Yoga I Reflection Part 2

1.    Do you feel like your yoga asana and meditation practice has helped your level of well-being?  List three effects and which practice(s) helped you for each.

It has helped with my well-being a great deal. Three ways in which this class has helped me are as follows: 1. I can feel where my muscles are, even the smaller ones. This helps my form when weightlifting. 2. I know how to stretch parts of my body that I didn’t know I could stretch. The best example is my lower back, which I have had problems with for as long as I can remember. I am no able to alleviate some of the pressure there just by doing a simple stretch that I can do any where and at any time. 3. I sleep better. A lot better. Especially on a day when I do yoga. But I know how to calm my mind much better than I used to, and I know how to just shut it down and go to sleep.

2.    Have you noticed that your stress levels have been easier to control as a result of your practice?  Please explain specifically what you’ve done to control your stress, and how the practices have helped.

I suffer from some pretty severe anxiety resulting from some hard things that happened to me when I was a kid. Most of it is physiological and I can’t do much about it. But, breathing techniques definitely help. In yoga and meditation I have learned how to take a step back and reset. It doesn’t work every time, but I can do it often enough to be helpful. I’m very grateful for the ability.

3.    Has your physical health improved during this semester as a result of your practice? How and in what ways?  Be specific.

As I said above, yoga has made me a better weightlifter and it has made it easier for me to fall asleep and stay asleep. Sleep is the foundation of health. Without it, no amount of sunshine or exercise is going to make me feel healthy.

4.    Has your emotional health improved as a result of your practice?  How? Are you less reactive? What happened in those specific situations?

I am FAR less reactive than I was before I started taking meditation at the beginning of this year and yoga has only added to that. As I said above, I’m able to take a step back and breathe now. It’s much better. I used to get really stressed out or annoyed or even full-on angry at work when I felt overwhelmed. I don’t often feel overwhelmed anymore. Just a few nights ago, I was getting my butt kicked bartending and I just wanted to stop. So that’s what I did. I stopped for about 90 seconds, went into the freezer, focused on my breath, and when I came back I was completely ready to work again.

5.    What effects have the yoga practices you've learned and practiced had on your energy levels? List the three most important and state why you think they helped.

I wouldn’t say that yoga has done much for my energy levels, unfortunately. I’ve been under a lot of pressure the last few months. I lost my fiancée, my home, my bed, my dogs, everything I own. I’ve been without a home for months. I’m moving to Hawaii in four weeks and I’m completely unprepared. I’ve been able to keep my stress levels low and I’ve been able to sleep, thank God, but I can’t do much about my energy levels being as depressed as I have been lately. They just aren’t there.

6.    Have your relationships to family, co-workers, and others changed as a result of your practices? Explain how.  Please be specific.

Absolutely they have. Yoga and meditation have a wonderful way of peeling back layers of narcissism. What I mean by that is that if you walk around feeling disconnected from everyone, feeling as though their motives are always impure while yours always have some good reason, you will find yourself treating people very unfairly. I’ve done that for most of my life. Yoga and meditation have improved my spirituality, made me feel more connected and empathetic, and helped to relinquish the stranglehold of control that I’ve had over my life. I treat everyone so much better now. I listen. I don’t rage out. I’m calm. I care so much now. I want to know what’s wrong and why. I’m ready to apologize and seek a solution at a moment’s notice.

7.    Has learning about basic nutrition changed the way you select food, or changed the foods you eat? In what ways?

I’ve been big on proper nutrition for years. That old saying “You are what you eat” is literally true. You are made up of those things that you put into your body, both physical and emotional. If we consume garbage, then garbage we will be.

8.    Is taking better care of your physical body by consuming more nutritional foods contributing to your overall health and well-being? If not, why not? What specific things have you noticed that are improvements?

Of course it does. More energy, more confidence, and just an overall feeling of increased well-being.

9.    Do you feel like you think before you speak more often?  Has what you’ve learned about ahimsa (non-violence) helped you be a kinder person? Why or why not?

