Tag Archives: weather

Baby, it’s cold outside.

10 Jan

Screen Shot 2014-01-10 at 7.25.16 AM

Perhaps you’ve noticed: it’s been COLD lately. I know, you may have missed it. I can see how – if you live in Florida, don’t have a Facebook account or avoid television – this newsflash may have completely passed you by.

Let me bring you up to speed. Apparently there’s a “polar vortex” hovering somewhere over the Great Lakes. As a result, the Midwest is getting buried with snow and temperatures have been stalled below zero. Even in DC, where anything below freezing is cause for angst (we ARE southern, after all), we’ve been in the single digits. When combined with some wicked winds, the windchill here has been as low as -15.

From the human reaction to these temperatures, you might believe that hell was, in fact, freezing over. My Facebook newsfeed has featured no fewer than a dozen photographs of cars’ instrument panels, prominently displaying temperatures. It’s like a pissing contest, but with low temps.

My friends who are parents seem to be split on the matter of snow days. Some (mainly those who are teachers) are rejoicing along with their children that school is canceled. Others seem to be running on fumes as their two-week holiday break gets extended – and extended – and they face their third week cooped up inside with hyper, stir-crazy children.

I think my sister is in the latter camp. She’s started sharing (and trademarking) somewhat mundane activities on Facebook that she’s creating to keep her kids occupied. And she’s referring to herself in the third person – never a good sign. For example:

On day 18 of extended break I took the kids to the basement for Alicia’s 20 Minutes of Fitness™. It ended up lasting 30 minutes and I lost (winner got an oreo).

UPDATE: It was a Double Stuff… and there was a chance earlier to win another one in Alicia’s World Series of Poker™.

I suppose I should be glad she’s creating activities for them to do inside. The other day she told me that after shoveling for twenty minutes, her oldest son returned inside and began complaining about his hands hurting. She looked at them and found that his fingertips were swollen like little balloons.  At the time I laughed, imagining him with sausage-like balloon-animal fingers.

But then just yesterday one of my high school classmates (who also still lives in Michigan) posted these photos of HIS fingers after shoveling for an extended period of time.

HOLY? WHAT?

Yep, that’s frostbite all right. Call me naïve, but somehow I thought the only people to actually get frostbite were arctic explorers, plane crash survivors stranded in the Himalayas, and anyone who lost consciousness and was later discovered in a snowbank. Shoveling snow in Michigan with gloves on???

So if you haven’t shoveled a foot of snow, almost lost a finger to frostbite, or been cooped up with children for three weeks without respite, I think you should consider this year off to a great start.

As for the rest of America? It might be worth investing in some very thermal outerwear. Or bumping up your insurance plans.

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I’m sure there’s a lesson in here somewhere.

6 Mar
Snowquester Bumble.

Snowquester Bumble.

If you’ve been following the national weather this week, then you know there’s been QUITE the hype about the Snowquester storm that was forecast for DC today.

(My sister doesn’t watch the news so her reaction to the word “Snowquester” was to say, “I may have to pop the cyanide tablet tonight,” followed by sharing this video, which I assume is her way of expressing disdain for named storms that she hasn’t heard of. It’s mildly effective.)

Anyway, I love a good storm, so I yesterday I started getting excited for the Snowquester. By which I mean: I bought a bunch of toilet paper and used Facebook to encourage other snow-fans to do the Snow Shake to guarantee the storm’s arrival.

“Start doing your snow dance,” I commanded whenever someone indicated they were even marginally excited about the storm. “Stop typing and start shaking!” I’d admonish.

Of course, when I cast an eye on Facebook during the work day, it’s usually to give myself a two-minute mental break or multi-task while I’m waiting for a conference call to start. In other words: I’m not fully paying attention.

And so this is how it came to pass that I zipped into Facebook and misread my friend’s status:

Tomorrow is not promised to anyone. #HeavyHeart

I was distracted and thinking about the snow forecast when I read this. Also in my defense,  her previous posts had been excitedly discussing the Snowquester, so I skimmed this status and thought its gist was, “They revised the forecast! That sucks!”

Please tell me you can see how I arrived at that interpretation.

Even worse, not only did I skim her status, but – always amusing myself – I felt compelled to comment:

Nonononono! I guess you didn’t dance hard enough!!!!

And because I had things to do, I went back to work.

