Chat

[Michael]

oputl

[pommystuart]

oputl

I think
Overcast, passing, ugly, thunder, lightning covers the weather well. You cannot see it but the story included hail.
Now what about the cloud formations?

[Michael]

ST CUN AC CS

[pommystuart]

ST CUN AC CS

[Morgan]

I really miss a good old thunderstorm. I have had a new 50 year roof for more than 10 months with 4 inches of rain. A big dark cloud went over this afternoon; it was smoke from a fire. That picture is amazing. Stuart, have have posted some really good ones. Is your weather that violent, or are these from the whole continent?
Stay safe- from everything.

[pommystuart]

Those picture are an exception.
We do swing between floods, drought and bushfires quite often. Remember Australia is just a bit smaller than the USA and bigger then Europe so you have to expect a big variety of weather. In general the western 2/3 are dry and the east gets the rain. The south west part of WA and the southern coast of SA and Vic gets the rain with poor Tasmania has about 150 rainy days/yr.
Like you Morgan, I do like watching a good electrical storm but we do not get many in my area.

[studentforever]

On log books, most of our circa WW1 logs were the copies sent to the Admiralty rather than the logs written up daily. The latter had different writing on each watch, if a lot was happening then entries could be squeezed in to any empty spaces on the page and the sequence of events had to be disentangled. So even then I seem to remember that certain things were written on a slate in the wheelhouse and might be copied in to one of the logs at the end of the watch although other things might be written up directly. This could be seen by more than one hand in the same watch entry. The signatures in those entries were also obviously signatures and not copies prefixed by 'signed'.

[Michael]

I was curious about winds at some of our more frequented ports. One common way to show winds is to plot a wind rose. From my time working with the Yukon Forest Service, I wrote a short script to plot a very basic wind rose. I thought it would be fun to look at some of the stations in Alaska. The bars show how often the wind blows from a give direction, and it also shows the mean wind speed for each direction. There are much more sophisticated plots, but these suffice for me. Look at the difference between Barrow and Juneau. Juneau and Ketchinan show the strong valley influence. Barrow is the windiest.

Barrow

Code: Select all

        12.2             Calm: 10.5%
 18.4         / 11.6     One bar is: 7%
          |  /           Values are Mean speeds knots.
          | /            Number of obs:    392
         \|/
 17.0   --O--   18.5
         /|


 22.2            6.0
        13.9

Wind Rose for Barrow

Juneau

Code: Select all

         9.1             Calm: 9.0%
  5.6            8.4     One bar is: 13%
                         Values are Mean speeds knots.
                         Number of obs:   8467
         \
  5.3     O      8.3
           \
            \
             \
  5.2         \  7.1
         6.8

Wind Rose for Juneau

Ketchikan

Code: Select all

         5.8             Calm: 9.2%
  5.7            6.3     One bar is: 12%
                         Values are Mean speeds knots.
                         Number of obs:   1073
         \
  8.1    -O-     8.8
           \
            \
             \
  4.3         \  8.4
         5.6

Wind Rose for Ketchikan

Kodiak

Code: Select all

         9.5             Calm: 10.0%
 12.5 \       /  9.6     One bar is: 4%
       \  |  /           Values are Mean speeds knots.
        \ | /            Number of obs:   1428
         \|/
 13.2  ---O--    9.1
         /|\
        / | \
       /
  6.8            8.6
        11.2

Wind Rose for Kodiak

Nome

Code: Select all

         7.7             Calm: 16.9%
  6.3         /  8.0     One bar is: 3%
          |  /           Values are Mean speeds knots.
        \ | /            Number of obs:   9034
         \|/
  7.2  ---O---   8.6
         /|\
        / | \
       /     \
  7.5 /          8.2
         7.9

Wind Rose for Nome

Unalaksa

Code: Select all

         6.2             Calm: 16.9%
  9.4            5.7     One bar is: 4%
       \     /           Values are Mean speeds knots.
        \ | /            Number of obs:  15374
         \|/
  8.9   --O--    8.4
         /|\
        / | \
       /  |  \
  8.0         \  8.6
         7.4

Wind Rose for Unalaska

[AvastMH]

Those are fascinating Michael!

I can tell you that the predominant wind around Barrow is North East. So many of the whalers enter their overwinter wind as 'NE, NE, NE, NNE, N, etc' so when a 'W' or 'S' turns up I have to stop and think hard. They are further around the coast but even so...

[Michael]

It is rather neat, looking at all these things. I have to admit, the numbers occasionally pull me down into a rabbit hole.

[krwood]

I agree with both of you. If it hadn't been posted in Naval History and Heritage Command I would not have posted it at all.


Digging further...

The Sailor's Word-Book, by Admiral W. H. Smyth, 1867 says:
LOG-BOARD. Two boards shutting together like a book, and divided into several columns, in which to record, through the hours of the day and night, the direction of the wind and the course of the ship, with all the material occurrences, together with the latitude by observation. From this table the officers work the ship's way, and compile their journals. The whole being written by the mate of the watch with chalk, is rubbed out every day at noon. Now a slate is more generally used.
LOG-BOOK. Mostly called the log, is a journal into which the log-board is daily transcribed, together with any other circumstance deserving notice. The intermediate divisions or watches are usually signed by the commanding officer. It is also divided into harbour-log and sea-log.

Given the comments in Jamestown's log book (above) about the slate being erased before being copied, we know that this was originally the process.

Perhaps the Naval History and Heritage Command comment is more of a misinterpretation than a total fabrication.

Great sleuthing here!

[krwood]

It is rather neat, looking at all these things. I have to admit, the numbers occasionally pull me down into a rabbit hole.

I took a look into one of Michael's rabbit holes and I'm still exploring it months later -- it's very interesting.

[AvastMH]

The predominance of rabbit holes in such an aquatic subject is quite an intrigue

[Randi]

Belated
Happy Birthday
Bryan

[Michael]

Belated Happy Birthday from me, too!

[Randi]

Happy Birthday
Bob !

and thank you for this forum !

[Michael]

Happy Birthday, Bob!

and many thanks for the Spreadsheet, too!!!

[Randi]

Happy Birthday, Bob!

and many thanks for the Spreadsheet, too!!!

Indeed! They saved this project.

[AvastMH]

A very happy belated birthday to you Bryan

A very happy birthday to you Bob

A two spout teapot to accompany the lovely cakes from Randi

and two mugs inspired by Bob

[Morgan]

Happy birthday. These days- I am up for celebrating anything- but a birthday is real cause for celebration. With Randi and Joan supplying pictures for thought, we can even toast your day without calories.
Morgan