US Travel Bans

Welcome to America.....not.

What will be the impacts from Trump's travel bans?  World leaders and prominent figures have blasted US President Donald Trump's temporary ban on citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States as divisive, illegal, insulting and discriminatory.

For a quick summary of the world's opinion, see CNN.

Our own travel.state.gov site states "Urgent Notice: Under the Executive Order on Protecting the Nation from Terrorist Attacks by Foreign Nationals signed on January 27, 2017, visa issuance to nationals of the countries of Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen has been suspended effective immediately until further notification. We will announce any other changes affecting travelers to the United States as soon as that information is available."

I guess we will not be able to see our friends and relatives anymore?

Zusammenhang

Tongue twister?  Try this link.

For "A geographer's view on recreation: "zusammenhang," the connectedness of it all" try this one.

Singin' in the Rain

Saw this classic on the big screen last week as part of a TCM initiative to bring films to audiences at movie theaters.  You can't beat the BIG screen.

At first I wondered if the film was wide screen but according to the ad, "This film will be shown in the same aspect ratio as when it was originally released in cinemas."  There seems to be some debate on the subject though.

In any case, it was fun.

Mass GIS

We have seen tremendous improvements with interactive mapping sites.  My own "river.wsc.ma.edu" served maps a decade ago and you can see some of the features on this link (thanks to Archive.org and the "wayback machine").

More contemporary ones are wide spread and may be general, like Google Earth, or specialized like the Oliver one at Mass GIS or one for Iceland.

2017 NATIONAL PARK SERVICE FEE FREE DAYS

2017 NATIONAL PARK SERVICE FEE FREE DAYS

Explore your National Parks!  Thanks to the National Park Service, all national parks across the country will waive admission fees on the following days throughout 2017:

January 16: Martin Luther King Jr. Day

February 20: Presidents Day

April 15-16 and 22-23: Weekends of National Park Week

August 25: National Park Service Birthday

September 30: National Public Lands Day

November 11-12: Veterans Day Weekend

Where's the snow?

It was a cold weekend in Westfield, but in a few days, warmer temperatures are predicted.   That said, short term memories mean that we may remember that last winter was mild and the one before it was hard.

What will we say about the winter of 2016-17 next summer?  time will tell.

The graphic above shows the change in the Urban Heat Island for Westfield, 16 years apart.  Read more about this here.

Cold Fronts

At 12 midnight GMT last night, the US was experiencing this:

You can see the cold front just passing the eastern seaboard and with it, we are getting colder air with winds from the NW.

The current radar loop is found here and depending on how far after you observe it will take the past conditions above and relate that to the live values in the loop.

What will tomorrow bring?