My answer above answers this. Words can be violent. I try very hard to be more selective in how I use them.

10. Do you look forward to your practice, or struggle finding time for it?  Why and how has it been a pleasure? Or what do you think are the real reasons behind your struggle?

I look forward to my practice and I struggle to find time for it. Depression, anxiety, and a lack of living space have made it hard for me to ahsana, but I do yoga nidra and a few simple stretches every single night. I still try to meditate as often as I can get myself to as well.

11. In what ways has learning about the Kundalini Yoga system and the energy body complemented your yoga practices or your understanding of yoga practice in general?

Again, I think it just helps me to be more aware of my physical body and helps to improve my spirituality.

12. How has learning about the energy/astral body and the chakras changed the way you think or feel about yoga?

I was surprised at how indepth it is. I thought yoga was just stretching, but there is much more to it.

13. Is yoga more than just a physical exercise for you? Explain why or why not.

I don’t believe that there is anything as just a physical exercise. I do a lot of different things and each one of them contributes to me emotionally and mentally as well as physically

14. Explain the most profound or important insights that you have realized from your meditation practice.

That there is more to life than meets the eye. I’m not kidding about spirituality. I had NONE before I started meditation and yoga. I thought that what I see is all there is. I was arrogant. I feel much smaller now, and in a funny way, much dumber.

15. Have you found yoga to be a deeper or more interesting study than you thought it was when you first started class? Why?

Absolutely. I thought I was just going to be stretching and maybe learning how to be a little more mindful. The energy body, Kundalini, chakras, all of this stuff is so interesting and I’m looking forward to exploring it further.

16. How will you integrate or use what you've learned about the yoga practices as you go forward on your life's path?

Like every other physed class I’ve taken, this is the root of something that will grow into a mighty oak as my life goes on. I will never stop doing yoga, just like I will never stop meditating, just like I will never stop biking or lifting weights. Without these things, I am nothing. I have nothing. I don’t function. They are the basis for everything else that I do.

Yoga I Reflection

HLAC – LIFELONG WELLNESS APPLICATION PAPER                                  Vinny Genovesi

1.        What did you learn about “Lifelong Wellness” from taking this class?

I took this class because I had taken meditation the previous semester and because I like doing fitness stuff. I want a full complement of skills, abilities, and hobbies. I think that it’s very very important to work hard on your physical self as well as your spiritual self and so this class was a natural choice for me. I learned how to better focus inwardly, and I learned how to stretch parts of my body that I didn’t know existed. This class made me a better weightlifter because it made me more aware of the various muscles in my body.

2.       How has learning about and applying “Lifelong Wellness” concepts impacted your life (home, school, work, relationships, etc)?

In every way possible. Fitness and health are the foundation of everything else that I do. Without the gym, without yoga, weightlifting, cycling, meditating, swimming, etc., I would never have learned the skills and the discipline to do the rest of the things that life requires for success. Without these things I think I would be quite mad.

3.       What is your intention to continue to exercise in your life and why?

I’ll exercise for the rest of my life. I exercise every single day already. I lose my mind if I don’t get some kind of exercise, even if it’s just a walk. I’d really love to be a fitness instructor of some kind, but for now I’m on the path to law. If that doesn’t work out, I have no doubt that I will go into health, nutrition, and fitness for a living.

4.        General ideas for improving this course?

This course is fine the way that it is. Our instructor was excellent. Good class, I’m very glad I took it.

Nationalism in Germany and Britain

Vinny Genovesi

3/1/16

Nationalism in Germany and Britain: A Comparative Analysis

Nationalism is the political principle that the cultural and political components of a country should be unified. There are two types of nationalism: cultural nationalism, in which the nation is defined by a shared culture; and civic nationalism, in which the cultural component is less emphasized and a shared belief in the civic value of a specific political or economic philosophy works to bind a people together.

