Thursday, February 01, 2007

Dear National Weather Service: You suck.

When I moved from Atlanta to Knoxville, there was a good omen: On the second drive up, lugging my furniture 'way back in December of '00, it was snowing to beat the band as we climbed the mountain north out of Chattanooga. Goody! Moving some 175 miles north, and into the foothills of the Smokies to boot, I was ready for more snow than I'd seen in my decades in ATL.

When I moved from my first Knoxville apartment to my current domicile in '02, Mother Nature teased me by snowing me in for a couple of days, leaving the hilly, twisty asphalted cart track to my front door all iced up and unsafe for roadster travel. This was gonna be great!

The three years since then have given me bupkis.

Finally, last night, they were calling for the Big One. An Alberta Clipper from the Nor' Norwest was scheduled to collide with wet Gulf air pushing up the Tennessee valley from the southwest; Knoxville natives assure me that, when this weather pattern gets its timing right, K-town gets some serious snow. I joined the jostling throngs at Kroger last night to pick up the ritual bread and milk. I listened with glee as the National Weather Service called for maybe three inches of accumulation. I crowed in triumph when Rumor Central said that Delta was shuffling planes around the Southeast to get them out of potentially snowbound hubs. I stayed up late. I woke up early and bounced to the front door like a schoolgirl all ready to be snowed in. I opened the door and...

...bupkis again. Maybe a half inch, and certainly not sticking to pavement. It seems the two air masses got their timing off, with the bitter cold departing just a bit before the wet arrived. "What a ripoff of a snow!" I exclaimed aloud, causing my downstairs neighbour to laugh as she brushed the few flakes off the windshield of her vehicle, which was already warming up for the morning commute.

Ah, well. A snow day at work today would have just boogered up my regular day off tomorrow, anyway.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Move on up to NW Indiana! Gotta foot on the ground and it may double by Sunday. Snow in the forcast until Tuesday!

It looks pretty and all but its hell on the back to shovel.

Unknown said...

I'm with Sarah Silverman: it's not "global warming", it's "global comfortable-ing."

3yellowdogs said...

Uh huh. These same meteorological Mensans who can't tell you what will happen three day out with any accuracy are the same ones who are convinced that the effects of gobal warming will last 1000 years. .

Dr. StrangeGun said...

There were some packed stretches on the backroads as I meandered my way out to Clinton Highway this morning.

Yeah, if the water had made it about 8 hours sooner I probably wouldn't be sitting out here at work.

Anonymous said...

Me too, Tam. We got about 2 inches here, but that wasn't enough to even reduce the traffic.

Tracy, also off Fridays

Anonymous said...

Farther north, 3 inches of snow is called frost.

Jeffro said...

I wish I could send you our weather in Kansas. Ice, snow, temps rarely above freezing - been going on for six or more weeks now. We're tired of it. You can have it.

Anonymous said...

Cry me a river Tam!! Damned snow is making life extremely interesting here in north central ohio. People forget how to drive, roads get closed, and I can't find my damned extension cord to plug in my bloody diesel. which seems to have frozen a couple fuel lines, since she won't start!

be ye glad, for little snow!

theirritablearchitect said...

jeffro,

Don't know what your "20" is in the Wheat State, but it's been more like 0 degrees in my parts, as in Fahrenheit, and not just rarely above freezing, for the better part of 3 weeks straight.

You are right though, I'm tired of it too, and spring can't get here soon enough. Of course, that has its own miseries (tornadoes and hail). Good luck surviving the rest of whatever the Old Man has in store for us.