Tag Archives: weather

July 12, 2012 · 7:17 pm

No time to lose

Does anybody really know what time it is?

For a town known to be a center of power, much of our nation’s capital went without at the time of our nation’s birthday.

The Friday before Independence Day, el derecho huffed and puffed and took down trees, power lines, homes and cars in one big bad blow.

We lost power for four days. There isn’t much about this weather event that hasn’t already been said.

But, after losing power again yesterday, something struck me. Without juice, it’s hard to tell time.

We rely unduly on our mobile phones, our televisions, cable boxes, VCRs (yes, I still have two of those), stoves, microwaves. Even our electronic thermostats tell us what time it is. As a result, many people don’t even wear watches any more. I wear mine for adornment as much as I do for information–and only when I go out.

On a recent dark day, I walked about the house, upstairs and down, looking for the time. My cell phone was dead; even an analog landline was of no use since Ma Bell cut our time lines last year.

I remembered that we received six clocks—none electric—as wedding gifts 27 years ago. It was comforting to rediscover that some if not most of those are still around. Then I remembered the trusty timepiece my husband brought into our marriage, a relic from the 1950s, when his father sold shoes for a living.

As time slips away, so does our ability to tell it.

Does anybody really care?

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August 26, 2011 · 8:27 am

Panic attack

Mark Twain was known to have said, “Everyone talks about the weather but no one does anything about it.”

As Hurricane Irene barrels toward the United States, the weather is all anyone is talking about. Someone, do something.

Usually, The Weather Channel is fairly tempered in its wording. Forecasters take such flak for both underestimating and over-hyping conditions that they must walk a fine line between issuing timely alerts and not inciting panic, even when conditions are urgent. By necessity, they choose their words cautiously.

In all the years I’ve followed The Weather Channel on weather.com, however, I’ve never read such strong language as I have these last 24 hours:

“extraordinary impacts”
“very dangerous”
“serious and multi-hazard threat”
“rare potency”
“particularly threatening situation”
“dire threat”

They’ve even created a new threat level category: EXTREME. All caps.

In fact, the site is using ALL CAPS and exclamation points all over the place! As drama goes, that’s the punctuation equivalent of Al Roker twisting in the wind.

Meteorologists caution that Irene will impose severe conditions on the major metropolitan areas of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, including Norfolk, Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City, Hartford and Boston. “This hurricane has the potential to produce flooding rains, high winds, downed trees (on houses, cars, power lines) and widespread power outages,” the site warns.

One troubling aspect of this looming disaster is that, not only must East-coasters prepare for damage and loss, but we also have to brace ourselves for ridicule from the rest of the country. California is still snickering over our little 5.8 earthquake, while red state residents are blanketing Facebook and Twitter with stupid quake jokes about policymakers.

I seriously hope Irene has a change of heart and a change of direction. No one would look forward to singing “Goodnight Irene” more than beach dwellers and East Coast city folk. 

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to dash out for an emergency supply of Perrier and camembert.

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July 15, 2011 · 7:59 am

From here to eternity?

“If you don’t [. . .], I’m going to kick you from here to St. Swithin’s Day!”

That’s an expression I remember, dating many decades back. I don’t recall who said it, nor do I know what it even means exactly.

I think it’s the same as when someone says “from here to next week” or “from here to Sunday.”

The odd thing is, I can’t find any mention of “from here to St. Swithin’s Day” using any available search engine. Could I have been imagining it? The line sounds like something James Cagney would have threatened in a gangster movie. If I can find any reference to it, I’ll be a dirty rat.

The reason this came to mind in the first place—and perhaps you already know it—is that today is St. Swithin’s Day. Or St. Swithun’s, depending on whom you ask.

Shame on me, an Episcopalian for 26 years, for not knowing this Anglo-Saxon bishop and saint.

This 9th century bishop of Winchester and patron saint of the Winchester Cathedral became a saint for working a miracle, as saints do. His had something to do with eggs. I can’t find many details about that either. But that’s not what his feast day is known for.

I like to think of ol’ Swithin as the groundhog of saints.

His feast day, July 15, is an occasion for predicting the weather for the next 40 days. According to legend, whatever the weather today, so it will be for the next six weeks or so. Would that it were true here in Washington; at this posting, it’s sunny and 72 degrees with low humidity.

In case you were wondering, it’s exactly the same in Winchester, England. Spooky.

I’ll leave you with something to recite to your friends today. Just rattle it off and they’ll stare at you blankly from here to St. Swithin’s Day:

St. Swithun’s day if thou dost rain
For forty days it will remain.
St. Swithun’s day if thou be fair
For forty days ’twill rain nae mare.

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July 1, 2011 · 9:19 am

Global cooling

It’s July in Washington. The weather is forecast to be sunny and 90 degrees, with 40 percent humidity, for the next 10 days. Ah, sweater weather!

