Meteorology, Mama & Baby -or- How I Was Befriended By Luck

It was Easter Sunday, 2010, and unknown to me, dumb luck had befriended me.

Pure dumb luck.

Even scientists believe in it.

In 1996, Duncan C. Blanchard, a meteorological researcher then affiliated with the State University of New York at Albany, authored a scientific paper entitled “Serendipity, Scientific Discovery, and Project Cirrus” published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society in which he cited Project Cirrus (1947-52), a period and project of research from which “many serendipitous discoveries and inventions were made, opening up areas of research still being pursued today.”

Blanchard’s work was cited a decade later in 2006 by David M. Schultz, who was then affiliated with the Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma, and the NOAA/National Severe Storms Laboratory, Norman, Oklahoma in a research paper entitled The Mysteries of Mammatus Clouds: Observations and Formation Mechanisms. In it he wrote that what little we know about mammatus clouds was, because of their nature, “obtained largely through serendipitous opportunities.”

In other words, what little we know about the clouds (so named after human breasts because of their appearance), has been obtained by pure dumb luck – although, being prepared, and being in the right place at the right time does account for something.

In conversation recently with a dear, and longtime friend, I shared about

Hurricane Sandy Pummels East Coast, Stresses Cities’ Weak Infrastructure

Like many, I’ve read a few stories, and seen a few pics from the landing of Hurricane Sandy on the United States Eastern seaboard.

Honestly, it’s difficult to go throughout the day not hearing at least one story about the extreme climatic conditions that’ve been wreaking havoc for thousands of miles, stretching North into Canada and South into the Appalachian foothills of Tennessee & North Carolina from the hurricane’s epicenter located in the New York City & New Jersey areas.

Though unlike many, I’ve not stayed glued to the weather news or developments.

Extreme climatic events in remote affected areas – unusually early and deep snowfall, including heavy rain – have accompanied this unparalleled severe weather event. Yet one of the odd things about this storm, is that – as hurricane strength is measured – it’s not a powerful storm.

Hurricane measurements grade storm intensity according to wind strength, and

Tornadoes… and More things than you can shake a stick at

Sure… the title is a colloquialism. However, that does not make it any less true.

Only the blithely ignorant would not be aware that the South has experienced utterly devastating tornadoes recently. The utter scope, breadth, magnitude, number and extent of the literally hundreds of tornadoes that struck principally in Alabama have literally knocked the state for a loop.

Complicating matters was a hitherto unheard-of event