Fire and Rain

 A muggy night with drizzle made for perfect conditions to photograph a large bonfire in the fire pit.  Notice the sunbeams coming off of the lights and the smoke hanging in the air about 120 feet (36 m) above the fire.

Above:  Children play on a tire swing to the left of the fire seemingly oblivious to the swarms of biting flies and mosquitoes.

The relative humidity was around 88% from 4:00 on which made the lighting just about perfect for shots like these.  At 8:00 pm when these images were made the temperature was 76° F with a dew point of 72° F (= relative humidity of 88%).

There was a light southeast wind of about 5 mph.  Unfortunately those conditions are also perfect weather for bugs. . . which is not so good for the photographer.

 I was so preoccupied with swatting bugs away from me that I kept hitting the camera and/or tripod and causing the images to come out blurry.

 Eventually the bugs won and I gave up trying to capture the scene.

Click on any image for a larger view

 In the 20 second exposure above the embers can be seen traveling well above the 80-foot-tall Live Oak Tree (Quercus virginiana) near the fire pit before heading off to the northwest.   The tree appears to be on fire.

 Above:  In this image the floating embers are also captured fanning out from the fire.  Unfortunately I was being swarmed by thousands of bugs and I jostled the camera just a little, causing the image to be less than perfect.  The camera needs to be perfectly still during long exposures.

The fire pit has been active for several days.  Thankfully the prevailing winds from the southeast being fanned by a tropical wave are pushing the smoke away from us.  The tropical wave has so far provided only scant rainfall.  Today we received less than 2/10ths of an inch (5 mm).

 Above:  As can be seen in this image, feet of rain are needed to refill Central Florida's dry lakes and wetlands.  While there were many clouds looking northeast toward New Smyrna Beach, there was little rainfall.

Above:  My monster gourds are enjoying the cloudy afternoons.  Their vine is quickly dying in the oppressive heat of late July so they will likely not get much larger.  Below:  I'm standing on tip-toes reaching up and grabbing one of the large grounds hanging from the main vine.  My hand provides some scale.  Most of these gourds are now longer than 4-feet (1.2 m).  I've found that they prefer shady locations that receive lots of water.  So the next batch will be planted in complete shade as August often provides us with hotter and drier weather than July.

 Below:  The path of the dissipating tropical wave over Florida and the overly optimistic forecast for flooding rains.  Behind the tropical wave is another blast of hot, descending Saharan Desert dust and very dry air that will leave most of Florida parched and with above normal temperatures for the foreseeable future.  This is very unusual weather to have Saharan Dust Storms travel the 5,000 miles to Florida repeatedly in one summer.

IMPACTS OF SAHARAN DUST STORMS

In addition to suppressing tropical activity across the Atlantic Ocean and brining hot, dry weather to Florida, 5,000 miles away, the Saharan Dust Storms are causing problems on Atlantic Ocean Islands much closer to the coast of Africa.  Above, fires rage on Madeira, west of Morocco on July 19, 2012.

Wildfires broke out on Madeira, part of a Portuguese archipelago west of Morocco, on July 18. News reports said that, by July 20, fires had spread to the nearby island of Porto Santo, and firefighters sent from mainland Portugal struggled to contain multiple blazes amid high winds.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this natural-color image on July 19, 2012. Red outlines indicate high surface temperatures associated with actively burning fires. Thick smoke blows away from the blazes toward the southwest.

Madeira was already suffering from severe drought by July 2012, and the wildfires began burning in the midst of temperatures up to  more than 104° F (40°C), according to news reports. Severe fires have also scorched parts of mainland Portugal.