Monday, January 26, 2009
The idiots who forecast the weather
What the hell is a "wintry mix?" It sounds cute, more than anything else. Maybe it's a fruit bowl with some clementines, those ugly cabbage plants that people grow along their sidewalks all winter, and maybe a few packets of hot cocoa mix. "Gee, Susie, I heard you weren't feeling well, so I had FTD send you their Wintry Mix basket."
I'm taking today off because school's are closed, and I really needed a good excuse to take an actual work day off. Believe me, I just needed it. I looked out the window, and saw some snow. I had a moment of what seemed like genius - check the weather forecast and see if I should plan on having the kids play in a ton of snow, or if this will be finished and melted by mid-morning. Probably finished and melted by lunch, but that's a different story.
The real story is the "SEVERE WEATHER ALERT" for Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. The official National Weather Service bulletin calls for a big low pressure system, possible significant accumulations of snow, and probably sleet and freezing rain to cap it off. There's a pretty specific prediction of this storm following the Tennessee Valley, stuff about when the storm will cross the Mason-Dixon line, etc. All in all, it's definitely a well done alert.
Of course, that's all too much detail for the web portal front pages. Yahoo, MSN, Comcast.net can't give much detail. According to them, I'm getting a wintry mix. Actually, that's nice, because I really love winter citrus fruit.
I'm taking today off because school's are closed, and I really needed a good excuse to take an actual work day off. Believe me, I just needed it. I looked out the window, and saw some snow. I had a moment of what seemed like genius - check the weather forecast and see if I should plan on having the kids play in a ton of snow, or if this will be finished and melted by mid-morning. Probably finished and melted by lunch, but that's a different story.
The real story is the "SEVERE WEATHER ALERT" for Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. The official National Weather Service bulletin calls for a big low pressure system, possible significant accumulations of snow, and probably sleet and freezing rain to cap it off. There's a pretty specific prediction of this storm following the Tennessee Valley, stuff about when the storm will cross the Mason-Dixon line, etc. All in all, it's definitely a well done alert.
Of course, that's all too much detail for the web portal front pages. Yahoo, MSN, Comcast.net can't give much detail. According to them, I'm getting a wintry mix. Actually, that's nice, because I really love winter citrus fruit.
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