It wasn’t until the end of the day that I went back to Facebook and saw that TONS of people had jumped on that thread. At first, I thought her friend-base was entirely pro-storm. And then I read their comments, which said things like, “Hugs,” or “Sorry for your loss!” and I realized I needed to re-read her original post.

Oh yes. Now I see: Someone has died. Gulp.

Well, whatever your grief is, I’m glad I could momentarily divert it by suggesting that you actually killed the person by not dancing hard enough.

Turns out, maybe I’m a storm that needs a name? I think we can cross “Sensitive” off the list.

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DC: Natural Disaster Edition. Irene vs. Iris.

29 Aug

As morbid as it sounds, I love a weather forecast that empties grocery shelves. DC is at its finest when people are slightly panicked. Historically, this has only happened when snow is on the way, but this weekend’s threat of Irene yielded similar results.

This was during the blizzard. Awesome.

Having been gone for two weeks, I stopped in the grocery store Thursday night to restock, not realizing that the city was functioning at “Code Orange.”

Lines snaked from the cash registers back to the dairy section. Entire shelves were emptied; some items – milk, eggs, toilet paper, water – were consistent with blizzard shopping. But apparently when there’s a hurricane, people want to make SALADS. And eat CEREAL. Hmmm.

Ironically, there were still umbrellas for sale. And hurricane drink mix. Am I the only person who thought those would be the two must have items? Standing there, I wondered if I’d heard the radio wrong. Was Irene a hurricane, or a missile? Was I shopping for the wrong catastrophe? Just to cover bases, I picked up a DuraFlame firelog. (Not Pine Mountain. I’ve learned my lesson.)

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Mother Nature: *some* kind of magic.

12 Jul

This winter, as temperatures danced around below freezing, I kept proclaiming it was “colder than a witch’s titty!”

(Well, actually, I said “witch’s tit” and Alan corrected me, but you get the gist. In fact, I think this shows I can take feedback constructively, because I’ve used his wording. I’d like some gold stars for that. Alan, I’m looking at you. Gold stars. Pronto.)

Anyway, the mercury is now on the other end of the thermometer, pushing past 100 and trailing humidity to boot. You can’t even cross your legs in the shade without sweat pooling around your ankles in DC. Everyone I pass on the sidewalk looks like they’d hand over their first-born child if you could provide them with an air-conditioned gerbil ball to transport them to their destination.

(Note to self: patent air conditioned, human-sized gerbil ball tomorrow.)

I try to save energy by turning off my AC when I’m not home. As a result, there’s an uncomfortable lag when I arrive home every day, hot from my 1.5 mile walk, and my thermostat is registering 80.

(Side note: I would like to feel all cocky and Environmentally Correct about keeping my thermostat at 77, but I read that in Japan, businesses are keeping their office buildings cooled only to 82 to save energy this summer. Now go look at your thermostat — can you spare a degree?)

Anyway… last night, while waiting for the temperature to drop, I came up with a phrase that I believe perfectly captures how hot it is.

Out of curiosity, I did a few google searches to see if anyone else had coined it yet, and it seems to be an original. But I did find this article, which offers up some suggestions for capturing exactly how hot it is. Before I reveal my (soon to be catching) phrase, I’d like to highlight some of the more interesting suggestions from their list.

Here goes:

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Not so funny, but true: A watched pot doesn’t boil – my blood does.

27 Jan

This is what comes up when you google "Snowy Thundercat." In case you were curious.

The East Coast got pummeled with ThunderSnow yesterday. Upon hearing the forecast, my head immediately jumped to ThunderCats, so I was like, “COOL. BRING IT!”

And then I realized it was a snowstorm with lightning, and my revised thought was, “Um. I hope this doesn’t mess up my flight!”

Alas, it did. My 4:30pm flight to Detroit was cancelled at noon yesterday. At the time of the cancellation, the ground was completely dry and there was nary flake in the sky, so I thought USAirways was annoyingly cautious. I called to book another flight, and they attempted to put me on a 6pm flight to Philly that would connect to Detroit with a midnight arrival.

Um, thanks, but if you can’t get ONE plane off the ground when it’s not even snowing, I don’t have much confidence that you’ll be able to swing a two-leg flight that leaves later AND routes through a city that is forecast to receive even more snow than DC. So I asked what else they had that was direct, and got booked for 8:35 am today.

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