Thoughts on 2018 Hurricane Season on a Rainy Day In Raleigh. Flooding in France. Musing.

The poor statue is under the weather today, hip high in flooding as the river Seine is on the rise. It's raining on the East Coast today. It would be a slow boring, monotonous ride on the Silver Star today if I was on a train North Bound.

Some personal thoughts on a rainy gray day in Raleigh.  That almost rhymes though it's a rhyme I didn't intend to make. I did want to post some weather thoughts today, however I warn you this is more of a personal post so I may ramble a bit with an overall theme of a gray winter day.

Today was the day I wanted to go outside somewhere bright and beautiful and breathe fresh air. I've been sick or as we say in the business "under the weather" and I really would love to have walked around outside in the Carolina sunshine. Seems I'll have to wait until Wednesday for real sunshine or at least tomorrow for the rain to take a breather. I'm comfortable and cozy here in the room with a candle burning and TWC on mute. If I hear them talk about the "deadly flu" one more time I'll turn them off and just play some music.

I'm really doing better than I was the other day. No fever and coughing less and sipping the horrible tasting Traditional Medicinal Tea that really works but I dislike fennel and licorice and both are the main ingredients. I suppose sometimes you have to take things that are good for you even if you don't like the taste. I added a heavy Trader Joe's fruit beverage that has purple carrots in it and masks the taste just a bit.

I started weeding through my gmail that has now reached over 587 letters to read. If this was my old library job I'm pretty sure I'd weed the whole account, however it's the vehicle I use to blog so probably not. The new world we live in reminds us of everything we ever typed. The horrible eye shadow color I looked at and didn't like shows up in my advertisements; Facebook offers me deals for it. I know you are supposed to search incognito but really the struggle is real. I delete and unfriend and unsubscribe and yet they show up eventually back in my gmail. I may have to resolve this sometime soon after kicking the flu or a cold and then catch up on all the things I didn't do while resting and fighting the flu or cold or whatever it was that put me under the weather.

Speaking of weather.... It's kind of boring for me here. It's kind of boring everywhere. It's basically just "winter" and there are no snowflakes insight on my 10 day weather forecast though a few may sneak in on the tail end of a cold front on Tuesday. A few as in I'd probably miss them while going to the bathroom or boiling water for a cup of tea.

A bird is singing outside. I guess this is a break in the rain. The bird is singing loudly.

Paris is under water today and I do not mean Paris, Texas. Paris, like Charleston, has a history of flooding. We don't hear about it often unless it makes the news or someone with an agenda of Global Warming decides to post a ton of pictures as if Paris never flooded before.

https://www.societegenerale.com/en/about-us/our-identity/150-years-of-history/team-spirit/paris-under-water-the-flood-of-1910

That said the pictures are a vivid stunning reminder that when we live near a river we are often at the mercy or Mother Nature even without a hurricane or winter snow melting.

Years ago storms hit without warning and there was no way to predict a little bit of flooding would turn into an epic event washing away small towns. On days when it's quiet and I'm not rushing about things hit me in a different way. The realization of something we take for granted such as the five or ten day forecast. People argue on the models and complain when the forecast is off, however there was a time when the models weren't there to debate. I have 2 different Farmer's Almanacs this year because I travel a lot and they make for easy reading when you can't charge your phone on an airplane. One has been spot on with weather and the other has fallen behind seriously in accuracy. Not that I really expect it to be right at all but it's worth noting both snow falls in Raleigh were noted in one of the Almanacs perfectly. Glad we have the models.


So as for today's weather. The moisture is coming up from the Gulf of Mexico. This has been a continual theme this winter in the South and East and I'd expect this is going to continue as a theme as we move into the 2018 Hurricane Season. I can give you many reasons I believe this will be an equally busy hurricane season as the last though tracks do not often repeat but have general similarities. More of the same as long as we have this current set up.