Cultural nationalism relates to ethnicity, blood, and shared traditions and history. Cultural nationalism at its best promotes a kind of living history and cultural identity. At its worst it may devolve into xenophobia, authoritarianism, and expansionism. Civic nationalism is more liberal, allowing for the principles of tolerance and equality.

Through the lens of rudimentary comparative analysis, this paper will compare and contrast the civic nationalism of Britain with the cultural nationalism of Germany, discussing the causes and effects of the rise of nationalism in both countries as well as examining the current state of nationalism in each. An important discussion in European politics currently is whether nationalism is on the rise. Should Europeans be concerned about the resurgence of nationalism in countries like Germany and Britain?

The Rise of Two Nations

“There is, in political geography, no Germany proper to speak of. There are Kingdoms and Grand Duchies, and Duchies and Principalities, inhabited by Germans, and each separately ruled by an independent sovereign with all the machinery of State. Yet there is a natural undercurrent tending to a national feeling and toward a union of the Germans into one great nation, ruled by one common head as a national unit.” – New York Times, 1866

The history of the rise of nationalism in Germany is fraught with trouble. Prior to the Napoleonic Wars and The Holy Roman Empire, German identity was largely divided. Divisions between Catholics and Protestants, large language diversity, and an atomized state controlled by squabbling lords with no strong central authority all contributed to the looseness of German culture and identity.

The first hints of German nationalism came during the Napoleonic Wars. French nationalism was an indomitable force and many European countries came to realize that the only way to counter it was to adopt the ideals of national loyalty and identity. The hegemony of feudal empires was no match for the bottom-up popular impetus for national defense that embodied French nationalism. The idea of Pan-Germanism, centered around shared identity and national loyalty, arose in response. Liberal nationalism and Pan-Germanism found their champion in Johann Gottlieb Fichte and his Address to the German nation and for a time, liberal nationalism dominated.

The Revolutions of 1848 changed the circumstances. Liberal nationalists failed to create a nation-state and Prussians ultimately gained control of the German state. Prussian ideals were authoritarian and anti-liberal. German nationalism took on the character of racialism.

Much like the current German state, German nationalism came in response to war and occupation and found itself rooted in blood and cultural identity. British nationalism found its genesis in both evolution and revolution.

The nationalism of the British was a natural extension of the shared history and identity of the people who had lived, worked, and developed on their island for hundreds of years. Cultures evolving over time developed a shared identity through their interactions. There remains, in fact, some debate over when English nationalism arose.

Modern nationalism came to Britain after the Thirty Year’s War by way of the Puritan Revolution and Reformism. The British felt a new sense of purpose and enlightenment following these events. A national unity formed. “[English nationalism] filled the English people with an entirely new sense that they, the common people of England, were the bearers of history and the builders of destiny at a great turning point from which a new true Reformation was to start.” (Nationalism and Multiple Modernities: Europe and Beyond – Atsuko Ichijo)

English nationalism is an extension of English identity and evolved over time without much external influence. It came as a decision by the state and the nation to modernize and move toward the future. It could be described as optimistic. German nationalism came rapidly via the unification of many disparate states. Its origin was reactive and its character could be described as both insular and expansionist.

There are parallels to be drawn here between the evolutionary genesis of the British state and the similar origins of its national identity, and the hard and violent origins of the German state and the origins of its national identity.

Prussian ideals of authoritarianism alongside German cultural nationalism were instrumental to the rise of the Nazi Party and the devastation of WWII.

Nationalism on the Rise

Although nationalism in Germany has been somewhat taboo since WWII for obvious reasons, some Europeans worry that it is on the rise today. British nationalism is on the rise as well. In fact, nationalism and authoritarianism may be making a comeback worldwide currently.

In Britain, English and Scottish nationalisms threaten to tear the UK apart. Identity has leaned toward the cultural in recent years. Public mistrust in the government is high in Britain today and resistance to EU membership is growing. Some states are peeling off as well. A recent referendum would have given Scotland independence, but failed.

