What's the weather like in your world?

 

Quick pointer to this article in The Conversation about climate modeling for Middle Earth (setting of The Lord of the Rings) and Westeros (setting of Game of Thrones).

Do Middle‑earth and Westeros make sense? Climate scientists modelled them to find out

For Middle Earth, "The highest precipitation fell on and to the west of the Misty Mountains, with a drier “rain-shadow” effect to the east. This effect is caused by prevailing westerly winds forcing moist air to rise and cool over the mountains, condensing water vapour into rain or snow before it reaches the eastern side."

It can also have wizard blizzards, of course.

Catching up with Amber Valletta

 

Amber Valletta was a 1990s high fashion supermodel. The Daily Mail provided an update on her a couple of months ago, which I'm revisiting here.

Amber Valletta, 52, was a '90s Vogue model who made movies with Sandra Bullock and Kate Hudson, see her now

Below, I have a picture of Valletta on the runway in 1997, and the current state (both in pink, coincidentally).  Also, the article about here has a poignant comment, which I have at the end.

"Amber - who shares son Auden, 25, with ex-husband Chip McCaw - admitted she 'wants to cry' whenever she thinks about climate change and the future of our planet. She added: 'I'll be dead, but my great-grandkids? To live in a world where they wouldn't experience this. Where they couldn't see elephants or a whale."

Time -- and the planet we live on -- are precious things.

 

Not a place for a picnic

 

NASA's Earth Observatory featured a lake in Antarctica that is quite remarkable.

A Most Unusual Lake

It's called Lake Unter-See.  According to the article,

"Hidden below the ice is one of the lake's most remarkable features: large, conical microbialite structures spread across the lake's floor. The structures, formed by photosynthetic microbes that trap and bind sediment, were first discovered by geobiologist Dale Andersen and colleagues in 2008. The formations are thought to be modern, living examples similar to some of Earth's oldest fossils—stromatolites found in places such as southwestern Greenland and Western Australia. They offer a glimpse back to a time more than 3 billion years ago, when microbes were the only form of life on Earth."

Below the picture from space is a picture of the microbial structures on the bottom.

It's around here somewhere

 Bafr

In the state of Maryland, there is a place called Ridge.

This is where it is located.

It's south of the more famous St. Mary's City, and north of the somewhat famous Point Lookout, which has a lighthouse. 

Ridge does have a house that is on the National Register of Historic Places:  Bard's Field.

Picture below.

Cooling off in the summer -- not exactly

 

Alexandra Stepanova and Ivan Bukin are a champion Russian (that's a problem) ice dancing pair. They are still competing, winning the Russian championships as recently as a few months ago in 2026.

The main reason for making this post is this YouTube video.  I really like the pretty, fit female athletes. More on this later.

But for now, watch the video. It takes confidence and fearlessness to be a world-class competitive ice dancer. Even more in what she's wearing here.

Another nice example of her world-classness:

A big bang from ... KRAKATOA?

 

Even people who aren't that familiar with volcanoes might have heard of Krakatoa/Krakatau, which provided the big blast in 1883 which caused a lot of damage (tsunamis, ashfall), created the loudest sound ever heard in the world, and also blew out the center of the former island, where there is now an underwater caldera.

In the center of the caldera there's a smaller volcano that grew there after the major explosion of 1883, named Anak Krakatau, meaning "child of Krakatau". It has been frequently active, and a couple of years ago caused a local tsunami that killed some folks at a coastal music festival.

Well, this is timely (unlike many of my other posts as I catch up over the coming weeks and months), because little Anak acted up on September 5, with a pretty potent eruption of its own. Now, preliminary estimates put it about 10 times less than the 1883 cataclysm, but given how big that was, this one was pretty heavy.

I've got a NASA image and a short news story below.  All that brown stuff is ash in the atmosphere, and the white plume is the steaming aftermath.

Video -- the first part of this Australian news story has the best compilation of video of the eruption that I've seen.

Cathay Pacific's pretty plane

 

Cathay Pacific airlines, which is based in Hong Kong (as far as I can tell), recently celebrated their 80th anniversary.  They had one of their planes painted in a fancy style to mark the occasion.  The article below the picture here has another picture of the tail section.

Cathay Pacific unveils latest 80th anniversary livery on Boeing 777-300ER

If you want to fly the friendly skies of Cathay Pacific, here's their website:

Cathay