So take this time to review your priorities and properly prepare for the 2018 Hurricane Season. It's that simple. And, if you live where winter weather has reached you earlier this winter than I suggest you don't think winter is over because the usual January Thaw set in as we all know February blows in a fierce reminder we are still dealing with winter a bit longer.

Again we have models and our long range forecasts are better than they were back in 1978 when much of New England was blindsided by a blizzard of epic proportions.

http://boston.cbslocal.com/2018/01/28/blizzard-of-1978-wbz-tv-eye-on-weather-barry-burbank-bruce-schwoegler/

So let's give thanks....

To better forecasts!

Also the much aligned web makes it so much easier to assimilate that information out where it needs to go and in today's world that means multiple social platforms that are seen on your phone the moment you wake up to give you the most accurate information for what you may expect on any given day. Years ago you knew it was winter and it could snow. It was basically that simple. Yes we had satellites but we were still in the infancy of modern day forecasting. If it wasn't in the newspaper or you missed the nightly news unless your crazy Aunt Martha called you up to tell you she heard there might be weather you might have missed it until the snow began to fall in epic proportions.

https://www.wcpo.com/lifestyle/from-the-vault/from-the-vault-back-to-back-winters-of-1976-77-and-1977-78-were-coldest-snowiest

I dislike hyping weather events but some were epic.  The winter of 1977 - 1978 was epic and part of a pattern that went longer than one year. Hurricane seasons can be that way too. The very busy hurricane season of 1995 was followed by 1996, the very busy hurricane season of 2004 was followed by the memorable 2005 hurricane season. I'd venture to add the 2017 hurricane season will be followed by a busy 2018 hurricane season. I'll elaborate on that more in upcoming blogs but just putting that thought out there. So while complaining on the strong winds in Miami this week know they only will get that strong and no stronger. It's just wind not a hurricane. I can't promise though on what will blow through in 5 or 6 months from now as the Gulf of Mexico could produce early trackers.

Stay tuned.

Besos BobbiStorm

@bobbistorm on Twitter

Ps... Don't you just love these. They are great set to music. Still trying to learn the nuances of the crypto meaning behind these long loops. Can't wait to see how they play out during the hurricane season.

It occurs to me today that Joni Mitchel was yesterday's Taylor Swift in her way. I liked a few of her songs in retrospect but was never her biggest fan. She was a bit before my time and when I go "there" I think Carole King and Judy Collins. But the song fits... we could round and round in the circle game.

The seasons they go round and round and soon we will be tracking hurricanes again. 

Passing of Legend John Coleman & January Thaw Into February Freeze. Not really "NEWS" It Happens Every Year. TWC Rant

Nothing much going on today.

Changes down the road.

Sunny and Cool in my world today.

So what to talk about?

Things that annoy me.

TWC is advertising the return of Winter.

"February Freeze"

Yah....happens in February.

 I'm under the weather today and trying to find something to watch. The Weather Channel is not doing it for me today. Why you ask? Because they show a possible "wintry pattern" and ask very dramatically "how long will this last?" and I'm thinking "until Spring probably." Let's see maybe until we are done with February? It's obviously everyone has gotten spoiled by the last few warm winters and everyone seems shocked we may get another "shot of cold air" again. It's January 25th today and we are just a month into winter so I think we may have more shots of wintry weather in the near future. You can circle March 20th as the Spring Equinox and that is almost two months away so I suggest everyone not used to putting on the heat in the South or possibly getting snow in the NE just deal with it. Won't continue forever, soon we will move into Spring and then the Hurricane Season.

I also seriously dislike those DERMA PERMA whatever they are commercials that look as if there is an infomercial on and you worry you may be sitting on the remote control only to realize it's just a stupid advertisement. It may or may not work I don't care as I am not buying skin cream from TWC commercials. Speaking of those annoying commercials I hate that "My Pillow" commercial and usually change channels as it goes on and on forever. The problem is that commercial is now on CNN, FOX and every other channel that obviously caters to Baby Boomers as no one else is watching cable TV anymore. Okay possibly Gen X kids still watch it (that generation ends around 1981) but even many of them have moved over to alternative solutions to watch entertainment and receive their news.