Meanwhile in England, the UK Independence Party, a far right anti-European party, has made strides. Ukip, whose slogan states “The EU isn’t working” ostensibly seeks to retain Britain’s sovereignty and self-governance. Recently, Ukip has managed to find enough support to be a legitimate threat to establishment politics in the UK, even attempting to force a referendum on the UK’s EU membership. Reasons for the rise of a nationalist party in the UK are myriad: stagnant wages, immigration, gay marriage, and so-called “unpatriotic” liberals are all being resisted by working class voters. Views on national identity seem to be polarizing voters around the world.

In Germany, after many years of feeling guilt about their past, Germans are again beginning to take pride in their history and cultural heritage. A new generation of Germans is getting older and the mistakes of Germany’s past are gradually receding from Germany’s collective conscious. A new and stabler Germany has formed, and young Germans, who were born a generation or more after the atrocities of WWII, are anxious to move forward.

Many Europeans wonder if German identity has changed enough to bear the weight of pride without cracking. Even many Germans are nervous to see where this new nationalism will lead.

Today, overt demonstrations of German nationalism can be found mostly at civic events like the 60^th anniversary of the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany, or the 20^th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. It can also be found at sporting events like 2010 World Cup. Nationalism has not yet embedded itself into the political sphere completely. After a trio of devastations brought onto Germany by herself, and given Germany’s currently strong economy and position as leader of the EU, it’s unlikely that this nationalism will lead to another round of expansionism any time soon.

Immigration

With regard to nationalism, the greatest quarrels in Germany and in Britain today are over immigration.

Currently, Germany has 2 million Muslims under 30 years of age. As of December 2015, Germany was on track to accept one million refugees by the end of the year. Many Germans are fine with immigration, believing that it will strengthen their culture and economy. However, according to a survey by the Frederich Ebert Foundation, fully one-third of Germans believe that Germany is “in serious danger of being overrun by foreigners.” More than one half want the practice of Islam seriously restricted.

Tensions over immigration have escalated recently due to a belief by many that many immigrants, but Muslims in particular, refuse to integrate. Many Germans believe that this will dilute their culture and lead to a “dumbing-down” of society and a slowing of economic and social progress. Is this rising German nationalism? Is it dangerous?

The largest majority of Muslims in the UK live in England. All totaled, approximately 3 million Muslims live in the UK, 4.4% of the population. Many in the UK, England especially, believe that the country is being overrun by Muslims; in fact, one particularly hyperbolic article speisa.com states that Britain may be a Muslim nation within 20 years.

Anti-Muslim groups, like Britain First, have been attracting followers recently. The group has been winning enormous support on social media. Just this month, Britain First demonstrated in a largely Muslim neighborhood. Carrying crosses and wearing hoods, they marched down the streets of Luton, a town just 30 miles north of London. Luton is known for attracting both Islamists and Islamophobic extremists.

In an article by the Gatestone Institute even claims that Islam will be the dominant religion in the UK in just 20 years. A new survey by the same Institute found that Britons see immigration as the number one problem facing their country. The report also shows that Britons see respect for the law, freedom of speech, and the ability to speak English as the most essential traits to being British.

Conclusion

Though German nationalism and British nationalism have highly disparate origins, over the years they have had to deal with many of the same issues.

In recent years, the UK has struggled with their identity as it relates to the larger picture of the EU. Immigration and a stagnating economy  in the face of nationalistic ideals have even caused problems with their internal identity, threatening to rip the UK apart. Conversely, Germany, despite some internal quarrels, has had its nationalism as an almost unifying force, both internally and on the global stage. The German identity of honor, respect, and hard work has made them an economic powerhouse and the seat of the EU, much different from Britain, which remains insular and not fully unified.

The question of whether or not the nationalism of these two states is a danger can only be born out through time. Germany and England do not wish to lose their cultural identity, and that’s understandable. The world is changing, and clinging to a familiar identity provides both comfort and strength to an insecure people.

