THE HEAT IS ON...SORTA

The heat wave that is gripping much of the midwest, and has the media in a frenzy, begins moving to the east coast and all hell is breaking loose. A story on msnbc.com is reporting that the mercury reached 91 blistering degrees in New York City. From that article,

"Through the rest of this week and into the weekend at least 15 states starting from the Southern Plains and Midwest and much of the Northeast will witness 90 degree-plus temperatures with high humidity."

OK, are you telling me that the media is going ape-crazy about a heat wave that has temperatures IN THE FREAKING 90's??? Have these people ever heard of Texas, Arizona, the southern and southwest United States where temperatures are in the 90's or higher, from May to September??? Of course they haven't. The only places that matter in this world are Chicago, Philly, New York and D.C.

Unbelievable!! A full blown out freak job about 90 degree temperatures. Oh, except they try not to tell you what the real temperature is, instead they whip out the "heat index" number because that seems to have much more of a WOW factor on people. Then there's the guy with the instant-read thermometer taking the temperature of things that have been sitting in the sun all day. Here's the video.

OMG!!!! Talk about fear mongering. The "global warming" crowd must be getting ready to go on the attack again. Uh, the temperature of those seats in the sun all day would be over 120° if it were in the 80's you jackass!!! NEWSFLASH!! The sun is hot. Being directly in it all day will make it hot. It's just so stupid how they try to hype this up. And the worst part....there are very few high temperature records even being broken!!!

Click on the map below. It will take you a page that looks just like that map. There, you can interact with it by clicking your mouse on the date line at the top of the map. It shows high temperature records that have been broken since April. Be sure to keep an eye on the upper and central plains, the midwest, etc, where the heat wave has supposedly devastated recently.

Did you notice that there weren't very many heat records being broken in that area? Almost none since about June 10th. Yet the media would have you believe the gates of hell have opened up and swallowed much of the country. Or that the sun itself, has collided with earth and landed in Chicago, IL.

The temperature in Houston, TX has been 94° or higher for 55 of the last 59 days, since May 24th. And that's along with our lovely humidity. And it's likely to stay that way through the 1st part of September, or about 2 more months.

Hey media, you suck!!

ASTROS VS. RAIN

The Houston Astros professional baseball team is quietly going about a milestone season this year, as the franchise that started in 1962, celebrates their 50th season. With a little over half of the 2011 season in the books, this year is turning out to be THE WORST of the 50. In the previous 49 seasons, the Astros have never hit the dreaded century mark in the loss column. The worst they have done, to this point, is 97 losses, which they've done 3 times (1965 - 1st year in the Astrodome, 1975, and 1991 - the 1st year a scrawny little kid name of Bagwell played for them). With 83 games played this year, and 79 still to be played (ugh!), the Astros (29-54, worst in the league) are on pace to lose 105 games this season.

The Astros, unfortunately, do not have exclusive rights to 2011 milestones here in the 4th largest city in America. Weather-wise, 2011 is going down as one of the driest on record in the Houston area, and much of Texas. The U.S. Drought Monitor has 5 classifications to indicate the severity of droughts, much like the Saffir-Simpson scale used to indicate the intensity of hurricanes. Southeast Texas, including the Greater Houston area, is currently in a D4 drought. That's right, it's the worst one on the scale.

In 2011, the official rain gauge at Bush Intercontinental Airport has registered 7.88 inches of rain. That's since January 1st! And 5.05 inches of that fell in the month of January. The "normal" amount of rainfall we can expect in this town by July 2nd is 24.39 inches.

How do I tie rain, or the lack of it, to the Astros? Glad you asked. The Astros season started on April 1st. In the 83 games they've played since, they have a league low 29 wins. In that same time span (since April 1st) Houston's official rain gauge has seen something wet in it on 23 days. So for the season, I guess you could say the Astros are leading rain 29-23. Granted, some of those rain days measured just a trace, but hey, in a D4 drought we'll take what we can get.

In the month of June there were 8 days the rain gauge had something in it. June also saw the Astros win just 8 games. With the immediate future of the Astros looking pretty bleak, and the drought showing no signs of letting up, I'm wondering if July may be rain's month to take it to the Astros since the weather can and usually does change, but the Astros, not so much.