Someone who I generally like on The Weather Channel just explained by way of a graph that in the NE February actually gets very snowy. Mike, from www.spaghettimodels.com, has complained frequently that the show is getting too boring and they sound more like a Science for Kids show than a real WEATHER show and I'm going to agree. The level of dumbing down the weather is off the charts lately or more so they seem to believe that people who watch their channel vs the other 358 other channels cable provides know nothing about weather. Think about that. I'm pretty sure the people actually watching TWC and their explanations on "why snow falls" know why snow falls they want to know if it is going to fall. They don't need to compete with "Bill Nye the Science Guy" they just need to do what they did that got there here. They always have this need to fix something that isn't broken and then they have to fix it again.

I've watched TWC since the beginning as most old timers know. So mentioning it here that one of the most original weather people around passed away this past week. I remember when John Coleman announced on his morning show he did the weather for that he would be leaving as they were starting a new channel that would show weather 24/7. Those were the days before reality weather shows and they began to branch out into gardening and showing how a volcano erupts. You see anyone under the age of say 50 knows that to know that all you got to do is go to Youtube.

And it's also worth noting I am now getting old school style TWC on my Facebook Feed as Accuweather now goes Facebook Live with breaking weather the way TWC used to do. Old timers who we miss such as Dave Schwartz took a page from John and knew how to be themselves and when they could make the forecast fun. Let's be honest sometimes the weather is boring. But people like John Coleman never let us be bored. I can fall asleep when TWC does a long explanation of something so simple that if I am watching TWC I obviously KNOW why snow forms. Rather than their veiled commercials for travel destinations they do chit chat where usually some woman with a Masters Degree at least in Weather stands in a semi sexy dress nodding her head up and down while some guy in long sleeves and a tie shows her how the front may move in later this week. No words.

Remember when Weather People actually did the weather? What I love about John Coleman is he was always taking risks and staying fresh. Some people retire and fade away; not him he stayed busy almost until the end. I'm going to try and read the book that tells the story. Jim Williams from www.hurricanecity.com suggested I read it and will try. I've looked through it but now seems as good as any to start a real book vs an article online! Thanks Jim!

St. Paul Winter Carnival is being advertised on TWC. May I remind you they get money for that it as basically a commercial; let's call them advertising partners. Other than the word "WINTER" nothing newsy is going on unless something happens there this particular year. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote about it in the 1920s. Spoiler Alert his Southern Belle heroine wasn't real excited aboiut getting lost in an icy maze and went back down South real fast. It's been around a long time, not really news but obviously TWC doing an advertising segment as not much is happening today.

https://public.wsu.edu/~campbelld/engl494/icepalace.pdf

Sadly she didn't know how to dress...

...for the Ice Palace.

No App.

No TWC

No Google?

Clueless boyfriend?

I'm okay. I think. I've been worse. Just tired and a bit annoyed that while hiding from the constant agenda driven news on CNN and FOX I tried to just leave TWC but that's not gonna do it for me today. I guess I'll be a Millenial (love them) and watch Netflix or just turn off the cable and leave on the collage of every changing pretty pictures and listen to some music. 

It's beyond blue and beautiful outside. Maybe I'll put on a few layers of clothes and take a walk or go out and pick up everything on the balcony that fell down when Raleigh had wind gusts in the high 30s on Tuesday before the "dry cold front" blew through.  Maybe I'll work on my journal offline (the real one) or read a short story by Scott or play on Ancestry. Not dying my hair or doing my nails today. Just resting.

I like fun and crazy and happy and though I am oddly wearing the same shade of green that the girl on TWC is wearing today I'm not interested in being shocked that there are Ice Jams in Winter... oh my!

Hope your day is awesome. I don't really care about his political agenda or anyone's today but if not for John Coleman there wouldn't be a Weather Channel or the other imitation Weather Channel and Accuweather probably would never think to do a Facebook Live when there is breaking weather. Or they just copied Mike from www.spaghettimodels.com either way when weather is really breaking those of us in the Gen X to the Baby Boomer Generation are incredibly happy to have them covering the story.