Meditation Reflection

I have to admit that through my life I've had my doubts about meditation. I have always been a "do-er" rather than a "sitter". I could not logically construct in my mind the means by which meditation might be beneficial. I tried it a few times and it just felt like sitting. I had the wrong idea about what it was and what it was supposed to do; I expected some state of mystical trance that I never reached and so I blew it off.

I was wrong. Sitting is the point. It's the one thing I never do, just sit.

Our reflection assignment asks us to give a few (4-5) examples of a time when meditation was beneficial for us. For me, meditation has been beneficial since about the third week when something finally clicked for me and I understood that doing nothing was the point. Past that, I have so many examples of times when meditation was beneficial that I don't even know where to start. Meditation is beneficial to me in every minute of every day. It's hard to even describe the impact that it has had on my life. I will describe a few instances here.

Work
I'm a bartender and my job is frequently difficult and stressful. I have always allowed myself to be fully drawn into a hard moment. If work is stressful, I am stressed. If it slows down for a bit, I stay stressed. When I get stressed, I get angry. It used to be difficult for me to control my reactions when I got angry, but that has subsided over the years and I'm able to stay on a fairly even keel even when I'm very frustrated.

It hasn't stopped, though. I still get upset when I'm stressed out and I still stay upset when the stressor goes away. Not so since meditation. I'm not perfect, but a few weeks ago I was having a very rough night (two huge local bands on the same night and a lot of very drunk, very demanding, very cheap people), but I took advice that I got from the class and in a quiet moment, I set everything down and just looked around for a bit. I reminded myself that I'm just here, and I cleared my head and listened to the room. It's a practice that I've employed countless times since, and it's one that I would not have learned if not for this class.

Home
I have had trouble falling asleep my entire life, even when I was a very young child. I can never seem to just clear my head and pass out. I have these negative and repetitive thoughts that go on a loop. I had very bad anxiety for a few years in my twenties and it's never really gone completely away.

I spent a lot of time wrestling with these obsessive thoughts at night, trying to replace them with positive thoughts or to remind myself that it's okay, my life is good, blah, blah, blah... But this just leads to more obsessive thinking. It's very cyclical. The mistake that I was making, and I learned this from falling asleep in class while doing yoganidra, is that I was trying to fight thoughts with more thoughts. In meditation I learned how to become aware of my breath, and how to clear my head of thoughts, and how to feel my presence in a room. Now at bedtime I remind myself "You are nowhere else but here. It is no time other than now." After that I become aware of my breath and my body and I fall asleep very quickly. It works every single time.

If I got no other benefit from this class, this one thing would be more than enough. For me, being able to just fall straight to sleep, is revolution.

School
Additionally, even though I was a bookworm when I was a kid, I don't read books as an adult. I can never focus on them long enough. But I recently took some of the things I'd learned in yoga, and I used the same kind of present attention while I was reading one night, and the words basically popped off the page for me. I was able to sit through an entire novel just a few nights ago. I haven't done that since grade school.

Play
I love to be outdoors. I love riding my bike and hiking and swimming and climbing. I spend so much of my time in my head, though, that I feel like I never really get to appreciate these things. Sometimes when I'm outdoors, it's almost like I'm watching a nature show on TV. That's how disconnected I have felt from the world the past few years.

I recently began once again to use the present attention that I've learned in meditation to better appreciate nature. I'm not perfect on this one yet. There's a lot going on outside and it's easy to get distracted and end up back in my head. My plan, though, is to meditate outdoors in nature frequently this summer. My first two destinations are a mountaintop and a lake to attempt mountain and lake meditations. It's my hope that getting better at meditating in those kinds of environments will further help me to stay calm and present in situations that are not ideal.

Conclusion
Meditation has made it's way into most parts of my life already. I know that we should go into our practice without expectation and not necessarily looking for the places it has been beneficial, but the truth is that meditation has legitimately changed my life for the better and I do look forward to what this practice can do for my life in the future.

