I just wanted to let Pacific NW natives know that in other regions of the nation, weather forecasters are actually able to somewhat reliably forecast the weather more than, say, 12 hours in advance. You know, like if they tell us on Friday to expect a week of relentless sunshine, the forecast on Monday won’t generally flip to clouds and rain.
I’m not blaming Cliff Mass and his cohorts; it’s apparently more difficult to make five-day forecasts here during much of the year than it is most anywhere else. But damn is it frustrating.
Booooo! Cliche newcomer’s complaint about the weather forecasting around here.
What Washington needs is a large agricultural state due west of us, one that we can call up and ask “So, what’s the weather like there?”. Then we know what our weather will be.
Let’s get right on that.
Poster Child @1,
So after 18 years here, when do I cease to be a “newcomer”…?
You’ll always be a newcomer to me, Goldy.
“Weather is stupid.”
– Beavis and Butthead
@3
Don’t you know the PNW rules? If you weren’t born here you will always be a “newcomer”. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been here or how deep the roots you put down are.
Just be thankful you aren’t one of those Californians.
Yeah, what #6 said.
As for weather forecasting the new coastal weather radars should help some.
@3 “So after 18 years here, when do I cease to be a “newcomer”…?”
Never. Duh! Anymore questions?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesser_Seattle
@6 “Just be thankful you aren’t one of those Californians”
Times are a changing, but something between a strong dislike to a hatred of California and all things California was kind of an “in our blood” thing here. There was an inverse-squared law at play as well taking in account one’s distance from Hollywood. And then there’s San Francisco. That one’s very complicated. For instance, I lived in Palo Alto for five years – talk about easy weather forcasts – and I grew to love the Bay area and the city. heh- But I hate it. I’ll always hate it. I hate it because that’s the way it is and that’s the way it should be.
If you’ve been in the area for 10 years or more, you’ve probably been here longer than most of the population.
@11;
Then I’m ancient…
Anyways, you stop being a newcomer when you know the difference between “Partly sunny with a chance of showers” and “Partly cloudy with a chance of showers.”
Seattle was such a provincial and isolated town that if someone here met somebody new, they’d ask what high school they attended. With the answer, they knew at least half of what they’d ever learn about that person.
There was a time when a true Seattlite would never simply say they were from Seattle. They would always say that they were from Seattle, Washington, even if talking to somebody from Renton.
As you’re a flatlander, Goldy, let me explain how the weather works around here. It’s caused by ocean currents. All of it. And those are, you know, somewhat unpredictable. That’s how it works. The native fauna is used to it. As a rabbit, I was born with a raincoat, so a little cloudiness doesn’t faze me.*
* Has anyone besides me noticed how badly English literacy has deteriorated in this counry? I mean, all the time now, you see people writing that phrase as “doesn’t phase me.” A phase is, you know, like a period of time, as in “moon phase.” I could understand someone confusing “fuze” with “fuse,” but people who can’t get “faze” and “phase” right are, like, you know, they don’t read enough.
I could see firing a teacher for teaching her students to use “phase” as an adverb, but this so-called Christian school fired a teacher for conceiving her baby three weeks before she married her husband. And they not only told all the staff, but also called all the parents of her students, that she was fired for “fornicating.” They claimed she failed to uphold the school’s “values.”
I’m not sure what “values” they’re referring to. Obviously, they have no knowledge of forgiveness, which is, like, you know, the core value of the New Testament. Core, man. Like, as in, the whole friggin New Testament is about FORGIVING sinners! Like, man, it says Jesus died on the Cross to wash us clean of our sins. Guess they didn’t read that. They seem like the kind of people who would, you know, go ahead and stone a woman to death for adultery like they do in primitive Muslim societies.
They also didn’t run these by their lawyer before they did it. That much is obvious. Because any lawyer in this country would have told them, “You’re gonna do WHAT??? You must be out of your friggin mind! Or you hate your money!”