Besos BobbiStorm

@bobbistorm on Twitter

Ps The 80s were wonderful. Perhaps TWC should try doing musical segments to show the weather vs advertising Summer? And, Yes I know they have added women Mets who have Doctorate degrees but they still dress them like Gidget.

Back when they were a media phenomenon people wrote songs about them...

Warmer Weather This Week. Rain Washing Away the Snow. Shades of Blue and Green Today and a Walk in the Woods.

Watching the rain fall in Raleigh and it's melting the last vestiges of snow that fell a week ago. That's Carolina weather. Much like a Yo Yo Dieter our temperatures go up and down on a weekly basis. Last night it was so warm here that I briefly put on the AC while waiting for any chance of severe weather that may or may not have passed through overnight. Many say if you hear thunder in the winter you see snow within ten days. Let's see how that plays out.

Add to the list of things that seemingly did not play out was the Tsunami fears on the West Coast from yet another strong Earthquake in our part of the world. Originally an earthquake in the 8.0 range downgraded (as they usually are) to 7.something .... 

It was an extremely strong earthquake. Nuff said and thankfully the Tsunami fears were over played in the middle of the night with the usual "better safe than sorry" terminology we here regarding Hurricanes and Tornado Warnings. I believe the proper response is "Thank God" and then to go on with life worrying about the flu and our regular daily fears. All us meteorology people are mesmerized by the other Earth Sciences and as I have said many times every meteorologist is a closet geologist and vice versa.

 

The world is such a beautiful place...

...from up above.

Winter is staying up where it belongs today.

Snow and Ice Up North.

Rain in the South.

How long can this last?

Currently a "Dry Cold Front" is on the move.

So not much happening here weather wise.

The NW as always this year is busy.

The flow from the Caribbean...

...continues to ooze up towards Florida.

Good thing it's not the Hurricane Season.

Check out that flow.

It's been a busy week here for me. My oldest daughter is in town for her annual winter vacation and we've been hanging out. She has a friend she met when she lived in Philly years back who she helped go through some positive major life changes and eventually ended up happily married in Houston. Sadly her friend's sister Melanie died last week from the Flu. Melanie seemed to be in perfect health having achieved her 50th birthday and even became a Life Coach who worked with Beach Body a popular fitness group. Suddenly in less than 3 days she passed away leaving a grieving husband and many siblings, relatives and friends. So I spent Sunday at a funeral in the woods and contemplating life. It's good to contemplate life sometimes as you appreciate it more that way. We gathered together a minyon to say Kaddish (you can Google that) and then walked on a small, narrow path around a lake deep into the woods where this woman who loved to go to St. John's was buried in a simple pine box surrounded by her friends all wearing cobalt blue as it was her favorite color. The sky was blue and blue birds began to sing as we walked away quietly lost in thought; the birds waking us from our deepest inner thoughts and we all smiled in amazement at the bright blue birds on the bare branches. I didn't know her personally, but I feel as if I did as I spent time with her loved ones and in her beautiful home decorated with cobalt blue vases on glass shelves installed in her windows so she could see the light reflecting off of them. 

I write about this not to be morbid but to impress upon everyone here not to take the flu this year flippantly and to totally appreciate life and the things and the people you love. It seems there was a man who loved the forest and he was losing his life slowly to a cruel disease. There's an award winning documentary involved that I'm linking to below. Everything that happens in life leads to learning something else about someone or something else. Well, unless we live in a self absorbed bubble only worrying on our own problems and we don't see the sunlight on the water or the light reflecting in the forest throwing shadows across the landscsape. 

Walking through the woods indeed.

In the summer it looks like this below.

Sunday it looked like this.