Natural Disasters Reflection

1. For this assignment, analyzing the images was not without difficulty. I used a couple of different resources. The main thing I wanted was to learn how to read Doppler. I was marginally successful. I found a pretty good basic article on the subject at:

https://www.wolframscience.com/summerschool/2014/alumni/files/Howtoreadandinterpretweatherradar.pdf

I used this information to determine what the various colors mean, what the bits, and returns and echos are, and what certain patterns mean. The above link is actually very in-depth for being a novice guide, but it was very interesting.

For analyzing the visible and infrared imagery, I drew upon my knowledge from the class, the textbook, and I also google searched images of various storms. This part was difficult. I still don't can't say whether I'm looking at an MCS or a squall line. A squall line is a long string of storms, but MCS storms can form long lines as well. It didn't appear to me to be perfectly straight and it looked like there was an area of lower pressure that the top end of the storm was moving around, and the doppler showed holes as well, so I decided to go with mesoscale convective system.

2. The second part of this reflection asks whether citizens should be better at interpreting their world through satellite imagery, and whether or not this type of imagery is ethical from a surveillance standpoint.

As to the first part of the question, I am a lover of history. I enjoy thinking about who we are and where we came from and why we are the way we are. Throughout this course, I have been astonished at the technical achievements of mankind in coming together to learn how our world works and how we can prepare for and mitigate disasters.

I think about agriculturalists a thousand years ago and what value this technology would have had for them. I think a great deal about how we become less and less vulnerable to the elements and to what we once thought of as "chance", which it turns out is somewhat predictable.

So, for this question I would say that any bit of information that average people can use to improve their lives and their understanding of the world should be used, and that we should all feel pretty grateful to live in the period of time that we do. I also think that we do already use these things in our daily lives. Satellite imagery finds it's way into all sorts of apps that people use for everything from weather to navigation, to even watching earthquakes as they happen around the world, which is an app a friend showed me just a few months ago.

I think that because of the advances in environmental and other technologies, we're all becoming much more aware of the world we live in.

As to the second part of the question, people have a right to privacy. Philosophically they do, but more importantly, your right to privacy in the U.S. is guaranteed under the Constitution under a combination of the 1st, 4th, 9th, and 14th Amendments. There would be major ethical issues if this satellite surveillance fell into the hands of a bad regime. This plus phone and internet surveillance, plus financial surveillance through credit cards, plus autonomous weapons would pretty much guarantee a thousand-year dictatorship. There may be some civil liberties issues, yes.

Assessing Severe Weather Signature Assignment

SPC WATCH

"SEL1

   URGENT - IMMEDIATE BROADCAST REQUESTED

   SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH NUMBER 61...CORRECTED

   NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER NORMAN OK

   405 PM CDT WED MAR 30 2016

   CORRECTED FOR EXPIRATION TIME

   THE NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER HAS ISSUED A

   * SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH FOR PORTIONS OF

     NORTHEAST KANSAS

     EXTREME NORTHWEST MISSOURI

   * EFFECTIVE THIS WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON AND EVENING FROM 405 PM

     UNTIL 900 PM CDT.

   * PRIMARY THREATS INCLUDE...

     ISOLATED LARGE HAIL EVENTS TO 1.5 INCHES IN DIAMETER POSSIBLE

   SUMMARY...STORMS FORMING IN NORTHEAST KANSAS WILL SPREAD

   NORTHEASTWARD THIS EVENING AND CONTINUE TO POSE A RISK FOR AT LEAST

   ISOLATED LARGE HAIL FOR THE NEXT FEW HOURS.

   THE SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH AREA IS APPROXIMATELY ALONG AND 30

   STATUTE MILES EAST AND WEST OF A LINE FROM 20 MILES NORTHWEST OF

   SAINT JOSEPH MISSOURI TO 10 MILES SOUTH SOUTHWEST OF EMPORIA

   KANSAS.  FOR A COMPLETE DEPICTION OF THE WATCH SEE THE ASSOCIATED

   WATCH OUTLINE UPDATE (WOUS64 KWNS WOU1).

   PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...

