be a new learning curve for me; they are more like using oils - dark to light, the opposite to watercolours.  

On top of that they are very, very messy; my hands were works of art in themself.  I am not a very tidy painter as it is so now I am even worse.....lol.

I haven't figured out how to do fine detail yet but considering this is my first pastel painting I am not too upset.  The compostion is really lousy (and boring ... lol) but it was really just to see what I could do and how blending works with pastels.

I am sure I will get the hang of them after a few dozen more tries .... rotfl.

So the waterfall is finished. I have a very large nude 3 quarters done (in black & white); and a still life that I really have lost interest in so I may put it away for a 'rainy' day; you never know, maybe if I hide it away for a few months then drag it out I will have renewed enthusiasm for it.

One of the great things about living alone is that you can do whatever you like whenever and that includes the uses of rooms in the house; I was painting in my large family room but I am messy and it was a real pain to keep it tidy.

I do have 4 bedrooms so naturally I kept my own and one on the off chance someone visits then I rearranged elder son's old bedroom to be my painting 'studio'. It all sounds very posh ... lol.   

The fourth bedroom I had already converted into my quilting and sewing room.  So now I have a sewing room and an Art studio ......

The new 'studio' has a large two door wardrobe with 6 drawers.  So I have filled each drawer with different media - oils, acrylics, coloured pencils (love coloured pencils), etc, and various bits and pieces.

Then my big roll of watercolour paper can go on the shelf above, have an area on the other side of the drawers the same size as the one pictured.

Another one of my Christmas presents was this map cabinet (above left).  It is perfect for holding large sheets of paper (56cm x 76cm); finished artworks, etc.  The top drawer holds my all pastels.

The great thing about it is that it is the right height for setting out paints, brushes, charcoal, etc that I am using at the moment.

Okay folks - look at it now because within a couple of weeks that lovely white cabinet is going to be a beautiful piece of art in itself - like I said I am not a tidy painter and it is soon going to get covered in spills and splashes....lol.

I also have a double bed that converts to a lounge so I can sit down and relax in between; read one of my art books (or grab my ereader and delve into a novel) all while listening to music.

What is really pleasing to me is that I was able to put up a shelf that my father had carved before my children were born.  When he passed away my younger son grabbed it and it had been hidden away for 10 years.  Today my son returned it and put it up for me.

I like to think that Dad is watching as I paint and offering suggestions - he put a paintbrush in my hand when I was about 6 or 8 and I haven't put it down since ...... thanks Dad!

I hope everyone has a great New Year's Eve and that 2011 is a great year .... the downside of living alone is spending New Year's Eve and Christmas alone but they are only two days I have another 363 to enjoy......lol

 
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Powerful Snowmaker Leaving New England

Snows are finally winding down in New England today, Dec. 27, as a powerful low pressure system brought blizzard conditions from northern New Jersey to Maine over Christmas weekend. The GOES-13 satellite captured an image of the low's center off the Massachusetts coast and saw the snowfall left behind.

The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite called GOES-13 captured the visible image. GOES satellites are operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and NASA's GOES Project, located at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. creates some of the GOES satellite images and animations.

As of 1:30 p.m. EST, all blizzard warnings were canceled as the low has pulled much of its snow and rain away from land areas and into the North Atlantic Ocean. The winds behind the system are now causing more problems for residents along the U.S. East coast.

Post Christmas Relaxing ......

Well Christmas is over for another year; I hope you all had a lovely day.

I spent Christmas eve with both my sons and their partners. The party was in Wollongong, about 1 1/2hrs drive. We had a lovely relaxed luncheon then all the kiddies (big and little) opened their presents.
 
Abi had lots of fun - she even tested out her cousin, Nathan's stack hat to make sure it worked properly. 

She had a little trouble with sticky tape and had to call on Nana to help .... Nana wasn't much better ...... lol.


Somehow Elmo seemed to wander around the party and managed to get in half the photographs.