My guess is the settlement will be somewhere between $500,000 and $750,000.
http://www.aolnews.com/nation/.....y/19515382
correction @14: “the native fauna are used to it”
Mrs. Rabbit says, “The weather could be worse, look what happened in Arkansas.”
The weather is Bush’s fault. And where is that fool Klynical?
He never posts Rasmussen when President Obama is doing well. I’ll do it for him.
Take this Klynical
Monday, June 14, 2010
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that 24% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-two percent (42%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -18
“badly English literacy has deteriorated in this counry”
One of the basic internet-posting rules; gripe about grammar or spelling, and you’ll make at least one mistake yourself.
Oh, there’s nothing halfway
About the Washington way to treat you,
When we treat you
Which we may not do at all.
There’s an Washington kind of special
Chip-on-the-shoulder attitude.
We’ve never been without.
(That we recall.)
14 RR
Not just the ocean currents. There’s also a local topographic maximum in the Olympic mountains, and our incoming offshore SW weather flow splits to go around it and then re-unites in what we call the “convergence zone” that creates very unpredictable weather patterns.
When we have flows out of the North or East it is more easily predicted.
Maybe Goldy just needs a little “lifestyle behavior modification” to fit in a little better.
http://republicbroadcasting.org/?p=9028
Damn it, comrades, they’re onto us again. Once again some traitor in our midst has leaked another of our commie-fascist, radical Islamic Mexican Catholic plots to enslave our nation’s wingnuts. Loose lips sink ships, bitches.
Goldy, speaking as one of the natives, you’re most welcome here — as long as you take the Puget Pledge:
Obama is tanking in all the polls!
Where I grew up (back in eastern Tennessee), we had a simple way of predicting the weather. We would watch the 11:00 p.m. news. Whatever was happening in Nashville at that time would be the weather in the morning at our location.
The problem in the Seattle area is primarily a feature of the mosture-laden “Pinapple Express” coming up from the Hawaii and beyond, and the angle at which it hits the Olympic mountains. Much of it splits at the mountains, and the convergence zone where it re-connects gets more than it’s fair share of rain. Trying to predict that exact angle and the connect point is understandably hard.
Now, if the weather system doesn’t hit hit us from the west, and instead gets funnelled up from the south between the mountains, you get gale-force winds and rain – in other words, a typical November here.
But on the plus side, I had to work at Paine Field early Saturday morning in the glorious sunshine and gentle warmth of the day. After I got off I drove to the other side of the field and got to see a beautifully restored B25 and P51 being redied for flight to Boeing Field to help celebrate the 75th anniversary of the B17.
Just seeing those old warbirds still in flying condition is a thrill. Click on the link in the article to the slideshow to see the two aircraft I saw, plus more.
http://blog.seattlepi.com/aero.....211028.asp
In fairness, Dr. Mass never made any such forecasts. And at least once last week (on KUOW) he directly rejected them by saying that he expected the “summer-like” weather to be limited to Saturday only, beginning to dissipate Sunday, and that on-shore flows would return by Monday characterized by a mix of overcast with occasional sun breaks and a few showers (KUOW Weekday with Steve Scher, 6/11/10, beginning at 48:10). Actually Dr. Mass’ forecast is holding up splendidly so far.
Ahh, Daddy Love – I love it that you brought up the “convergence zone”. when the storms come out of the SE or S (which most do) they are split by the Olympics and reconverge just around the King-Snohomish county line that then gets pummelled.
Meanwhile, down in Seatac (whree the actual precipitation is “officially” measured a few raindrops make for a “rainy” day with not so much precip.
Cliff Mass actually has worked on local models to more accurately predict the variability in local climate. He is also a strong advocate for better math teaching.
Go cliff!
I love this Juneau weather.
Cliff Mass doesn’t called himself “Dr. Mass.” No one else need do so either.
I checked the 2010 Seattle weather history last week. At the time, out of 99 days since March 1, we’d had 72 rainy days. That’s just crap.
I was born and grew up in California and came up here in 1961. Until this weather shapes up I’m still a Californian; I just happen to have been trapped here by family for 49 years.