Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Near-Real Time Satellite Imagery

I love this site: http://earthdata.nasa.gov/data/near-real-time-data/rapid-response/modis-subsets
From there, I can keep an eye on fun things like ice-out & freeze up, monitor forest fires, check snow cover, and more. All with images that are as little as a couple of hours old.

To find the images relevant for my area (central Saskatchewan), I choose the North America subset, then roll my mouse over the images to find the ones I want, usually "Waskesiu" (covers from Lake Diefenbaker in the south to north of the Churchill River, and extending well into Manitoba to the east and Alberta to the west) or "Bratts Lake" if I'm interested in areas to the south, or "Thompson" if I'm interested in areas to the north.

From there you can choose the resolution you want, and the type of image you want. They offer several types of images which are probably very meaningful to those that know how to interpret them, but I normally stick to the True Colour images. You can also turn on layers to show fires, borders, and coasts. This is helpful to position the image with points of reference you are familiar with. You can also download the image into Google Earth which makes pinpointing less-obvious locations very easy.

Due to those pesky clouds, you may not be able to see a given area on the specific date, but you can scroll through the days to find a nice clear view.

For those who paddle the far north, this is a great way to keep an eye on whether your float plane will be able to land or not. For the rest of us, it's fun to check it out and dream of trips.

The image from yesterday, a warm day with lots of cumulonimbus, is shown below (head to the website for much better resolution, but don't expect to be able to peer into anyone's back yard).


Less than hour after I posted the above, I find another way to view the same thing, and it's pretty awesome: http://earthdata.nasa.gov/labs/worldview/

Saturday, May 04, 2013

Codette Lake Ice Surge

This was filmed by the Saskatchewan Water Security Agency (formerly Sask Watershed Authority) on Codette Lake, about 250 km northeast of here. Unbelievable.

Friday, May 03, 2013

Chris Hadfield & Music Monday

I'm a science guy and I love music, so this is pretty awesome.
(p.s. Chris Hadfield is a paddler, and it was his brother's stove plans that I used when we built ours a few years ago. Chris & Dave have been referred to in this blog a few times over the years.)



Thursday, April 25, 2013

Strange Micro-Climate Around Fort Mac?

I was having a look at satellite photos to check on the snow melt in the prairies and wondering if the Saskatchewan Rivers were opening up. Indeed, the North Saskatchewan River seems to be opening up. All of the prairies are covered in snow with the exception of southern Alberta and southwestern Saskatchewan. Then I noticed a peculiar dark patch surrounding Fort McMurray. It seems that this one spot in northern Alberta has also had it's snow melted, or the snow is dark in colour. It just happens that the area closely corresponds to the bitumen sands (aka tar sands) and the oil processing facilities there. Go figure.

Daily satellite image from 24/04/2013 viewed as a Google Earth overlay. The dark region is in stark contrast to the white of the remainder of northern Alberta and Saskatchewan.
The image above is a cropped view of the satellite image (find the original at http://lance-modis.eosdis.nasa.gov/imagery/subsets/?subset=AERONET_Fort_McMurray.2013114.terra.250m) from yesterday viewed via Google Earth. The river heading south to north is the Athabasca River and the Clearwater River joins at Fort McMurray flowing west out of Saskatchewan. The brown area amounts to about 90 km north and south, and about 35 km east and west.

By the way, the above effect is not simply due to urbanization. The larger cities of Edmonton & Saskatoon look much more white than the area around Fort Mac.


Monday, April 15, 2013

11 Year Old Rolling Her Kayak

This video is from the fellow Paddle Canada sea kayak instructors at SKILS, Sea Kayak Leadership Instruction, a great company out of BC (Michael of SKILS was my co-instructor-trainer for my instructor course). Since the kid in the video is nearly the same age as my older daughter, I find this video pretty awesome. Time to rent some pool time for the family!

Thursday, February 28, 2013

Summer Dreaming

Here's a summer photo for a wintry morning. I love this photo of my daughters, it captures their characters well (one in a pretty little dress while fishing, the other in practical camping clothes).
The kids, fishing on Echo Island, Amisk Lake, Saskatchewan.

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Parapalegic Kayaking

This is pretty cool in my books...

Friday, February 01, 2013

"Running" Otter Rapids

Today over on our Northstar Expeditions blog I posted a series of photos showing myself and +Jay running Otter Rapids (Churchill River, northern Saskatchewan) in 2007. It's an awesome series of photos taken from shore and really shows the fun to be had in Otter.

 
No, we haven't sunk in this photo (yet), we're merely in the trough between waves. Head to the full post to see the rest of the photos and learn the outcome of these brave adventurers.

Wednesday, November 07, 2012

A Damn Shame

This is a bloody shame and to me is wrong in so many ways.

CBC Sask: National parks cut cross-country ski trail workCuts mean end to ski trails at Prince Albert National Park and Riding Mountain National Park

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/story/2012/11/06/sk-cross-country-ski-trails-national-parks-121106.html
"One of the services we've reduced or cut back on or ended for this year is the track setting for the ski trails," Alan Fehr, the park superintendent for Prince Albert National Park, told CBC News Tuesday. "And some of the backcountry camping services, we've cut those as well."
I love Prince Albert National Park in the winter. It's quiet and the ski and snowshoe trails are super. Snowmobiles are not allowed, so it is one of VERY FEW places in Saskatchewan where we can ski and be assured of not encountering a skidoo on the trail, or have a skidoo or quad wrecking the tracks.

What we SHOULD be doing, is encouraging more people to utilize the parks in the winter, not discourageing them. We are becoming fatter, lazier, and more out of touch with the real world and these cuts are a huge step backward. I am so disappointed.

This is a blow to those of us that enjoy the outdoors in winter without the noise and smell of an engine, it's a blow to society as a whole in terms of physical fitness, mental health, and connection to the natural world, and it's a blow to the business owners who benefit from having such fantastic skiiing (literally) on their doorstep.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Weather: Frontal Analysis & More

Maybe it's the farm background, maybe it's biking to work each day, but I try to pay attention to the weather. I like trying to figure it out (though I usually can't), and I like looking at what's going on. Here's another tool in my quiver that I learned about this week from "nootka" on the West Coast Paddler forums.

You can find a variety of information at http://weather.unisys.com and it's pretty neat stuff.

This shows the fronts, where they are currently, and where they were for the past 12 hours.The image below should show the current fonts. (Or go to http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sfc_fronts.php?inv=0&t=cur to see it on the Unisys website.)
Current frontal positions in North America. Image source comes from http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sfc_fronts.php?inv=0&t=cur
Of course when you look at this it will all be different, but currently there is a giant cold front that has been sweeping across North America for a few days now. Yesterday, it brought very high winds to the prairies (it's still windy today, but not quite so bad) that blew my father and brother's crops away, very literally. It's amazing how quickly a good crop can go from good to nearly gone in a few hours.

Here's another map that shows the surface data: http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sfc_map.php?inv=0&t=cur&region=wc - by going to the link you can select your region, the type of map, & the information it shows.

Surface data with Canada selected as the region. Image comes from http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sfc_map.php?inv=0&t=cur&region=wc.
There is a fair bit more at the website to explore and I've only just started poking around the http://weather.unisys.com website.