Managed to get a snap of my two boys with their children .... glad they both bent down otherwise I would have only had their legs in the picture.


Got lots of lovely gifts and ate lots of yummy food.

Christmas Day was for relaxing and recovering ..... I had a quiet day at home with the dogs.

Then on Boxing Day I drove up to Newcastle (2hrs away) to see my MIL.  Horrid weather - it rained most of the way up and half of the way back!! On top of that it was HOT; in the low 30s  (86F).

Today it is rather cool - 17 (62F), overcast with the occasional  .... welcome to Australia; the land of weather extremes.
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Merry Christmas to all my bloggy friends!!

I hope that your Christmas is filled with love and family and I hope that the new year brings you joy and happiness.

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Tropical Storm Omeka Central Pacific Ocean

The Central Pacific now has unwrapped their first tropical storm since 1997. Tropical Storm Omeka formed in the Central Pacific Ocean near the International Dateline and the GOES-11 satellite captured an image of it today.

The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite called GOES-11 is stationary over the western U.S. and provides imagery of that half of the country in addition to visible and infrared images of the eastern and central Pacific Oceans. Satellite data was used to create a full-disk image of the Eastern and Central Pacific Ocean on Dec. 20 at 1200 UTC (7 a.m. EST) at the NASA GOES Project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The image showed Tropical Storm Omeka to the west of a large area of clouds along a frontal boundary in the Pacific. GOES satellites are managed by NOAA.

Music and Art

There is such a link for me between Music and Art - it is almost like you cannot have one without the other.  I have music playing whenever I am awake (as you know I don't turn on my TV) and find there is always some music genre that will suit my mood or my activity.

Painting is no different - I almost need music playing when I paint.

I have always been drawn to faces - especially those weathered ones of older men.  Now that I have begun painting portraits I have been searching out for those types of faces that scream out to me to be painted.

I recently found a great Tuareg elder and I knew I had to paint him.  He is the second face I have painted that is of a nomad; they seem to show great strength in their weather worn faces.

I find if I can play something that suits the theme of the painting then so much the better.

 So what music did I play as I painted - why Billy Thorpe's opus Tangier!!

So with the exotic strains of Marrekesh or Gypsy or A River Knows and naturally Tangier belting out, my Tuareg elder came to life.

I read the story behind the album in July and knew I had to buy it.  It was released at the end of October and I grabbed myself a copy early November..... it is great!!!  If you are interested in the story behind the release check out below.

I love to play Spanish flamenco when I paint also and it is usually when I paint something like a crashing wave - all that guitar work finds a release in my paintbrush I think.

Then, of course, there is opera or tenors or Tibetan chants or native American or Enya or the Stones or Meatloaf or ........ ENOUGH!!!  I think you get the picture ....lol.

Elder son is moving to Queensland in mid January so I now have an empty room - well it was empty for a few hours.

I have moved my painting gear into it (I had taken over my family/dining area) so that leaves my family room a little tidier and gives me a dedicated room just for painting.

Means I can put ideas on the walls or have even more 'gear' laying around and not have to pick it up continually to keep things tidy.

Billy spent his final years obsessed with TANGIER. In early 2007, he was all set to finish it. After seven years of tireless work and refinement, after literally thousands of hours of writing and demo-ing and recording the many multilayered elements that go to the breadth of TANGIER, he was very nearly there.

But then ….. the unfathomable. In the early hours of 28 February 2007, the world lost Billy Thorpe. And time stood still.

In the wake of the national and international mourning that followed, once the shell-shock started to subside, some of Billy’s closest friends and music associates began discussions with his family about the idea of completing TANGIER on Billy’s behalf. Everyone who knew Billy knew that TANGIER meant the world to him.

To leave it incomplete, to not deliver TANGIER to Billy’s lifelong fans and the music world at large would be a travesty, a legacy left unfulfilled.