This time of year, I don’t go anywhere, except maybe the beach, without a sweater.

Now that we finally have central air in our home, I sometimes put my bathrobe on over my clothes.

Don’t get me wrong; I welcomed A/C with open, goosebumped arms. It’s great. I sleep like a baby.

But overall, I feel that air conditioning is overdone. Do humans really need to spend their days and nights in 65-degree temperatures? I don’t know about you, but too much A/C makes my nose run, gives me a headache and makes my muscles ache. Can we just tone it down a little and maybe save the planet in the meantime?

The last office in which I worked was like a walk-in refrigerator. While my burly Norwegian colleague controlled the thermostat on our hallway, our boss came in every morning and did a Mister Rogers ritual, exchanging suit jacket for cardigan sweater. Everywhere I go—the mall, the grocery store, the movie theater, church, any hospital, every office building, every airplane, airport and restaurant—the air is cranked so high (or is it low?) that I can barely function without cover. When I travel, I carry a big shawl that doubles as a blanket. I can’t recall a flight in the last few years on which I haven’t buried myself under it. I’d wear gloves and a nosebag if I thought to pack them.

Are there any environmental scientists or engineers out there who can tell me how much energy could be saved by bumping up thermostats up a few degrees? Wouldn’t businesses also save huge amounts of money? Could we put a dent in our nation’s economic and environmental troubles with a simple flip of a switch?

If you agree, let’s huddle together and make it happen.

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May 18, 2011 · 8:51 am

Sunny in Orlando

We know someone who tells people he meets that he’s from “Orlando, Florida.” I always wonder to myself why he doesn’t just say “Orlando.” I mean, are people going to think he’s from Orlando, Oklahoma? It turns out that they might. Or Orlando, Kentucky, or Orlando, West Virginia.

I snicker when I hear people—usually ones who don’t travel very much—refer to “Paris, France,” or “London, England,” or places where the country is implied. Everyone knows Paris is in France; you really don’t need to say it. Or do you? There are at least 10 cities in the United States called Paris.

I do travel a lot, and I consult Weather.com before I go anywhere. The Weather Channel’s website has an auto-search feature that, when the name of a city is typed in, offers a choice of the top cities bearing that name.

Going to Philadelphia? Don’t mis-click, or you’ll get the weather for Philadelphia, Missouri, or Mississippi or New York or Tennessee.

Just a little trivia for geography buffs from some of my recent searches (or perhaps geography buffs already know this):

Charlotte: In addition to North Carolina, Charlotte is in Arkansas, Vermont, Iowa, Michigan, New York, Tennessee and Texas.

Dallas: Georgia, Iowa, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Wisconsin and West Virginia

Atlanta: Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska and New York

Sacramento: Kentucky, New Mexico and Pennsylvania

Detroit: Alabama, Maine, Oregon and Texas

Phoenix: Maryland, New York and Oregon

Denver: Iowa, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, New York and Pennsylvania

Raleigh: Illinois, Mississippi, North Dakota and West Virginia

Miami: Arizona, Indiana, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and West Virginia

Richmond: California, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Maine, Michigan and Minnesota

Minneapolis: Kansas and North Carolina

Syracuse: North Dakota, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio and Utah

Well, I’d better go check the weather in San Antonio. Oops, not New Mexico.

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March 9, 2011 · 7:56 am

RIP TI4 and WE6

Recently on this blog, several of us got into a side conversation, remembering telephone numbers from many decades ago. I suspect most of us don’t even bother to learn phone numbers any more; we just have them programmed into our mobile devices.

The first telephone number I ever learned—I still remember it—was CL6-2808. CL stood for Clearbrook. Back then, phone numbers had only seven characters, the first two letters standing for neighborhood exchanges. The second two phone numbers I memorized were TI4-1212 (844-1212) and WE6-1212 (936-1212). TI stood for “time” and WE stood for “weather.”

As kids, we used to call Time seconds before the stroke of the Daylight Saving Time switchover, just for kicks, so we could hear time go backward or skip ahead. Childhood’s tiny thrills.

Late last night a friend brought to my attention the sad news that, after 72 years, our local phone company will cease providing time and weather, effective the first of June. Apparently, among the last areas in which Verizon is cutting these basic lifelines is the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area (or, as the recording used to say, “Washington and vicinity,” which was the first I never heard the word “vicinity.”)

My friend who shared this news said the voice recording was one of her neighbors. This makes the news all the more disappointing.  Talk about the end of an era.

I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised. The phone company claims we no longer need a free line to time and weather, that we already have innumerable devices through which to learn if we are running late or whether to put our sunglasses or rain boots by the front door. And they’re right, we have smart phones and computers to give us what we need.  Heck, I still wear a watch.

Still, there’s something about those pre-recorded voices and the two sets of seven digits indelibly printed in our memories that will make it so difficult to usher out yet another bygone era.

Does anybody really know what time it is?

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