Hey guys,
Steve here.
If you’ve read my about page, or home page, you probably know why my name is Severe Storm Steve–it’s because I was the meteorologist at my elementary school for 4 out of the 6 years I attended it. Well, if you’ve been dieing for me to play that role once again, here you go.
This weekend, a pacific storm system, combined with a dryline will cause some rather dangerous storms to form across North Texas. On Saturday afternoon and night, the storms will be focused mainly to the northwest of where I live. Sunday, however, these storms will move east and impact where I live, and they will likely be severe. Large hail, damaging winds, and tornadoes are all possible!
However, if storms end up coming our way Saturday night, the threat for severe weather will decrease on Sunday. Well I guess we’ll just have to see how this all plays out; I guess that’s a reason to look forward to my next post… huh?
Moving on, I recorded Episode 21 of the Steven D podcast, which actually turned out to be quite distructive. Starting off, for the interesting segment, I aired Playing With Explosives Episode 4 (Playing With Explosives being a minicast Danny and I are making, that has to do with rather funny and unfortunate dealings with some rather distructive explosives). In playing with explosives 2, I let Danny try out a nifty device called a Rocket Chair. When he sits in it and pulls the cord, both him and the chair fly sky high in a fireball, only to come crashing down with a loud and distructive bang. There is more… but you’ll have to listen to the episode to find out what it is.
Next, for the game of the day segment, I do “twisted egg hunt” for the last installment of the Swamping With Steve series. Ever gone easter egg hunting in a field of zombies?
Finally, the not so distructive part, I give you guys some helpful websites for my tech tip. So, what are you guys waiting for? Just go to the podcasts page to check it out, and subscribe to the podcast feed while you are there.
Besides the podcast news, I have a bit of a busy weekend coming up. It won’t be non stop like last weekend was, but none the less I have a few things planned.
On Saturday, my family is taking a trip down to Round Rock for some goal ball event. I’m not sure exactly what this event will consist of, so I guess it’ll come as a surprise to all of us.
Meanwhile, Sunday, we’re going to church… and I don’t think anything else is planned for the day… that is for me anyway. I guess mother nature will be quite busy on Sunday :). But on the bright side, I might get in some storm recordings… and if the storms are severe enough, they will likely be awesome recordings.
Changing topics, I’m quite glad that staar testing is over. Those tests are such pains in the butt–I sit in a room, taking a 60 to 65 question test, over some pretty hard subjects. Fortunately, I found out today that not only did I pass both reading and math tests, but got 6 As on my report card and 1 b+. Ironically, the b+ was in English class. But why? I’m an awesome writer! 🙂
Well folks, I guess that concludes tonight’s post. I should be back for another update either Saturday or Sunday, and if not then early next week.
Thanks for reading,
type you later,
Steve.
PS. I have the next two podcasts planned:
May 2, and May 12. So please stay in tuned for those episodes.
Tag: severe weather
Podcast and programming news, and a brief update
Hey guys,
Steve here.
Since I posted here on Tuesday, I’m going to try and keep this short. Also, instead of presenting you with the pole again, I’ll instead advise that you visit the post from Tuesday and fill it out; I’m sure you don’t like me posting it at the top of every post. But if you’re wondering, it’s a close battle. 3 people voted in favor of a home page, while 2 others voted in favor of keeping the blog posts on the front page. We’ll just have to see what happens. So if you haven’t voted, please do. I need all the feedback I can get on that pole. And remember, just 6 more days, and I’ll quit all this pole talk.
Moving on to what this post is mainly about, let’s start off with software news. As of now, I still don’t yet have a Patton for my software. This is a pity, because sQuad word is now ready for release. That’s right, it’s actually ready! With all the features necessary for a note pad application implemented, and now that I got the visual aspects of the program usable, I feel it appropriate to say that, sQuad word version 1.0 is ready to go! Another feature I want to add, however, is the ability to recover documents you haven’t yet saved. I think how I’m going to do that is first, when the program launches, checking to see if the file tempfile.swd exists. If it does, an alert box will pop up asking you if you would like to recover the previous unsaved document. If you hit yes, it will recover the tempfile.swd file, allowing you to edit and read its contents. If you hit no, however, it will delete that file, and create a new temporary file, and bring you to the editor, where it will proceed to save your work in the tempfile.swd file every 30 seconds until you hit save as and specify another file to put your current work in. After you hit save
as, it will delete the tempfile, since it’s no longer needed, and auto save will work as normal on the new file you are working on.
This is useful, for example, if your computer unexpectedly dies or shuts down, and you haven’t yet performed save as on the document that you’re working on.
This feature will be possible to implement, though it will take a bit of tweaking on the code. I guess I have time to do that before I get my Patton and permission to release it.
