Snow

Here are a handful of snowflakes, courtesy of the NOAA Photo Library National Weather Service (NWS) Collection.

Image 890 of "Studies among the Snow Crystals ... " by Wilson Bentley, "The Snowflake Man." From Annual Summary of the "Monthly Weather Review" for 1902. Bentley was a bachelor farmer whose hobby was photographing snow flakes. ID# wea02098

You Asked for It: Mangroves

A reader requested a hi-res shot of a mangrove, so I had a look around. On each of these sites there are at least a few — and often many — more images to choose from.

Here are a few from the US Fish & Wildlife Service’s National Digital Library:

WO3690 Black Mangrove Swamp in Texas

Volume1\5CD6962D-A3E0-D2A3-F39EC675A2151B94.jpg (Full Resolution Volume and Filename)

Professions

You could be an aerial photographer. [LC-USZ62-61731]

You could be a hanging judge.

“Judge Roy Bean, the `Law West of the Pecos,’ holding court at the old town of Langtry, Texas in 1900, trying a horse thief. This building was courthouse and saloon. No other peace officers in the locality at that time.” [National Archives 111-SC-93343]

Or an explosives expert:

 

Bushnell’s TURTLE used to place explosives to British ships in 1776.
Image ID: nur09503, Voyage To Inner Space – Exploring the Seas With NOAA Collect
Credit: OAR/National Undersea Research Program

Have you considered bathing beach policeman?

“Col. Sherrell, Supt. of Public Buildings and Grounds, has issued an order that bathing suits at the Wash[ington] bathing beach must not be over six inches above the knee…Bill Norton the bathing beach policeman measuring distance between knee and bathing suit on woman.” 1922. LC-USZ62-99824

Assembling ordnance shells?

[National Archives ARC Identifier 292129]

Why not a bike-chute aeronaut?

[LC-USZ62-24481]

Whatever. Happy Labor Day.

NOAA: The Unexpected

Credit: OAR/NURP [nur09515]

Once more to the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Photo Library, for some images that just might surprise you.

Take, for example, the one above, “In 1680, physicist Giovanni Borelli attempts to recycle his own breathing air.” You’ll find it under Graphics in the National Undersea Research Program (NURP) album, which is part of the Voyage to Inner Space – Exploring the Sea with NOAA collection.

The next three are from the Treasures of the NOAA Library Collection.

This man-goat-fish “merman satyr” is an illustration from a 1696 volume, Specula physico-mathematico-historica by Johann Zahn. (Credit: Archival Photograph by Mr. Sean Linehan, NOS, NGS [libr0079])

Or perhaps you’d prefer to encounter “A Monster Born of a Ewe,” like in this illustration appearing in the 1714 Journal des Observations Physiques, Mathematiques et Botaniquesby Louis Feuillee. The NOAA caption page notes that what we have here is “A ‘monster’ observed by the author in Buenos Aires in 1708. The author was serious as he reported this creature to the King of France.” (Credit: NOAA libr0408)

Isn’t this a pleasant looking sun? It reminds me of the one on The Teletubbies but is in fact from the title page of De Thermis Andreae Baccii Elpidiani, Civis Romani by Andrea Bacci, published 1622. (Credit:  libr0469)

These two, filed under Sculpture and Carvings in the Art of the NOAA Photo Library collection, were shot by NOAA photographer William Folsom in the Florida Keys. He found the first on Islamorada (Credit: NOAA, NMFS [line1108]); the giant spiny lobster is at Treasure Village on Plantation Key (Credit: NOAA, NMFS [line1115]).

NOAA Images: Hurricanes

Circa 1938, Coast Guard aircraft were used to drop warning messages to sponge fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico off Florida’s west coast.  Credit:  NWS wea01803

Forty years ago tonight, or early tomorrow morning, Hurricane Camille made landfall near Bay St. Louis on the coast of Mississippi. It was one of only three 20th century hurricanes to be classified as Category 5 when it hit land.

The images for this post are from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Photo Library’s National Weather Service (NWS) Collection’s album, Meteorological Monsters.

What does a hurricane look like? Its radar image is distinct and recognizable, and some of the images in this album are screenshots of radar data. Here, for example, are screenshots of Camille and 2005’s Katrina from NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center:

But as the hurricane is going on, taking a picture that is readily identifiable as “hurricane” isn’t so easy. More telling are the aftermath pictures, ones showing widespread devastation or ones proving the bizarre and awesome strength of these storms, like these:

 

 

 

Above and left: Hurricane Andrew, Miami, 1992 . A piece of plywood and a  1 X 4 board driven through the trunks of  royal palm trees. Credits: NWS wea00544, wea00546

Right: September 13, 1928, Puerto Rico:  10-foot 2 X 4 driven through a palm tree.  Credit: NWS wea00405

 

 In Mississippi, the casinos are on barges in the Gulf. What you see in the foreground of this picture is the white sand of the coast. Then Highway 90, the main east-west highway along the Gulf Coast. And then, beyond the beach and beyond the highway, the largest of two barges from Biloxi Grand Hotel, run aground where Katrina moved it. The big blue moving van in the left corner gives an indication of the size — and weight– of this barge.

 Photographer/Credit: Lieut. Commander Mark Moran, NOAA Corps, NMAO/AOC [NWS wea02523]

 These sets of before and after shots give an idea of the aftermath of Hurricane Camille. This is Trinity Episcopal Church, built in 1849, Pass Christian, Mississippi, photographed in the 1960s (credit: NWS wea00436) before Camille:

 — and after (credit: NWS wea00437):

 Isn’t it strange how the one tree seems unscathed?

Another example: This historic Mississippi home was photographed during the summer of 1969, prior to its planned September opening as Episcopal High School (credit: NWS wea00422):

Camille took all but its front steps (credit: NWS wea00423):