Melanie was Jewish but not deeply into her religion, her husband is not Jewish and is an atheist yet her older sister Shoshana is an Orthodox Jew. The rest of the family lies in various places in between but they all loved Melanie and they all love nature. They came together respecting each other and sharing grief yet most of all sharing happy memories through the sadness. 

http://www.awillforthewoods.com/about/

The seasons change fast in life as we move through our own issues (problems) and deal directly with them or hide from them. We all have our different ways of coping in life. Some people ignore the flu and figure what is meant to be is meant to be while others walk around with face masks obsessing over every new story they hear. And the news is filled with them as last night the lead story in Raleigh was of the death of a 7 year old little girl who also died in 3 days. I was raised my a neurotic mother who gave me a good measure of fear yet my stoic father taught me to do the best you can. Hand sanitizers have become my new friend. I'll let you know how it worked out hopefully in a few months... we can look back and laugh on it the way we did tsunami fears and false alerts for nuclear war in Hawaii.

If you see that new vase in a color you love and you can vaguely afford it please buy it. If you see a tie on clearance about the cost of a fast food lunch ditch the fast food lunch and buy the tie. It's the small pleasures in life that bring the most joy sometimes. My stoic father taught me that. He took off a few hours to go to a cheap movie theater he liked or ran into Jai Alai to watch a few games on the way home from work often. Later in the life when he became religious he'd run over to the Lubavitch Yeshiva on Alton Road grab a cup of coffee and sit and learn for 30 minutes and enjoy the social interaction as well as learning something new. He'd come home and tell me who he sat and learned with in the same way he'd tell me he saw a good movie. he wasn't a big talker but he knew how to share.

So here I am in the "off season" when there is nothing tropical going on in the Western Hemisphere musing with you online as I kind of promised I would do vs disappearing in October the way I used to do back on AOL. Now I surf online through the news (the Shut Down is over) and listen to my daughter talk about Ingress (it's a game Google it) and yesterday we went to Crabtree Mall and bought make up and had something to eat and spent some great quality time together. There were no shootings and the creek didn't rise so Crabtree Mall worked out good yesterday. I fell in love with a Tarte eye shadow I did not buy (yet) and bought her some Kat Von D eye shadow in the shade of green she has been wanting. Dessert may have been involved too...

There's a great book.

It's a rather common concept in parts of the world. In Chabad we call it Hashgacha Protis which basically translates to "it's karmic" and the book above walks you through many examples on how best to change your life. It's one of my favorite books. I read it shortly before I met my husband and moved to North Carolina. My daughter's friend Shoshana needed a friend this past week when her sister Melanie suddenly died. As fate would have it Shayna, my daughter, was here in town visiting me from Brooklyn at the same time Shoshana was flying in from Houston for her sister's funeral in Raleigh. Remember my daughter stuck on the bus in Richmond several days ago? She could have changed her mind and taken a bus back to NY vs waiting for the roads to open in NC and she could have changed her mind. But it seems Shayna was here for a reason larger than me buying her green eye shadow or having a nice quiet Shabbos meal together. Nothing in life is really a coincidence as everything happens for a reason. 

Last week I was in Miami giving my grandson Benjamin a pair of Mickey Mouse PJs. I learned a valuable lesson last week and that is it is very easy to find Minnie Mouse PJs on sale but not easy to find Micky Mouse PJs as they seem to sell out faster :( I bought Charlotte Minnie Mouse PJs for Chanukah but it wasn't so easy to find her brother Benjamin the PJs he wanted but I did and on sale. Luckily it was cold enough in Miami to wear them otherwise they would have had to turn down the AC to make it cold enough to wear winter PJs in Miami. Last year was a very warm winter and this year is not. Last year's flu was mild, this year's flu is not.  See even Drudge understands how this as it took Minnie much longer to get her star on Hollywood Blvd than it did Mickey. 

May life lift you up where you belong. May you take the time to appreciate the small things while struggling to pay the electric company and juggle your budget for a birthday dinner. May life keep you healthy enough to enjoy whatever wealth you have and share memories with those you love. My best friend Malka went to Ft. Benning last week when Shayna came here to be there for her son Sholom when he graduated from Bootcamp. Malka is all about enjoying life; we enjoyed some quality time last weekend when we stayed by her in Miami for Shabbos where we took long walks and had great talks. 

