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Comme il pleut sur la ville
Jul. 24th, 2005 09:23 pmSeattle has an unjustified rep for rain. Our annual rainfall is variously given as 34, 36, or 39 inches, I suppose depending on who's measuring and when they did the averaging math. Boston's annual rainfall is 41 or 42 inches; New York's is 41, 42, or maybe a whopping 47 inches (I think I should throw away the outlier, but I'm charmed by it). People think it rains a lot here because it's dark in the winter, because it does rain a lot in the rain forest on the Olympic Peninsula, which is not far away, because the climate is mild and plants grow and bloom all winter and they couldn't possibly do that without huge amounts of rain, and finally because it does rain a lot here during the winter, but a mild, misty, contemplative rain rather than the buckets of water seen on the east coast and throughout the midwest.
My mother in Ohio expects a thunder shower with a quick drench every single summer afternoon, but she doesn't think it's rainy there (average annual rainfall: 37-39 inches). Here, it doesn't rain at all for two months, from mid-July to mid-September, most years. There's an atmospheric scientist on a local NPR station who frequently says that we have reliably dry weather from July 12th on.
This year, it rained on July 15th and 16th. It also rained on July 22nd, for several hours. On being asked about it, the atmospheric scientist said, "We got the forecast wrong. We missed it."
I'm just noting this event for those who complain that weather forecasters never admit their mistakes. See, sometimes they do.
He went on to say that they might not have missed it if it weren't for the radar hole off the Pacific coast caused by underfunding of weather stations by the federal government, and that the change in the weather might or might not be a sign of global warming. If it continues, or if it happens again next year, then it would have more significance, he said.
My mother in Ohio expects a thunder shower with a quick drench every single summer afternoon, but she doesn't think it's rainy there (average annual rainfall: 37-39 inches). Here, it doesn't rain at all for two months, from mid-July to mid-September, most years. There's an atmospheric scientist on a local NPR station who frequently says that we have reliably dry weather from July 12th on.
This year, it rained on July 15th and 16th. It also rained on July 22nd, for several hours. On being asked about it, the atmospheric scientist said, "We got the forecast wrong. We missed it."
I'm just noting this event for those who complain that weather forecasters never admit their mistakes. See, sometimes they do.
He went on to say that they might not have missed it if it weren't for the radar hole off the Pacific coast caused by underfunding of weather stations by the federal government, and that the change in the weather might or might not be a sign of global warming. If it continues, or if it happens again next year, then it would have more significance, he said.
