Such was Hanne when I met her 18 years ago.
The first use of the expression was supposedly by one Thomas Carlyle in 1837 when he was writing about the French Revolution period. He wrote " Arrest, sudden like a bolt out of the blue, has hit strange victims".
I discovered today that lightning can come out of a thundercloud and travel as much as 25 miles before striking the ground, seeming to come out of a blue sky! And why is the sky blue? Something to do with the earth's atmosphere particles bending the white light from the sun, separating the smallest wavelength of light out, that being blue. In the evening or morning, the angle of the sun changes, then the longest wavelength shows, red. If you go out beyond the earth's atmosphere, the sky is black, e.g. if you stood on the moon.
There are 16 million thunder and lightning storms annually, and in the U.S., 55 people are killed every year. The safest place is inside a walled building or metal car, stay inside until 30 minutes after the rain stops.
Today the sky here is blue, there are no clouds, and the air is still. It is expected to go up to 32 degrees Celsius. So we will be on the look out for bolts, not sheets or forks.....
The first use of the expression was supposedly by one Thomas Carlyle in 1837 when he was writing about the French Revolution period. He wrote " Arrest, sudden like a bolt out of the blue, has hit strange victims".
I discovered today that lightning can come out of a thundercloud and travel as much as 25 miles before striking the ground, seeming to come out of a blue sky! And why is the sky blue? Something to do with the earth's atmosphere particles bending the white light from the sun, separating the smallest wavelength of light out, that being blue. In the evening or morning, the angle of the sun changes, then the longest wavelength shows, red. If you go out beyond the earth's atmosphere, the sky is black, e.g. if you stood on the moon.
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| The Ogre of Munson Mountain? |
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| Approaches to Munson Mountain ( "digital painting" ) |
Today the sky here is blue, there are no clouds, and the air is still. It is expected to go up to 32 degrees Celsius. So we will be on the look out for bolts, not sheets or forks.....
6 comments:
I love summer blue sky - we had one here today with fluffy white clouds.
It surprises me that one of the safest places is inside a metal car. I'd be afraid to touch anything metal. Our sky in Alberta is an ever changing panorama of beauty. It' so flat in the south/central of the province that you can see dark thunderclouds, rain falling, sunny blue skies and fluffy cloudy skies simply by turning around where you stand.
Every day this July you have been a faithful and most fascinating blogger. Now you will have to keep it up in August because we followers check in every day for funny, inspiring, outlandish and far-out comments. Congratulations. And bicycling as well, terrific.
I have been AWOL from Blogland for a few days and have missed a couple of your posts. It's good to see you have been very active out here and keeping your followers fully engaged :) I love the way you felt about Hanne upon first encountering her...your very own bolt from the blue!
Beautiful blue sky......there are no blue skys in Holland at the moment.....maybe next week.
So I enjoy your sky as it was mine :)
Bianca xx
There is something about the deep blue of a summer sky that sends all the right signals to the brains' neural receptors.
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