Physics – Geoff Fox: My Permanent Record

Time Lapse Of Some Very Cool Clouds

A few atmospheric features you don’t usually see showed up. Very cool.

tl:dr Watch the second or third video first.

The plan was to post a time lapse video of our Irvine sky today. Disappointment. The movie was blah.

I looked more closely.

A few atmospheric features you don’t usually see showed up. Very cool.

In these movies you’re looking northeast. There’s a ridge line, then mountains around 12 miles away. When the direction and altitude are right, mountains cause turbulence, The smooth flow of the atmosphere is disturbed. Standing waves form.

The next thing you know you get lenticular clouds. They are lens shaped and virtually stationary. Without time lapse you might not realize they’re there.

Below you’ll find the full sky time lapse and two ‘zoom ins’ where you can concentrate on just the clouds. Enjoy!

A Couple Of Afternoon Timelapses

You see physics in action as you look at the clouds interacting with the rest of the atmosphere at this much faster pace. Everything that happens is dictated by the laws of physics. Nothing is random.

So many things look different when seen at an alternate time scale. Nature is pretty damn cool.

I’ve taken a few time lapse videos today. The camera is mounted with a suction cup to the outside of my office window.

It’s a GoPro, one of the biggest breakthroughs in video technology, ever. It’s a cheap, tiny, waterproof, indestructible, high definition video camera that also shoots stills.

Every two seconds it snaps another frame. One hour of real time equals one minute of video. In editing it can be sped up even more.

The GoPro’s secret is its super wide lens–the opposite of a telephoto. Being wide reduces shake and makes aiming shots much less critical. It’s great for things very close or very large–like the sky.

The whole stills-to-video process is a pain. Nothing difficult. Just lots of steps.

So many things look different when seen at an alternate time scale. Nature is pretty damn cool.

Honey, Wake Up. We’re Having An Earthquake!

Doppler and I were peacefully napping on the sofa when Helaine took to her feet.

“Honey, wake up. We’re having an earthquake.”

I opened my eyes and stared down at the couch’s fabric a few inches from my nose. The house was shaking.

5.1 earthquake in La Habra! My earthquake map says 19 miles from here.

KCAL 9 news was on. Within a few seconds they were in quake mode. A live seismograph jiggled across the screen.

Much like a bell that had been rung, SoCal was still shaking. It wasn’t strong enough to feel by this time, but more than enough to measure. The quake’s movement covered the entire graph.

Rides at Disneyland have been stopped. The LA subway and other rail lines have slowed down to inspect tracks. Choppers are flying over a water main, now flooding a La Habra intersection.

Tonight’s quake was actually a swarm of quakes. There were at least 10 greater than magnitude 2.0, a few stronger than a 3. We felt a few, though none as strongly as what happened at 9:09 PM PDT.

Stef felt it in Hollywood too. She had just hung something on the wall and was staring at it as it began to shake.

Back on TV, KCAL went to a live shot from a restaurant here in Orange County. There were broken bottles on the floor, but normal activity had already resumed. Californians have been through this before.

So, this is what it’s like.

Doppler slept.

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