With this resolve, a conglomerate of family, friends, musicians, music industry heavyweights and a couple of superstars set about piecing together and putting the finishing touches to Billy Thorpe’s almost finished masterpiece.

Some of the guest performers on TANGIER include Mick Fleetwood, Billy Thorpe’s former band mate in the early-’90s LA rock outfit, The Zoo... Egypt’s Tawadros brothers, Venezuelan-born flautist Pedro Eustache, Sydney violinist Richard Tognetti, as well as Australian singers Vanessa Amorosi, Brian Cadd, Connie Mitchell, Ian Moss and Melinda Schneider.

 
Just had an amazing sunset and managed to get a snap of it .

As the saying goes - "red sky at night shepherds' delight, red sky in the morning sailors' take warning..."

 Rotfl - my sister send this photo looking out of my nephew's front door .... talk about the sublime to the ridiculous!!

We have been having 30c plus days and they have been having the opposite.

Hey Jules - how deep is the snow at your front door???? .....lol.
 

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System 91S

At 0600 UTC (1 a.m. EST) on December 15, System 91S was located about 310 miles northwest of Learmonth, Australia near 18.1 South latitude and 110.6 East longitude. Learmonth is located in the extreme western coast of Australia.

When NASA’s Aqua satellite passed over System 91S on Dec. 15 at 06:05 UTC (1:05 a.m. EST) the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) Instrument captured an infrared image that showed a large area of strong convection around the center of the system’s circulation. The cloud tops were as cold as or colder than -63 Fahrenheit, indicating high, strong thunderstorms. The circulation of the low was clearly evident in the visible image from the AIRS instrument.

The strongest surface winds appear to be on the northeastern side of the storm between 25-30 knots (28-34 mph or 46-55 km/hr) where the strong convection is occurring. Minimum estimated pressure is 1000 millibars. System 91S is moving southwest near 5 mph.

Tropical Depression 19W Northwestern Pacific Ocean

Tropical depression 19W was the latest of four tropical cyclones to move over Vietnam this season. The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite passed directly above TD 19W on December 13, 2010 at 2038 UTC (3:38 p.m. EST) and collected rainfall data. TRMM’s Precipitation Radar (PR) showed that a few powerful thunderstorms embedded within TD 19W were dropping heavy rainfall off Vietnam’s south-eastern coast. The heaviest rainfall was falling at a rate of about 2 inches per hour over the coastal waters of Vietnam. TRMM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japanese space agency JAXA.

Although TD 19W was very small it’s rainfall added to October’s extreme rainfall amounts that contributed to the worst flooding seen in the country of Vietnam for 20 years. Flooding was widespread in the central provinces of Nghe An, Quang Tri, Quang Binh, Thua Thien Hue, and Ha Tinh. Deadly tropical storms Mindulle and Conson hit Vietnam in July and August. Tropical depression 18W in November also added to Vietnam’s extremely high 2010 rainfall totals.

According to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, the organization that forecasts tropical cyclones in that area of the world, TD 19W’s remnant s have already moved ashore and are now affecting southern and central Cambodia.

Tropical Storm 94B

A low pressure system has been moving through the Northern Indian Ocean over the last couple of days and infrared satellite imagery from NASA's Aqua satellite revealed strong convection in its eastern side and strong wind shear.

At 1800 UTC (1 p.m. EST) on Dec. 6, the center of the low pressure area known as 94B was located east of India's southeast coast over the Bay of Bengal. 94B's center is about 225 miles northeast of Colombo, Sri Lanka near 11.4 North and 84.0 East.

When NASA's Aqua satellite passed over the low on Dec. 6 at 07:59 UTC (2:59 a.m. EST), its Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument captured an infrared image of the storm's clouds. The image revealed that the western half of the low is already over land as a result of strong wind shear, while the eastern half of the storm and its center of circulation are over open waters in the Bay of Bengal. AIRS data showed that the eastern half of the low had the strongest convection and thunderstorms as infrared data revealed that cloud tops are so high that they are at least -63 degrees Fahrenheit (-52 Celsius) or colder.