Besides that, the only thing standing in my way is, that Patton. Well now that I have something to show for my work, I’ll show my dad and tell him about what it can do this weekend, and hopefully we’ll then get a Patton.
Also, while still on the subject of programming, Trash is still being worked on. It’s not an abandoned project; I want to play it as much as you do, so I’m still working on it. Unfortunately, there’s still work to be done on that, along with a lot of thorough beta testing before it can be released.
Besides that, I have some good news for my next podcast episode. I’ve been holding it off until I can find a place to record it without that annoying chirping (you listeners of the podcast may be accustom to hearing small chirping/beeping noises intermittently throughout the podcast. That is my smoke detector, its batteries are running low). However, I’ve found a new place to record the podcast, where the obtrusive beeps and chirps will no longer occur. Good news… right?
In other news, as you know, I probably will not post to this blog again until late this weekend or next week. But on Saturday, one of the days I won’t be posting, Danny’s 17th birthday will occur. Danny, if you’re reading this post, (I know you are), Happy birthday!
Besides that, I have a positive future ahead of me for the time being. After this long, boring day at school, I’ll go home, and then tomorrow will be that Firewheel fieldtrip! Thus, I’ll end up missing all but part of first period, and I think part of 6th period and all of 7th period. And after those are over, it’ll be the weekend. As for next week, we have that beginner orchestra festival I briefly mentioned in Tuesday’s update. In case I didn’t tell you, that’ll cause us to miss all but first, part of sixth, and all of 7th period, kind of like Friday’s field trip. In addition, also mentioned in Tuesday’s update, we’ll have a concert Tuesday night.
Completely off topic, we’re expected to get some storms on Sunday afternoon and evening, with the passage of a cold front. It appears that the strong cold front will collide with warm moist air, so there is the possibility of some severe storms. I’ll let you know if we get any though. Note, however, that as seen last week, severe weather situations can evolve at a last-minute notice, so I’ll be watching that.
Well okay, I’ll admit this post probably wasn’t as short as it could’ve been. But on days like today, I tend to have lots to say, which is weird, since I blogged like two days ago. Well, thanks for reading this post. I’ll talk to you guys later.
Thanks for reading,
Type you later,
Steve.
A wonderful birthday party
Hey guys,
Steve here.
Yes, I know it’s Monday, and that usually means Monday’s Musings. Monday’s Musings 17 will still happen, but it will be next week–I have a lot to say in this update, and don’t currently have a good enough topic for the Monday’s Musings post for this week.
Unfortunately, I must start off this post with some bad news; not crushing news (to you guys anyway), and not news that will impact this blog and how it runs, but none the less bad news. So I was telling my dad about the software I’m creating, and he informed me that he doesn’t want me releasing it. I can understand where he’s coming from, he only is doing this for my good, but none the less I wasn’t very happy about it. I should’ve told him about my software developing dream 2 years ago when I first got it, so maybe then I woulddn’t have gotten so deep into creating software and wanting to do it.
I’ll admit, that after learning that I wasn’t supposed to release software, I was a bit upset Thursday night, and decided to quit work on my software. This decision still stands, and until I can release them, my programs will be safely tucked away in my private dropbox folder.
Moving on to better, less depressing news, Last weekend had to be one of the best birthday parties I’ve ever had. We went to the lake as promised, and though my sister brought her friend, two of my best friends Oscar (the one from church) and Joseph (a friend from school) got to come.
To start it off, Friday was an all out good day. Besides school, I got a great storm recording (that I will share at the end of the post and on the natural events page), that contained some hail, and a really good close up of wind, rain, and lots of lightening. And yes, my cat was in an attention seaking mood that day, so he meowed at the end of the recording, and of course I had to meow back… lol.
Anyway, after catching that recording, my friends came over, and we hung out until it was time to make the hour long drive to my grand parents’ lake house. When we got there, we had a dinner of hotdogs and chips. Then, my dad and one of my friends went out fishing, and I fell asleep very early, so I don’t know what all the rest of them were doing.
On Saturday, I awoke to the refreshing smell of pancakes, and ended up having 10 of the things. Oscar and I were trying to see who could eat the most, and I out ate him 10 to 6. Moving on, after breakfast, we went fishing for a while, and spent the rest of the day riding the pontune, and playing and having a good time.
For dinner that night, we had hamburgers, and then a fantastic tasting cookie cake. And before I knew it, it was time to go home.
Although that party ended with me getting a pretty painful and red sunburn, it was well worth it. Getting to go to the lake house isn’t something we do often, so when we do go I try to have as much fun as possible–and my birthday party was no exception. I had lots of fun, and look forward to the next time we go.
