Cycling Hokkaido University to the sea by the Shin River – folding bike loop

After nursing a vicious hangover on Saturday from a bizarrely Japanese extreme late night on Fri/Sat that included visiting some outrageously expensive place where you got to sit down and talk to two random girls for about half a hour for 4000 yen, I decided that dammit, I was going to do something today (Sunday), a folding bike ride mini-adventure!

Viewing Sapporo from a broad map before arriving here, I had thought that this was a city on beautiful bay, and it probably had an easily accessible beach that would be littered with bars and cafes. How wrong I was. In fact the city centre is about 15 km from the sea, and that sea front, well it ain`t Monaco (or insert somewhere with a nice water front), OK it ain`t Waikiki, let`s go with that.

Global Storm Outlooks on YouStorm

Update, here is number 5 looks at the recent Greek floods – an anchored series of thunderstorms by the looks of it, Indian pollution, TC in the South China Sea and other things, it’s here:

Lewes Station to Brighton Pier bike route avoiding roads

This is a scenic 14.5 km route that for almost all its length, avoids roads. It starts in historic Lewes and rises over the Kingston Downs taking in a small section on the South Downs Way and then descending through parks to the Brighton sea front with a brief amble along the coast touristy bike path to end up at Brighton Pier.

Blue jet lightning caught in time-lapse

I was up on the roof of my holiday apartments, Darwin, Australia on the evening of 27 February 2017, taking pictures of this storm 100 km away. I just caught out of the corner of my eye a shot of light going vertical. I immediately thought it might have been a lightning jet or sprite, but couldn’t really believe it so thought maybe it was just my eyelash catching a bit of background light. However was amazed to find nestled in the 100s of pictures a blue jet. Never seen one before and don’t expect to see one again.

I’m trying to figure out how rare this actually is.

A look at 2016 the hottest year globally

This is our attempt at a climate related video. It looks at why 2016 will very likely be the warmest year globally, and at the recent exceptionally low sea ice extent. This took a surprisingly long time to make but was a learning experience.

HECTIME – update, the beginning of dodgy narration, and other videos

First we just want to mention that the YouStorm Facebook page is here: https://www.facebook.com/youstormorg

If you are on Facebook and would like to follow for more frequent updates, go ahead and like us, as you can see we have hardly any likes ha ha, so each one is appreciated even more.

I am very excited to announce that the YouStorm HECTIME team is moving into narrated videos. Warning they’re going to start pretty bad, with some dodgy editing but hopefully through mistakes we will learn. Ultimately we want to present anything weather or climate related that might be of interested in a fun, relaxed and understandable way. Here is the first attempt that I feel fails in those three regards but was a fun step anyway.

On the 5 November a beautiful storm approached Darwin from inland and brought 80 km/h gusts. Our time-lapse of it’s approach is here:

For a while it got a bit hazy from a nearby burn, and Hector became hard to see. However this allowed us to capture this nice little pyrocumulus event on the Cox Peninsular on 3 November:

We were really excited to capture this late evening storm with lightning on the south coast of the Tiwi Islands. We called it the Van Diemen storm because it seemed to pick up over the Van Diemen Gulf on several nights. It was only on this night though that it was nicely visible from Nightcliff:

We’re working through various Hector time-lapses that will come soon. I may have posted the updrafts one from late October but here it is again anyway.

Till next time 🙂

HECTIME – A brief introduction

31 October 2016

I am currently residing in Darwin, Australia, and figured it is about time that I write a post briefly explaining the ridiculousness I am up to. Basically it involves a LOT of hanging around in a coastal park in Nightcliff. HECTIME stands (loosely) for the HEctor the Convector TIme-lapse and Modelling Experiment. Hector is the name for a large thunderstorm, or thunderstorm complex that develops over the Tiwi Islands (Northern Territory, Australia) on most afternoons during the pre-monsoon season – October-November-December.

New Zealand North Island bike tour days 30 to 33: The Forgotten Highway

5 April 2016 (day 30): Turangi Lake Taupo camp to saddle hunters camp
The time had finally come to head west from Lake Taupo towards Taranaki. This had been my ultimate destination of this tour as Mt Taranaki seemed like the perfect mountain to time-lapse given its symmetry and exposure to storms.

Index of 2016 New Zealand, North Island bike tour blog posts

DAYS 1 TO 4

DAYS 5 TO 8: THE COROMANDEL

DAYS 9 TO 12: THE WAIKATO RIVER TO TAUPO

DAYS 13 TO 17: LAKE TAUPO

DAYS 18 TO 20: THE TURANGI MAGNET

DAYS 21 TO 23: EXPLORING WEST OF RUAPEHU

DAYS 24 TO 25: NGAURUHOE CRAZINESS

DAYS 26 TO 29: AROUND THE SOUTH AND EAST OF RUAPEHU

DAYS 30 TO 33: THE FORGOTTEN HIGHWAY

Index of Sunshine Coast to Sydney bike tour blogs

DAYS 1-8: BUDERIM TO GOLD COAST

DAY 9: PALM BEACH TO BEACH CAMP

DAY 10 TO 12: BYRON BAY TO ANGOURIE

DAYS 13 TO 17: ANGOURIE TO NAMBUCCCA HEADS