Bah Humbug ... But Chivalry is Not Dead

I am not a Christmassy person, in fact this year I probably won't be putting up any decorations or tree because I am going to see my kids on Christmas Eve and they won't be over before then or on the big day; and the dogs aren't all that fussed if I do or don't ...rotfl.

So I am not a 'jolly' ho ho ho type.

Actually that is incorrect; I like giving gifts, love receiving them but the decorating and the buying part ..... aaarrrggghhh!!!  I positively hate shopping at the best of times and avoid it at all costs but unfortunately when Christmas comes around it means that no matter what I just cannot avoid going out to do shopping.

I do as much as possible online but I still have to venture to that dreaded place - the shops!!

This year I was better organised than previous (I have been known to do my Christmas shopping in one hit on Christmas Eve) - I started early with my online purchases.  Then the beginning of the week I bit the bullet and finished it all in one hit.

So there I was loaded up like a proverbial packhorse, almost to the parking level of the shopping complex where my car was, thinking that if I managed to make it back to my car in one piece I would celebrate when BAM!

A middle aged man had come rushing out of a shop next to me, head down putting his wallet into his pocket and collided with me.

Yep, parcels flew skyward and then downward, I rocked back and forth trying hard to not to land on my butt!! I am sure I was looking like a complete idiot.  How I managed to remain standing still amazes me but I did ...lol.

Anyway, the guy was as embarrassed as I was and quickly helped gather all my goodies - think he was probably muttering to himself "there are no more goods left in the shops this woman has bought them all".

He quipped something about hoping nothing was breakable and asked how I had manage to hold everything in my arms.  Anyway, between us we collected everything, he gave me a couple of light ones then asked if I was heading back to my car.  

Warnings rang in my head but I thought 'stuff it' if he wanted to play Sir Galahad who was I to say no.  So he proceeded to carry the rest to my car!!

Fortunately I had snagged a parking spot very close to the exit door so the poor man only had to walk about 30metres.   He made some inconsequential talk about the rain and Christmas shopping, even asked if I would like a coffee which I declined.  I may have been slightly reckless in letting him help me but I thought it wasn't wise to go any further.

We reached my car and I quickly bundled everything into the back and thank him.  He wandered off probably wondering if there was anything left in the shops for him to buy.

So there you have it - chivalry is alive and well in Blacktown ... rotfl.

BTW - I have made my christmas cakes - all 14 of them .... rotfl.... now they are just sitting waiting to soak up the extra port that I pour over them every few days ..... hic, hic. 

Gee Warty I never thought of that - perhaps I should have taken him up on his coffee offer .... lol. 

 
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Tropical Storm Abele Becomes More Powerful

NASA's TRMM satellite noticed strong bands of thunderstorms wrapping into Tropical Storm Abele, signaling that it has become more organized and more powerful in the Southern Indian Ocean.

The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite passed directly above tropical cyclone Abele in a remote area of the South Indian Ocean on December 1 at 0702 UTC (2:02 a.m. EST). This rainfall analysis from TRMM's Precipitation Radar (PR) and TRMM Microwave Imager (TMI) shows that Abele had become much better organized. Increasingly well defined bands of rainfall spiraling into the center of the storm are an indication that ABLE had intensified.

The TRMM pass over Abele occurred during daylight hours so the rainfall analysis was overlaid on infrared and visible images from TRMM's Visible and InfraRed Scanner (VIRS). TRMM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japanese space agency JAXA.

On Dec. 2 at 0600 UTC (1 a.m. EST), Abele's maximum sustained winds were near 60 knots (69 mph). It was about 610 nautical miles west-southwest of Cocos Islands and moving southeastward at 13 mph. Abele is about to run into cooler waters and increased wind shear and is expected to begin weakening in the next day.