Since we got home around 8:00 Saturday night, nothing worth blogging about happened for the rest of the night. But on Sunday, we had pretty much a full day of church. You know the singing practice I was going to last Sunday right after I wrote that post? That was to practice for 5th Sunday singing, which occured yesterday afternoon. Someone from church and I sung “He Knows My Name” for the 5th Sunday Singing (It’s up to my mom whether or not she posts the link to the video in the comments). But the reason we were at church all day was because there was morning survice, a potluck lunch (I had meat loaf, fajitas, a ham sandwich, spaghetti, and chocolate cake), and right after that was the 5th sing service, where people would either play or sing a christian song in front of all the people in the church.
Besides that, nothing else happened this weekend. On the bright side, I recorded episode 19 of the Steve n d podcast on Thursday night, so you can go to the podcasts page if you want to listen to it.
As for today, it was a normal school day. Tomorrow and Wednesday, however, we will be having staar testing (state of texas assessment of accadimic readiness), over math and English. I’m not sure which day is which; but I know the only test I feel nervice about is the math one. English I feel pretty confident about, but math… well not so much. I think I’ll do fine though. I haven’t failed that class all year; I haven’t made anything below a B minus in there.
As a final note, we could have some more potentially severe weather mid week. And the most promising day for bad weather just happens to be April 3, or severe weather day as I like to call it. Will April 3 continue to live up to its name? Will we get a massive tornado outbreak? Or will something happen and there are no storms that day or the ones that do occur aren’t severe? Well we’ll just have to see, I guess.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this post, and sorry (yes I am sorry) there was no Monday’s musings post. Don’t worry, they will resume next week, It’s just that I needed to get this post published, and couldn’t think of a musing topic. Just letting you know for future reference, that kind of stuff might actually happen in the future.
Thanks for reading,
type you later,
Steve.
p.s. I didn’t forget the storm recording, here it is:
download
or listen to it online:
Tornado outbreak news from last week, blog update, probably the biggest post ever posted on this blog!
Hey you guys,
Stevers geevers here on this Friday night.
For the first part of this post, I’m gonna tell you about some new information about May 15, 2013 tornado outbreak that I learned. Then, I will tell you about the Oklahoma tornado outbreak, followed by my life and what happened to our weather on Tuesday.
- There were actually 16 tornadoes
- it was grandbarie and not grand prairie hit (I get the cities mixed up)
- it is official that 6 people died
Oh yeah, speaking of tornadoes, there was an outbreak in Oklahoma. Here is what I learned.
- there were 24 dead and 10 were children in the Moore tornado
- the tornado was an ef 5 that stayed on the ground for 40 minutes
- On sunday, there was a tornado that hit while the sun was out!
Now that we have that out of the way, let me tell you about my life.
The early part of the week was the part of the week with the most excitement. Monday, was the orchestra consert. It last 2 hours, so we didn’t get home until about 9:30. Also, there were no tornadoes on Monday where I live, because of a cap in place. A town called Blanket was hit just before 6:00 that night. The next day I spent half of feeling strong anticipation of dangerous weather. I woke up and listened to the weather radio, hering this hazardous weather outlook:
scattered to numerous thunderstorms are expected across north texas today and tonight. Large hail, damaging wind, and cloud to ground lightning are the main threats.
The tornado threat will increase as the day goes on with strong long track tornadoes a possibility.
I was pretty nervous after hearing that and deciding I couldn’t sleep, went downstairs. After getting downstairs, I sat in amazement as my cat ran meowing after a huge bug (I can’t see, but could hear loud deep buzzing 2 feet from me and meows and scuffling cat feet). The chase went on from about 6:35 a.m to exactly 6:42 AM, when Bell, the bug killing cat pounced. There was one final buzz from the nasty thing, before it was knocked into the wall and bell ran into the living room.
Later that day, I found out that bug was a wasp. Lucky thing I didn’t go into the kitchen to get a drink or get my cat. It is also lucky that the wasp, once landing a foot from me, didn’t notice my fingers typing on my computer or my occasional shifts and stretches, or I was bound to get stung in the foot, face, or arms. Also, I touched it while the legs were barely moving, and put my foot on it around that same time. And, the stinger was pointing up, so I’m surprised I didn’t hit that when I felt it.
As a last note about the bug, I got a good feel of it after my mom told me it was harmless. This was only the second time I’ve ever touched one of these full on that it didn’t sting me. The first time I was 6 or 7. The stinger was stiff, and bent forward, as if it were ready to hurt somebody before it died. The stinger was about 1 and 1/2 inches. The rest of the wasp itself was pretty big, the legs folded into its body; facing up and laying on its back. Not to mencion, last week I touched a nest that my dad knocked down. What wasp related object will I touch next week?
Now, moving on, let’s talk about the rest of my scary but good day.
After the bug attack and breakfast, I got ready, went to school, and spent a good portion of the day scared out of the mind. Honestly, why did there have to be 2 tornado drills on the morning of a potentially tornadic day? I was already scared and when we had the drills, it made me a little more edgey.
