Relative Something

Melting snow, slowly making its way off the barn’s steel roof.

I’ve never had much luck interpreting what the weather was going to do next, but I have always had a keen interest in what’s happening in our skies. That is, I’m interested when the weather presents us with something dramatic, like storms, or record-setting extremes. I think meteorology is fascinating.

As a result, and since I am lousy at predicting on my own, I make frequent use of weather web sites. As I write this, we are currently under a winter storm warning, and I have been checking the radar frequently. I started checking on Sunday. The storm was predicted to start in the early morning hours of Monday.

When I was rudely awakened, several times, by the crashing and banging activity of raccoons on the deck in those wee hours of the a.m., I took advantage of the motion-light which had triggered, to find out the deck was still bone dry. That just added suspense to what daylight would reveal, at the break of dawn.

Daylight revealed nothing. Still dry as could be. I checked with folks at work, on the other side of the Twin Cities, and learned they were getting accumulating snow. I immediately checked the radar, to see how far off it was, and what I found was pretty useless. The radar looked as if it was already on top of us and snow was falling over Beldenville. Maybe, but just not at my house. Or, maybe it was one of those situations where snow falling from the clouds was drying up before it could reach the ground. Whatever.

Finally, by 12:10 p.m. yesterday afternoon, I started to see some falling flakes. However, by 12:18 p.m., it had already stopped. By the end of yesterday, all we had received was a trace of snow. What was going on?

I checked Minnesota Public Radio’s Updraft weather blog. The post said they knew all along that the snow accumulation from this event would come in two waves, and the second wave would be the heavier amount. It also indicated that their computer model “insisted” that the area of greatest accumulation remained directly over the metro area, into western Wisconsin.

The prediction for the timing of the heaviest snowfall was now the early morning hours of Tuesday. I made an advance decision to stay home from the day-job today, based on the warning of the ‘insisting’ computer model.

I don’t dare hold ill feelings for the discrepancies between meteorologist’s predictions, and what really takes place. I certainly am not able to do any better.

If all goes as planned (hoped), I will wake up (from a full night’s sleep), to find a massive accumulation of beautiful white snow, and then snuggle back under the covers to sleep in, giving the storm more time to move out of the area, toward the east. The afternoon will then be spent plowing and shoveling.

That is, if the weather doesn’t deviate from what the computer model insists should happen.