QUESTION: Which will there be more of in the month of July?

                     (A) Astros wins

                     (B) days of rain

Sheesh!! When does football season start?

Oh, that's right. There may not be one.

THE HOUSTON DESERT

OK, gonna try to get back into this blogging thing. So let's talk about the weather.

Today is June 5th, the 156th day of 2011. In those 156 days, only 4 times has the official rain gauge at Bush Intercontinental Airport been filled with over .50 inches of rain. And all 4 of those days occurred in January. On January 24th, we were inundated with almost 2 inches of rain (1.94"). In the 4 months and change since January 24th, there has been a combined 1.97 inches TOTAL!!

Needless to say, 2011 is going down in the records books for dryness. February was the 8th driest February on record, we just had the 6th driest May ever, and April 2011 goes down as the driest April on record with barely over a tenth of an inch accumulation for the month. I sweat more than that. I mean, uh, I know people who do. June is only 5 days old but it's getting off to a dust spitting start as well with a big fat nothing in the rain collector. Less than half an inch this month would easily put June '11 in the top 10 driest Junes of all-time, and less than .08" (2005) would make it #1.

Oh, and don't forget, it gets hot in this freaking town too. June is 5 days old and we've already broken 3 record high temperatures, with a 4th expected to be broken today, including the earliest we've ever hit the century mark (June 2 - 100°).

Unlike your typical desert where you always hear "yeah, but it's a dry heat", our newly forming Gulf Coast desert comes with humidity. Oh the joy!

Back to my tumbleweed garden.

THE SKY IS FALLING

As I mentioned in my very first blog entry here, "Your Proctologist Called, He Found Your Head", I briefly talked about a blog I used to do about 5 years ago that strictly had to do with tropical weather. In fact, I did that blog from July 18, 2005 to Sep. 20, 2006. That included most of the record smashing 28 storm year of 2005. Here's one blog entry from back then to give you a better understanding of how that blog went down;

20 September 2005 22:57 CDT
Posted by Rich C

Rita Texas bound

Hurricane Rita passes just to the south of the Florida Keys and has entered the Gulf of Mexico as a category 2 hurricane. It now looks like it's setting it's sights on the Texas coast. Long range models are still a little uncertain at this time, but most currently have Texas landfall anywhere from Brownsville to the Sabine river.

The official track has the central Texas coast near Matagorda Bay as the target. Rita is moving along the southern edge of high pressure currently centered over east Texas. The million dollar question is, what does this high do? This will determine where Rita goes. This high is expected to be pushed to the east because of an approaching front from the west. This would allow Rita to go around the western edge of the high, meaning it turns to the northwest. Where and when it makes this turn could be the difference in several hundred miles of coastline.


Now the bad news. This hurricane is getting strong and it's getting big. It has great outflow, no wind shear, and very warm water with which to work with, all key ingredients for intensification. It should reach category 4 status late Wednesday, and is expected to make landfall as a category 4. Some models are indicating that it could get even stronger and reach category 5 status at some point.

Wherever it ends up going, it's going to be a very powerful hurricane when it makes landfall, and the effects from it will be felt for at least 150 miles or more from the center.

The part in yellow is exactly what happened. I pointed that out 4 days before Rita made that turn and hit near the mouth of the Sabine River at the Texas/Louisiana border, while all the "experts" had Rita focused on Matagorda Bay to Galveston. And as Rita strengthened, along with being on the heals of Katrina just a month earlier, this caused the nightmare mass evacuation that had every freeway and street in the Greater Houston area at a standstill for at least 2 days.

Now I'm certainly no expert, I have no meteorological training or any of that jazz. I've just lived in hurricane country my entire life and following and tracking these storms is a hobby I've had since I was a teenager (Just a few short years ago). From years of just studying these things on my own, watching what happens under certain conditions, I feel I have a pretty good idea when it comes to what these storms do. So when a storm forms, I really don't need weather guy on TV giving me the 4-1-1. Now everybody is not me so probably 99% or more of the population has to rely on weather guy, which would be fine if not for a phenomenon that seems to be standard procedure with the media these days, and that's fear mongering.