It actually ended up, we didn’t get tornadoes. Just before the end of math when storms began moving in, I learned that we dodged the tornado threat. All we got that afternoon was severe flash flooding and heavy wind, resulting in me not leaving school until 4. I got to hang out with friends in 7th period for 35 minutes after finishing my work, and that was pretty cool. Also, I told the forecast to let people know there was no more tornado threat, and got the whole class scilent with my forecast, followed by a class wide applause at my freakishly awesome forecasting skill. Turns out, I was right on! Nothing but heavy rain.
There was one point when the street lights came on however, and that’s when the class freeked out. I, knowing the weather situation fully and completely, was one of the 5 people not freeking out. The only thing I was worried about at that minute was my computer dieing, because my charger was tangled up with 3 other cords and I was quickly trying to untangle them.
After the storm excitement ended and I was home, the day went normally.
Wednesday, Thursday, and today weren’t too exciting. Wednesday, I did attend a dessert party after school in 7th period. What the heck, 2 days in a row where I’ve spent quality time with good ol’ miss Seltzer.
I hope you enjoyed this blog post. Also, I have to welcome our latest follower, who sent the totle up to 56!
And, I have received over 100 views in the passed 7 days; keep viewing, and I’ll keep posting!
Thanks for reading,
type you later,
stevo wevo
P.S. Wasn’t it stevers geevers at the beginning of the post?
Severe Weather Possible Saturday night
In northern texas, severe thunderstorms are going to be a threat late Saturday night threw very eary Sunday morning. Very gusty downburst winds are going to be the main threats with these big storms. Nera 6 pm tomorrow afternoon, these storms will develope to the northwest of the Dallas fortworth metroplex, before moving southeast and impacting the metroplex later that night. Please keep an eye on the weather at either weather bug accu weather weather.com or by downloading the weatherbug desktop application
watch out for bad weather this week
dangerous weather is possible this week in north texas. This here is just another post about bad weather, so read it to see the summary of the weather that is possible, and to stay warned. <a href=""> Read More...
Starting tonight, severe weather will spread across the northern portion of Texas. Expect large hail, damaging winds, and dangerous lightning to accompany these storms. These will last threw the evening, before giving way to sunshine tomorrow. But, storms return tomorrow night, and stick around threw Tuesday. Then, expect a break for the day on Wednesday, with storms rolling back into the forecast for late thursday night and into friday.
Here is a tornado/thunderstorm sound affect I made
Have you ever wanted to know what a tornado sounds like, in this post, there is a file where you can hear it. Please listen to the audio in the post to hear it.
7 day forecast for 75181, Mesquite, Texas
Today. Mostly cloudy in the morning then becomming partly sunny. Icelated showers. Highs in the lower 80’s south winds 15 to 25 mph in the morning then increasing to 20 to 30 miles per hour in the afternoon. Gusts upto 40 miles per hour. Chance of rain less than 20%.
Tonight. Mostly cloudy. A 40% chance of showers and thunderstorms after midnight. Some thunderstorms may be severe. breezy. Lows in the mid 60’s. east winds 15 to 25 miles per hour, then shifting to the south and decreasing to 15 to 20 miles per hour. Wind gusts upto 35 miles per hour are possible.
Sunday. Mostly cloudy with showers and thunderstorms likely in the morning, then partly sunny with a chance of showers and thunderstorms in the afternoon. Highs in the upper 70’s South winds 10 to 15 miles per hour.
Sunday night. Partly cloudy. cooler. lows in the lower 50’s. Southwest winds 5 to 10 miles per hour shifting to the northwest.
Monday. mostly sunny. highs in the mid 70’s. north winds 5 to 10 miles per hour.
Tuesday. Sunny. Highs in the upper 70’s north winds 5 to 10 miles per hour.
Tuesday night. mostly clear. Lows in the lower 50’s.
Wednesday. mostly sunny. Highs in the lower 80’s.
Wednesday night threw Thursday night. Partly cloudy. lows in the lower 60’s highs in the lower 80’s.
Friday. Mostly cloudy with a 40% chance of showers and thunderstorms. highs in the upper 60’s
severe weather update
Hello, I promiced that I would post you guys an update to the severe weather that is expected this weekend. On saturday night, there is a chance of severe weather to the western areas, and this could affect our weather in the metroplex and points east on sunday. If this does happen, only heavy rain and flash-flooding are expected on Sunday.
here we go again
As you know, it is storm season in thexas. This weekend, severe storms and heavy rain are again expected, just shortly after the storm outbreak that spon 17 tornadoes. Even though clean-ups are still going on, another round of severe weather is expected. The event will take place between Saturday afternoon and Monday, and I erge you to keep an eye on the weather. I will post more updates about this as I get more information.