Re: There's Always The Weather
Posted: Wed Dec 07, 2011 9:46 pm
Joe Soucheray: Finally, someone will tell us when 35 below is too cold By Joe Soucheray
Updated: 12/06/2011 10:07:27 PM CST
In our neck of the woods, and at a few National Weather Service offices on the East Coast, EXTREME COLD warnings will be issued this year instead of wind-chill warnings. There is a technical reason for making the switch, most principally because a wind-chill warning was not issued at a temperature of 35 below if there was no wind.
Now, on the hopefully rare occasions when it drops to 35 below and there is no wind, we will still be getting a warning, not a wind-chill warning, but an EXTREME COLD warning.
For years, I resisted the wind-chill warnings. It was an admonishment to understand what the temperature might feel like in the wind, so that wind-chill warnings were thrown around out there all over the temperature map. Why, as we experienced one of the balmiest autumns in recent memory, the meteorologists were still itching to come up with wind-chill reports at even 20 degrees or so. No, they weren't warnings, but we were to be put in our place that 20 degrees feels colder if the old wind is howling down from Lake of the Woods.
A cynical person might wonder why anybody needs to be told anything at 35 below. At 35 below, wind or no wind, your eyelids freeze shut, your car won't start and you curse your predecessors for settling here in the first place. But I believe we have become a collection of people who need warnings. They shake us out of our complacency. They give us something to worry about, from swine flu to nuclear fallout to ozone depletion
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to carbon footprints. Warnings wake us up. Warnings say to us: "Hey, listen up! You can't fly back to Minnesota from Orlando wearing Bermuda shorts and Mickey Mouse ears. You'll freeze to death!" EXTREME COLD might get through to some. But I don't think so. Having just witnessed actual adults wearing Mickey Mouse ears and shorts, I believe the National Weather Service needs to come up with warnings that alert even the most obtuse, those who believe that being kept informed means reading the latest news about Lady Gaga and the Kardashian herd.
EXTREME COLD warnings are not alarming enough at 35 below. I would go with something like a death warning:
"IF YOU GO OUTSIDE TOMORROW WITHOUT A HAT YOU WILL DIE!"
Temperatures between zero and 35 below are nothing to sneeze at, either. I would use the death warning liberally. There are just too many people wandering around in flip-flops and Green Bay Packer jerseys. Hit them with the death warning.
If it's only zero, but the wind is roaring, I would go with: "WARNING! IT IS COLDER THAN A BRASS TOILET SEAT IN AN OUTHOUSE."
We have to come up with warnings that will cause people to realize that they don't have to care about what they look like in public. As a native Minnesotan, I can clearly remember the day when we knew how to bundle up. We were champions. We were known for our bundling. It didn't make any difference what we looked like. I mean, long before wind-chill warnings and now EXTREME COLD, we knew how to look like miners trudging to work in the depths of a Siberian winter.
Get a stocking cap and some leather chopper mittens and a coat with a hood on it. Wear boots. Wrap a scarf around your face. There is no app for your smartphone that is going to make it warmer.
April will make it warmer. And April is a long way off. If you ignored wind-chill warnings, I'm not sure that EXTREME COLD will get through to you. You need to hear:
"IF YOU GO OUTSIDE TOMORROW WITHOUT A HAT YOU WILL DIE!''
And let the kids wear the Mickey Mouse ears on the airplane, not you.
Joe Soucheray can be reached at jsoucheray@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5474. Soucheray is heard from 3 to 6 p.m. weekdays on 1500ESPN.
Because before when it was 35 below we just did not know it was that cold.
River
Updated: 12/06/2011 10:07:27 PM CST
In our neck of the woods, and at a few National Weather Service offices on the East Coast, EXTREME COLD warnings will be issued this year instead of wind-chill warnings. There is a technical reason for making the switch, most principally because a wind-chill warning was not issued at a temperature of 35 below if there was no wind.
Now, on the hopefully rare occasions when it drops to 35 below and there is no wind, we will still be getting a warning, not a wind-chill warning, but an EXTREME COLD warning.
For years, I resisted the wind-chill warnings. It was an admonishment to understand what the temperature might feel like in the wind, so that wind-chill warnings were thrown around out there all over the temperature map. Why, as we experienced one of the balmiest autumns in recent memory, the meteorologists were still itching to come up with wind-chill reports at even 20 degrees or so. No, they weren't warnings, but we were to be put in our place that 20 degrees feels colder if the old wind is howling down from Lake of the Woods.
A cynical person might wonder why anybody needs to be told anything at 35 below. At 35 below, wind or no wind, your eyelids freeze shut, your car won't start and you curse your predecessors for settling here in the first place. But I believe we have become a collection of people who need warnings. They shake us out of our complacency. They give us something to worry about, from swine flu to nuclear fallout to ozone depletion
Advertisement
to carbon footprints. Warnings wake us up. Warnings say to us: "Hey, listen up! You can't fly back to Minnesota from Orlando wearing Bermuda shorts and Mickey Mouse ears. You'll freeze to death!" EXTREME COLD might get through to some. But I don't think so. Having just witnessed actual adults wearing Mickey Mouse ears and shorts, I believe the National Weather Service needs to come up with warnings that alert even the most obtuse, those who believe that being kept informed means reading the latest news about Lady Gaga and the Kardashian herd.
EXTREME COLD warnings are not alarming enough at 35 below. I would go with something like a death warning:
"IF YOU GO OUTSIDE TOMORROW WITHOUT A HAT YOU WILL DIE!"
Temperatures between zero and 35 below are nothing to sneeze at, either. I would use the death warning liberally. There are just too many people wandering around in flip-flops and Green Bay Packer jerseys. Hit them with the death warning.
If it's only zero, but the wind is roaring, I would go with: "WARNING! IT IS COLDER THAN A BRASS TOILET SEAT IN AN OUTHOUSE."
We have to come up with warnings that will cause people to realize that they don't have to care about what they look like in public. As a native Minnesotan, I can clearly remember the day when we knew how to bundle up. We were champions. We were known for our bundling. It didn't make any difference what we looked like. I mean, long before wind-chill warnings and now EXTREME COLD, we knew how to look like miners trudging to work in the depths of a Siberian winter.
Get a stocking cap and some leather chopper mittens and a coat with a hood on it. Wear boots. Wrap a scarf around your face. There is no app for your smartphone that is going to make it warmer.
April will make it warmer. And April is a long way off. If you ignored wind-chill warnings, I'm not sure that EXTREME COLD will get through to you. You need to hear:
"IF YOU GO OUTSIDE TOMORROW WITHOUT A HAT YOU WILL DIE!''
And let the kids wear the Mickey Mouse ears on the airplane, not you.
Joe Soucheray can be reached at jsoucheray@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5474. Soucheray is heard from 3 to 6 p.m. weekdays on 1500ESPN.
Because before when it was 35 below we just did not know it was that cold.
River
at what fuss weather creates in Southern California.
the rain, sooner rather then later - 