the Bengaluru blog

The recent spate of rains is attributed to North East monsoons and to cyclone Nisha (I wonder what’s with the Indian people to nomenclate cyclones just as with USA, but it sure does sound really funny sometimes - cyclone Narakasura, cyclone Ravana, cyclone Anajaneya - it gets funnier the more I think of it!).

The rains have only added to more gloom during the great recession of 2008 and the chilly weather has made it so dull to dampen spirits of attending office at all. The only gloom left is a pink slip with this kind of weather pattern

I was driving rather slowly today to office thanks to an early start and empty roads what with schools delcaring a holiday in memory of late VP Singh (yes he died today after a prolonged cancer battle). I am dreading the last day of our own homegrown prime minister - Irrelevant people would block the entire Bengaluru traffic for days, and make us all walk all over the city just to make those memories worse.

Having said that, near Hebbal flyover I saw this contraption otherwise called an umbrella, but when used in wrong situations could very well serve to harvest rain water, or even function as a mobile DTH service when fitted with the right LNB material! It was quite funny that this umbrella was still serving its purpose in some way or rather in many ways!

And finally every gloomy day has something to cheer about at the end of it, so I leave you with a rainbow over my terrace that made the gloom turn into a bit of cheer!

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Bengaluru never ceases to amaze me for its weather patterns. I was just enjoying myself thinking that the incessant rains are over, and then this : What the HAIL ??

Bangalore just had yet another hailstone storm. Just look at those ice cubes, how big they are! Just wonderful arent they. I’ve always been wondering what causes these hailstorms during summer time when we think we least expect ice cubes falling off the sky. Its useful to quote here what exactly causes them:

Hail is formed in huge cumulonimbus clouds, commonly known as thunderheads. When the ground is heated during the day by the sun, the air close to the ground is heated as well. Hot air, being less dense and therefore lighter than cold air, rises and cools. As it cools, its capacity for holding moisture decreases. When the rising, warm air has cooled so much that it cannot retain all of its moisture, water vapor condenses, forming puffy-looking clouds. The condensing moisture releases heat of its own into the surrounding air, causing the air to rise faster and give up even more moisture.

Cumulonimbus clouds contain vast amounts of energy in the form of updrafts and downdrafts. These vertical winds can reach speeds over 176 kilometers (110 miles) per hour. Hail grows in the storm cloud’s main updraft, where most of the cloud is in the form of "supercooled" water. This is water that remains liquid although its temperature is at or below 0 degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit). At temperatures higher than -40 degrees C (-40 degrees F), a supercooled water drop needs something on which to freeze, or it remains liquid. Ice crystals, frozen raindrops, dust, and salt from the ocean are also present in the cloud. On collision, supercooled water will freeze onto any of these hosts, creating new hailstones or enlarging those that already exist.

Cross sections of hailstones often reveal layers, much like those of an onion. These layers are caused by the different rates of accumulation and freezing of supercooled water, as the hailstone forms. When there is a great deal of supercooled liquid in the air through which the hailstone falls, water accumulates faster than it can freeze, so a coat of liquid forms. This becomes a layer of clear ice when it does freeze. When a hailstone falls through air with a smaller amount of liquid, the liquid freezes on contact with the hailstone, forming small air bubbles in the opaque layers. The more supercooled water a hailstone makes contact with, the larger and heavier the stone is likely to become. When the hailstone becomes so heavy that the updraft can no longer support it, it falls from the sky.

Now that you know why Hail is caused, just enjoy yourself the next time you notice such a storm brewing!!

Technorati Tags: Life in Bengaluru, Technology, Hail storm, Ice cubes, Rain in bangalore, Benglauru, Blog, Hail stones, Damage, Summer, Heat, Weather, Koramangala, Bad weather, Cyclones, Effects, Chillness, Chilly weather, Forecast, Sunshine, Rainfall

The past week has been wet, chilly, cold and typical Old Bangalore like. With a cyclone in Tamil Nadu, whether they got cauvery water or not, we got a lot of their rain water. So much so that there has been about 200-300 crores of loss in Tamil Nadu and Kerala because of rains during the wrong time (agriculture affected). Fantastic plans for a weekend just went bust for most of the Bangaloreans. I happened to do YOGA on top of my terrace early morning in the chillness and quite obviously starting sneezing a thousand times immediately thereafter. But my three months of exercise miraculously made my cold vanish within 2 hours even without medicine. Now this is called immunity isnt it ?

Rain Rain Went Away …..

Never Came Again Another Day !

Its back to summer as usual. So the hot days are set to continue again until May or June when monsoon begins and whole city cries for its water logging. In another related incident or news, the road above the Magic Box near BDA collapsed just for this rain. Now the BBMP is in for more flak during monsoons. One wonders if the ride to the new airport will really be so smooth!

Your guess is as good as mine.

Technorati Tags: Life in Bengaluru, Bengaluru, Blog, Bangalore, Magix box, Rains, Chennai, Tamil nadu, Weather, Cyclone, Yoga, Fever, Flu, Bad cold, Water, Kerala, Crop loss, 100 crores, Community, Immunity, Agriculture, Outer ring road, Bmtc, Bbmp, Underpass, Monsoon, Karnataka

I was doing YOGA yesterday evening on my terrace when it started raining. I continued doing yoga and the skies got really dark and looked omnious. It was at this time I was wondering that we humans are mere mortals and are too little compared to the elements around us. We might have used our intelligence to achieve many heights. But that still doesnt make us immortal would it?

At one point the skies were so overcast that it prompted me to rush back inside my home, get my new Canon DSLR and take a picture of what looked so inviting. The shopping complexes are just a stone’s throw away from my house and I can see a couple of them from my terrace. I climbed atop the rear parappet wall of my house, putting my life in risk. One wrong move and I would come crashing down three floors and would be dead. All just to capture the rainy moment in this photograph.

It is only then did the irony struck me. LG - yes the famous korean consumer electronics giant stands for LIFE’s GOOD. But a good life comes with a rider, the hoarding below that read "MAX NEW YORK LIFE" which is an insurance company insuring people’s lives! Even Strangerirony is that this is an indian insurance company with new york in their name!

So Life may be good, but you still need insurance is the caption for this photograph! Oh how true .

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I headed out to my office on a clear summer’s day to get a whiff of fresh air and what I got is this

The temperature pattern in Bengaluru is becoming more and more unpredictable as each day dawns. Its a storehouse of surprises each day. The fog just lasted for a bit of inner ring road and then it was the usual clear day again ahead. How BIZZAIRE!

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Pictures speak a thousand words, and as summer begins to set in, I caught this pleasant sunrise on my mobile camera just near ITPL. Good morning Bengaluru!

Technorati Tags: Life in Bengaluru, Bengaluru, Blog, Bangalore, Summer, Sunrise, Itpl, Cloudy, Pleasant, Weather