01 February 2011

The Sky Is Falling!

We're all gonna die!

We've been hearing the pounding of drums for two days now...
"It's gonna be the worst storm we've seen since 1958!"
The forecast said it would start with rain, turning to freezing rain, becoming sleet, turning to snow, culminating with an accumulation of 12-24 inches of snow on top of all that ice.
I wish I had a nickel for every time someone said "a span of powerline between two poles with an inch of ice on it will weigh 500 pounds"...
Meaning that was what they expected and if it happened we could expect widespread power outages.
The response was typical.
Folks stampeded to the grocery and emptied the shelves of milk and bread.
School administrators preemptively closed schools.
Businesses closed early.
I'm sure some spent money on kerosene space heaters and portable generators.
All this ugly stuff was supposed to start in the wee hours yesterday morning. We woke expecting to see icicles.
Nope.
Not even raining. So we turn on the TV to see when the disaster is gonna start.
Chagrined, our local weather guy says, "It'll start SOMETIME today".
And we waited most of the day for the pending disaster.

The rain finally started at 4 P.M.. But temps stayed above freezing so our windshields, roofs, and roads got wet. And temps stayed above freezing all day while folks, I guess, made sandwiches and drank glasses of fresh milk.
It's still raining.
But the wind has picked up now and temperatures are finally dropping so we MAY actually see some frozen precipitation soon. And I know from correspondence from friends that there are actually some folks getting dumped on right now...
But not in our area.

So think about it...
How much money was lost because of this Chicken Little forecast?
How would you like to be paid very well to be as wrong as these guys are SO OFTEN?!

I may go back to school to be "educated" for a second career.

13 comments:

Rita said...

Don't rub it in buddy. Nasty nasty nasty weather here while Bob is "trapped" in SW Florida 80 degrees.

Be glad you got bad data. Much better than ICE!

Red Shoes said...

I dunno... we had an ice storm event in February, 1994, that devastated the entire northern half of Mississippi... It completely destroyed the power grid in Northwest Mississippi... the untility crews coming in from out of state said that they hadn't seen the type of destruction we had here in the worst hurricanes they had worked.

If I got the forecast you got, and then got the results you got, I would be thankful.. :oD

~shoes~

CJ said...

But... but...

FEMA and Obama have met and are prepared!

Good grief. It's a snow storm.

In 1995 this area was hit with 61 inches of snow in less than three days. We dug out. That's all there is to it.

Ice is worse, but still.

It isn't armageddon.

cjh

jinksto said...

I follow my local weatherman on facebook and twitter. He does unofficial video updates from his house via Youtube. On top of giving me a constant stream of updates all day long the guy is pretty good.

The cool thing about the unofficial broadcasts that he does is that he can be more "honest" than the official broadcast. Saying things like, "I'm not ready to stake my reputation on it yet but here's what I THINK might happen.

I love your description of the "panic prep" and laugh every time it happens here. I always have enough to live for a week or so. Canned milk works fine in your coffee in a pinch. :)

The weatherman above uses a 1-5 sliding scale to tell people what to do based on the snowfall...
1> Drive carefully,
2) Check for school closings.
3) Buy bread and milk...

phlegmfatale said...

You know, it's funny how the weathermen cried "wolf" one too many times in my neck of the woods, predicting ice, sleet, freezing rain about once every 2 weeks for the last several months and it's been bone-dry with nary a drop of precip, regardless of the forecast. This time came a Doozie but I didn't believe the forecast.

cary said...

It is so darn cold around here in the Valley of the Sun that we had to bring the brass monkeys in.

Our high today was 41 degrees.

Fahrenheit.

But hey, it's a dry cold.

Greybeard said...

And there's the problem, Phlegmmy...
I've been weather watching because of my job for years and know how wrong forecasts can be. Why don't they tell us how sure they are of a forecast? As I said, their prediction caused a lot of unneeded stress and cost lots of people $$$$ this time.

Cary, that's ALMOST too cold to push the bike out for a ride!
Almost.

Old NFO said...

GB, whyinhell do you think we call 'em WEATHERGUESSERS!!! :-) You know better my friend :-)

cary said...

... and then, when I got up this morning (2/3/11) the thermo-thingy said 23.

Guess I have to return it, it must be broken.

Cliffy said...

Hi from Far North Queensland, Australia, Recently known for a category 5 Cyclone named Yasi. For those who do not know cat.5 is the highest level for a Cyclone/Hurricane. I live in a City about 80 miles from the place the eye crossed the coast, the storm front was a couple of hundred miles across so I was in some serious storm action. By providence my city was spared significant damage but close by towns were severely damaged and are, two days later, still isolated by damage to roads ( some the tarmacadam was lifted and blown away. this is a MAIN Highway!!)but the same day the wind slowed, with no electricity, telephone and flooding some employers are miffed that the staff did not turn up to work as soon as the state of emergency was canceled! Some people!

Greybeard said...

Cliffy, when I heard you had experienced 200 mph winds in some places down there I thought, "That gives 'Tie Me Kangaroo Down' a whole new meaning!"
Glad you survived. Thanks for sharing with us.
(And find some devious ways to irritate those employers!)

DD said...

I'm sure that science can prove, if the oxygen producing resources that are on the ground are lessened, the "sky" or atmosphere would fall upon us. Oygen is holding it up. And it sure is hot up there. With that in mind, the trees don't grow as big or numerous as they used to, the ocean has a garbage pit the size of texas in it, and the amount of toxic fumes from machinery, autos, and living is probably more than the trees are breathing. The sky is falling concept has nothing to do with fairy tales, and people ought to take a very serious look at what they're doing to this planet and do everything they can to quickly change it.

Greybeard said...

Once again DD, (and by the way, I LOVE your handle!), I'll warn thinking people not to hitch your wagon to this "climate change" horse manure.
It truly is horse manure.