   REMEMBER...A SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH MEANS CONDITIONS ARE

   FAVORABLE FOR SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS IN AND CLOSE TO THE WATCH

   AREA. PERSONS IN THESE AREAS SHOULD BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR

   THREATENING WEATHER CONDITIONS AND LISTEN FOR LATER STATEMENTS

   AND POSSIBLE WARNINGS. SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS CAN AND OCCASIONALLY

   DO PRODUCE TORNADOES.

   &&

   OTHER WATCH INFORMATION...CONTINUE...WW 58...WW 59...WW 60...

   AVIATION...A FEW SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS WITH HAIL SURFACE AND ALOFT

   TO 1.5 INCHES. EXTREME TURBULENCE AND SURFACE WIND GUSTS TO 60

   KNOTS. A FEW CUMULONIMBI WITH MAXIMUM TOPS TO 450. MEAN STORM

   MOTION VECTOR 22030."

The above watch is a severe thunderstorm warning for Northeast Kansas and the Northwesternmost part of Missouri. The watch began at 4:05 PM. Thunderstorms tend to occur in the afternoon when conditions are most ideal. In the case of a severe thunderstorm, which relies on favorable conditions over a large geographic region, the conditions here would have included changes in atmospheric wind shear, updrafts, moisture in the lower troposphere, and most importantly, vertical wind shear which creates the horizontal rolling motion in the air. Warm afternoon conditions would have contributed as well, with the cold front quickly pushing beneath the warm, dry afternoon air. 

This warning includes a threat of isolated large hail events, up to 1.5 inches in diameter. Hail is major hazard of thunderstorms and costs about a billion dollars a year in damage just in the U.S. Hail forms when an ice pellet begins to fall to the ground and receives a liquid water coating in the warmer low portion of the cloud. Updrafts send the coated pellet back up to the colder part and the water freezes. This process will repeat until the hail grows too large for updrafts to carry it back up, and then it falls to the ground. We had a nice, brief hailstorm here in Salt Lake just today.

The watch warns that severe thunderstorms can and do produce tornadoes. This one did not, but if it had, it would have been the result of large pressure variances over short distances producing horizontal wind shear around an a large updraft at the rear of the storm, which itself would be the cause of the large pressure difference.

I included two Doppler images here. The first is the local Doppler. Since NEXRAD stations only have a range of about 217 miles, if the image is circular, you can determine that it was taken from just one station. The second Doppler image shows the whole nation and came from some combination of the United States' 158 NEXRAD sites. 

Pings from radar bounce off of objects like rain and hail in the atmosphere and return energy back to the site. It works like regular radar. As an aside, I took trigonometry last semester and I think it's really neat to see polar coordinates in use. I suppose it makes sense that trig would be used in radar, but I'd never thought about it.

In both Doppler images you can see some bright banding in the center. The higher reflectivity of liquid coated frozen material means that these are likely the areas that are receiving hail. The surrounding areas that have smoother gradients should be receiving large amounts of rain.

As for the infrared and visible images, I can't tell if this is an MCS or a squall line. It doesn't have the characteristic isolation from other storms and it doesn't have the rotation, although there may be one sitting just north of western Tennessee. They do sometimes embed themselves in squall lines. From the visible image, it looks like it may be too low-lying, however. There is a large area with no clouds at all just over Kansas and southeastern Nebraska that may be an area of low pressure which the storm is rotating around. This leads me to believe that it may be an MCS. 

The infrared and visible images are similar, except for one key difference. The infrared doesn't show the high cloud tops over Arkansas and Missouri that you can see in the visible image. 

Trigonometry

Trig was an excellent class. Of the maths I've taken so far, it was the most obviously applicable. I have come away from this class with a clearer understanding of a lot of the little ins and outs of how things are measured and quantified. One of my favorite things that we learned this year was how to tell how tall a building is just by knowing how far away I am and what angle the top is from me. There were a lot of neat things like that that I have gone home to show my fiancee. She is, unfortunately, not as excited about how tall buildings are as I am.

Spring Mass Project