As the 1st month of the 2010 hurricane season comes to a close, the first named system of the season pops up in the southern Gulf of Mexico (Alex), and the media is already cranking up the fear machine to full blast. I'm going to call out the guy on ABC 13 here in Houston because that's the station I watch, but I can guarantee it happens everywhere. This guy shows all his graphics about the storm, where it's supposed to go and all that neat stuff. The consensus from many of the models has Alex striking Mexico well south of Brownsville. OK, whew, looks like we'll miss this one. Oh, but wait! Before weather guy finishes up he has to show that ONE model, just ONE out of many, that has Alex heading for Galveston.

Now I get that any storm in the Gulf of Mexico is a concern for all along the Gulf coast, but come on! Did the guy doing New Orleans weather do the same, because there was a model that had Alex going to New Orleans too? I also get that these models are nowhere near the end all, be all when it comes to predicting where these storms go. I mean, none of the models had Rita taking the turn north until it started turning, even though 4 days before, the part I have in yellow above was common meteorological knowledge. So to see a vast majority of models taking this storm into Mexico doesn't mean that's where it's going, and any storm in the Gulf should be a concern to all along the Gulf coast.

If you live in hurricane country, it's just common sense (and we know how uncommon that's become) to start stocking up on essential supplies every summer. That's just what you're supposed to do. For whatever reason though, a whole lot people don't. So, weather guy puts out the possibility that Alex is headed our way, and I've already heard that grocery stores in Alvin, TX, just south of Houston, have empty shelves where bottled water used to be. Really? Already in a panic for something that as of this writing has a 3% chance of just bringing us tropical storm force winds (39 mph), and a less than 1% chance of hurricane force. With the Rita example above, even though none of the major models had Rita going where it eventually did, the TX/LA border was still on the edge of the famous "cone of probability" and the probabilities for hurricane force winds were much, much greater than <1%. Galveston is not in this "cone" for Alex.

I suppose Lowes and Home Depot are probably jam packed today as well. And I guess in a way that's a good thing. If that gets you off your butt to go get your hurricane supplies for the season, then fine. Get it done. But that should be getting done anyway and shouldn't take a guy on TV "scaring" it into you telling you that a tropical wave just off the African coast could come our way in about 21 days so stay tuned as we follow it 24/7 over every wave on it's 4,000+ mile journey across the freaking Atlantic Ocean right into Galveston Bay because this is where a storm that hit us in 1918 started. Never mind the fact that this is where 90% of all tropical systems begin.

Then again, with where people's heads seem to be these days, maybe that's why the fear mongering. They're just not going to do what they need to do unless they feel the situation is imminent. But there's also the point of overkill too. If you beat it to death every time there's a cloud over water and these storms end up missing by hundreds of miles, then people start to tune out. You start sounding like Charlie Brown's teacher. We don't need to see 30 minute newscasts where 20 minutes of it is dedicated to a storm that is little to no threat to us, filled with destruction footage of every hurricane we've ever had, with interviews with emergency management officials from every county in Texas.

Again, I get the need to keep people informed. How about just doing that? Hurricanes are a HUGE concern for all who live in their paths so having all the information you can get is critical. What we don't need is bad info or misinformation. Newscasts in New Orleans need to let people know there's a storm in the Gulf, but they do NOT need to go ape crazy over it, focus on one renegade model that has it coming straight for them and whip out all the Katrina footage and get everybody rushing to empty store shelves of everything they have. That's idiotic and just not necessary.

So let Alex be the thing that gets you out to stock up on water, batteries, maybe a few canned goods, wood or what have you because here in hurricane country you're supposed to do that at the start of hurricane season (June) anyway. That goes for anyone from the southernmost islands of the Lesser Antilles to all the countries of the Caribbean to Mexico and the Gulf coast states to the entire eastern seaboard of the U.S. to Newfoundland, Canada. Then if we do get a storm, you don't have to go all panic mode trying to fight the crowds to get everything all at once only to find out you're too late. Shelves are empty.

And media, just report the facts. Quit trying to scare the population and beat us down with non-stop hurricane coverage for storms that are little to no threat to us because you're trying to outdo the other station for ratings. There's a storm in the Gulf. Here's where the warning areas are. Here's where the major, more reliable, models have it going, and let's leave it at that. I don't need to see footage of the Great Galveston storm of 1900..........

...........AGAIN!