You easties had your snowpocalypse days in the headlines. Now the action shifts. After (yet another damn) major atmospheric river fist-punches the NorthWET tonight, it’s going to swing south and seriously clobber California by Friday.
Could also be catastrophic windstorms, even a cyclone, by the weekend (though maybe not). Stay tuned.
Remember when the weather was just something that happened, and people just dealt with it the best they could? 🙂
“Remember when the weather was just something that happened, and people just dealt with it the best they could? :)”
Nope. 🙂
I do remember when predictions were a lot less accurate than they are now. I suspect most of us are grateful to be able to have a good idea what lies ahead, even if the media and government officials do sometimes make a bit much of it all.
I find the biggest problem with the weather is the weather guys who report it. As a friend said years ago they are “To right to ignore and to wrong to believe.”
Good luck Clair. Batten down the hatches and stay dry.
LOL! Oh Claire… I’m glad if you find the current weather predictions helpful. That has not been my experience at all. At least once a week we have a big “Hazardous Weather” warning… and it turns out to be nothing 99% of the time. I don’t bother reading it anymore.
What I was saying is that, long ago, people simply made emergency preparations and expected bad weather and so forth to come along now and again. The weather maps and predictions can be very interesting, but I suspect most of us here would survive without them. 🙂
Well, I guess being inland complicates things, too. Near the coast, where we can see the weather coming at us for days over open ocean, predictions are probably more accurate (though earlier this season we did have several high-wind warnings and barely got a breeze).
And yeah, true that people have survived for centuries without good weather predictions — although you might check with Galveston, Texas, and anybody who was living in New England on Labor Day 1938 about that.
http://www.historynet.com/blown-away.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1938_New_England_hurricane
Dare I mention Katrina, or the Sandy hurricane… or even the latest big snowstorm on the east coast? Not sure what use even accurate prediction did for them… millions were not paying any attention! The stores were still stripped clean, and the litter of wrecks on the roads was everywhere. People died for lack of preparation, usually, not lack of predictions — same reason they died in Galveston, I suspect.
ML — You’re ignoring what accurate predictions do accomplish for many others, even those who might wait until the last minute to empty the stores (they’re obviously heeding the forecast, even if in a way that makes us prep types cringe). We see the few — or the many — idiots, but those who take heed in a wise way don’t get the coverage.
And Galveston was quite a different story. You should really read about that.
http://www.historynet.com/blown-away.htm
“Well, I guess being inland complicates things, too. Near the coast, where we can see the weather coming at us for days over open ocean, predictions are probably more accurate…”
I suspect that may be true. I’ve lived on both coasts, and inland as far as Idaho (which granted is not as far inland as, say, Wyoming), and there was a difference in prediction accuracy between coastal and inland forecasts. Perhaps mountains, grasslands, and local variations have a lot to do with misinformation farther inland.
There’s also a difference in geography from the meteorologists’ interest. Both East and West coasts always take precedence and, in the East, the national weather stations put more emphasis on the Northeast and Southeast than in the mid-Atlantic (exept for D.C.). During this last storm, while the general coast was covered, the regional forecast and maps would miss us completely between D. C. and Charlotte, N.C. (Luckily our local channels knew we were here, and covered us nicely.)
Where I live, the weather forecast has a big, nasty “HAZARDOUS WEATHER” warning at the top of the page many days of the week… Click that and you learn that the wind may gust above 24 MPH… or there might be a little fog. Oh me… Ho hum. I don’t bother to look anymore. I’m not ignoring that predictions might be useful to a lot of people… though I still question the accuracy much of the time. I just have not looked at the “hazardous” warnings for years because I don’t find them helpful. Everyone has to choose for themselves, of course.
We were just talking about how strange it is that a few inches of snow in D.C. could be convoluted into a major emergency, a hysterical “snowmageddon” – when five feet, or much more, of snow in North Dakota is seldom even mentioned. The people of the east coast were warned, and millions (obviously) ignored it. That doesn’t say the prediction was worthless, of course, just not useful to a lot of folks for whatever reason.
Prediction, accurate prediction, would certainly save people, but not if the noise so exceeds the signal that few pay any attention to it.
I seem to be at cross purposes with everyone today. I think I’ll go sew for a while. 🙂
I hear you, ML. “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Red sky at morning, sailors take warning.”
OTOH what does happen with modern weather forecasting is that some of the major retailers (like Wal-Mart) stage products to go in right after the storm so store shelves don’t stay bare.
http://fox2now.com/2015/04/29/walmart-opens-the-doors-to-its-emergency-operation-center/
And my daughter, SIL and grandkids are flying into California, picking up their van, and heading East across I-10, on Friday morning.
Near the coast, where we can see the weather coming at us for days over open ocean…
Not a lot of difference in how far you can see between west from Washington, and north from Nebraska. Or the Texas panhandle.
“Nuthin tween us and Canada but a bob-wire fence.”
Wellllll … That’s might be true as far as what you can see. I don’t doubt that. But the ocean does give a clearer weather picture than the high plains and periodic bumps of mid-continent, from what I recall (having lived in both Wyoming and Minnesota).
Good luck to the kinfolk on their flight and drive. With some luck, they’ll just get a little extra rain and not a lot of drama.
Weather forecast accuracy here in the mountains is a bit hit or miss. The various mountain ranges can divert weather away or funnel it in. We asked an old local rancher about the weather and he said that it’d be what we see when we look out the window in the morning. Safe bet there.
Stay safe and dry, Claire!
Wow
It really does look like a left jab on that image.
Hitting San Francisco right on the schnozola.
stay safe Claire
The surf has the right-of-way: http://videowall.accuweather.com/detail/videos/trending-now/video/4726066899001/close-call:-sneaker-wave-almost-knocks-down-fleeing-people?autoStart=true
We learned a couple of tings since moving to the Northwet:
It really does rain every day. Sometimes only for a few minutes, but it rains every day.
People buy rain gear not because you might need it some day, like back east, but because you need it every day because it rains every day.
Everyone owns and wears rubber boots, all the time, because it rains every day
There’s no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing selections
Locals don’t run in the rain
just waiting:
When my ex and I used to live in Hood River (up the valley in Willow Flats) we went to Eugene for our LaMaze clases. Highly recommended BTW.
At that time there was an anti-tourism campaign going on and they had tee shirts with “cute” sayings and line drawings.
“Did you know that last year in Oregon 394 people fell off of their bicycles … and drowned.” picture was a bicycle with an umbrella over the rider in water to the axles of the wheels.
“Do you enjoy the out of doors and horse back riding? … Visit Wyoming” picture was the bucking bronco logo of the State of Wyoming.
We moved to Idaho in the fall of ’74 so I don’t know how that campaign turned out but the images and tee shirts were very well done.
Oh and by the way … Yep every day. In Eugene at any rate.
Not so much in the Hood River Valley.
We’re learning all kinds of new things Capn. Like that Roe v Wade gets decided by the local fishermen every morning based on the river- launch a boat and row or put on hip boots and wade on in.
At that time there was an anti-tourism campaign going on and they had tee shirts with “cute” sayings and line drawings.
Not sure that was anti-tourist. I suspect it belongs under “gallows humor.”
Or maybe it was the vampires.
just waiting — Every day, yes. But the secret is (and we’re never supposed to tell this to any outsiders, so keep it to yourself) never between July and September.
Glorious summers. Well … most years. Some years … You just ain’t seen it yet.
And capn, I never saw those tee shirts, but I recall that those years were were very big on “Don’t Californicate Oregon.” Maybe less anti-tourist than anti-Californians-moving-up-and-wrecking-our-state?