Hopefully our home hasn't blown away
Dec. 27th, 2015 04:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thewayneWeatherbug has been reporting a winter storm warning over the last couple of days for this weekend forecasting 40 MPH winds and 12-20 inches of snow. The winds at the observatory last night were gusting to 80 MPH and consistently over 40. People were trapped in other buildings because it was too risky to leave where they were and get to the main building. The woman who was running my wife's 3.5 meter telescope made it to the dorm after her night was over, only to send out emails reporting trees hitting the dorm. Fortunately the trees in the area are smaller and apparently didn't break the dorm.
Other damage includes:
--a power line downed in the parking lot
--the site manager decided to stay at the site for a couple of days and was only able to get halfway down the driveway before felled trees stopped him
--they couldn't turn the dome. Normal procedure is to point the dome away from the wind, but the wind was so strong it locked the dome motors.
--this stuck the dome facing IN TO THE WIND. As a result, there is snow accumulating on the floor of the telescope. This is not ideal conditions for astronomical equipment.
--the adjacent observatory, the National Solar Observatory at Sunspot, is suffering similarly. One of the Apache Point workers who lives at Sunspot wanted to check on a neighbour four doors away, but there were five trees down and he couldn't.
--The observatory lost power around midnight. They have a diesel generator, but it has limited fuel, and with lots of trees down on the drive up it is doubtful that a fuel truck could get up there.
--Because of the problems, they'll probably have to power down the telescope and rest the mirror on the hard supports. The problem is that the ideal would be that the telescope would be parked pointing at zenith (straight up), but with the dome seals leaking that would risk water pooling on the mirror, which would stain it. So it'll have to be parked at an angle to encourage water to run off, which will strain and possibly bend the supports.
LOTS of fun!
Fortunately there isn't a huge amount of snow: it's been largely blowing sideways. It still accumulates in drifts, but the roads are largely clear. The temperature is around 15f, which is approaching the temperature that the telescope would normally close at. The storm now seems well past its peak with greatly diminished winds, but a lot of damage has been done.
Which brings us to the question: will our house be there when we get home, or will it be in Kansas? We don't know, we're trying to contact a few people that might be able to go and look. I think we're safe because if we'd had a catastrophic event, i.e. a major tree crashed in to our house, I would expect the power company would have called us because they'd have to shut off the power, and they haven't. So I expect we're OK, but we won't know until we get home Wednesday.
It's going to be interesting....
Other damage includes:
--a power line downed in the parking lot
--the site manager decided to stay at the site for a couple of days and was only able to get halfway down the driveway before felled trees stopped him
--they couldn't turn the dome. Normal procedure is to point the dome away from the wind, but the wind was so strong it locked the dome motors.
--this stuck the dome facing IN TO THE WIND. As a result, there is snow accumulating on the floor of the telescope. This is not ideal conditions for astronomical equipment.
--the adjacent observatory, the National Solar Observatory at Sunspot, is suffering similarly. One of the Apache Point workers who lives at Sunspot wanted to check on a neighbour four doors away, but there were five trees down and he couldn't.
--The observatory lost power around midnight. They have a diesel generator, but it has limited fuel, and with lots of trees down on the drive up it is doubtful that a fuel truck could get up there.
--Because of the problems, they'll probably have to power down the telescope and rest the mirror on the hard supports. The problem is that the ideal would be that the telescope would be parked pointing at zenith (straight up), but with the dome seals leaking that would risk water pooling on the mirror, which would stain it. So it'll have to be parked at an angle to encourage water to run off, which will strain and possibly bend the supports.
LOTS of fun!
Fortunately there isn't a huge amount of snow: it's been largely blowing sideways. It still accumulates in drifts, but the roads are largely clear. The temperature is around 15f, which is approaching the temperature that the telescope would normally close at. The storm now seems well past its peak with greatly diminished winds, but a lot of damage has been done.
Which brings us to the question: will our house be there when we get home, or will it be in Kansas? We don't know, we're trying to contact a few people that might be able to go and look. I think we're safe because if we'd had a catastrophic event, i.e. a major tree crashed in to our house, I would expect the power company would have called us because they'd have to shut off the power, and they haven't. So I expect we're OK, but we won't know until we get home Wednesday.
It's going to be interesting....
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no subject
Date: 2015-12-28 05:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2015-12-28 10:01 pm (UTC)I imagine you don't have anything like a Plex server or suchlike at home you can ping? That'd at least confirm power and comms are intact.
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