May winter weather stay up where it belongs this week and then may it find some time to creep down past the Mason Dixie Line again for one last kiss of winter. May the flu germs stay far away from you and if not go to the doctor sooner rather than later. May you enjoy each day of January and then February. The OSCAR movies have been announced and we move from the Holiday Season to the Oscar Season. In LA it's breaking news and people wake up at 5 AM to watch the announcements live. It's their season as much as fall foliage is a season in Maine. In case you are curious and into the movies these are the movies nominated. I may wear my OSCAR charm for the rest of the season. It's one of a kind as they shut down the store that was selling them in Beverly Center where my husband bought it for me in the 80s. The OSCARS have rules like the NFL has rules ya know...

Buy the cheap pretty roses and get the small delicious dessert. Watch FOX CNN or TWC if it's your thing. Enjoy the Super Bowl and enjoy the OSCARS. Maybe one day I'll take a trip to Ireland with Malka because her father loved Ireland so she's curious and wants to see it as he passed away last year. There are many things we cannot do as we don't have the money or the health or the time. If you can find the time... make the time to do the small things that make a difference. 

And, thanks for reading my blog in the off season. I wander about a bit using my words to weave a picture that tells the story of my life vs Hurricane Irma or Hurricane Katrina. I'm pretty sure the 2018 Hurricane Season will pull as many punches as 2017 if not more and there is plenty more tropical trouble in store for us this coming Hurricane Season.

Besos BobbiStorm

Ps... Don't say I didn't go out of my way to make you who knows who you are smile today!




;)

Is Amazon Coming to Raleigh? Snow is Melting & Life is Slowly Going Back to Normal. Black Ice Warnings This AM & Probably Tonight. Greyhound Bus and Cruise Ships. Why don't they check the weather first? Things That Make You Wonder. Alzheimer's Research and Thank YOU!

As Mike from  www.spaghettimodels.com shows in a photograph that we are dealing with winter weather today. The Hurricane Season and everything tropical takes a back seat to the deep diving winter weather that dove all the way down to the Sunshine State where Jack Frost visited Tampa Florida.   Some discussion today on life in one of the cities nominated for Amazon's new 2nd Headquarters or however the actual wording goes....

Another great pic 

'

@weatherwes

Wes Hohenstein.

Great image... 

Sometimes photos tell a story well.

Speaking of photographs.

You should really follow him on Twitter.

He puts poetry into photography.

Melds them together.

What else is on the menu today?

Some discussion on winter weather in a city not used to winter weather and for the most part loving it as if we were given a true Winter Vacation.

Some discussion further down the road on why... "just why" does Greyhound emulate the crappy attitude of cruise ship companies that feel it okay to endanger the lives of their passengers for profit. Just why do they ignore a carved in ice winter weather warning and take chances with the lives of their passengers by ignoring weather forecasts until the snow piles up and their drivers refuse to drive.  But more on that later.

I'm quoting an on air news person from WRAL who said "the trees are tall and the shadows are long" trying to remind people not to go out and drive around unless they have to ... until the ice on the roads melt. Yes, we have a Black Ice Warning... school is out and kids are home looking to build snow men and have snow fights. Raleigh doesn't get this sort of snow often, much like Seattle which I'll talk on later, it gets light dustings that melt the next day. A real snow event makes everyone here either hide under the covers or dance in the snow. If you like the seasons Raleigh is a wonderful place to live. It has a long fall and a long spring. The winter in Raleigh along with the dead dog days of summer are shorter than many places. I timed the visit to Miami to get back in time to see Raleigh turn into a Winter Wonderland. Enjoy it fast as Sunday we are flirting with sunny and 60 degrees!

The bright sun is almost blinding.

Even when the roads are plowed!

I just want to add one thing to people online who think they know so much about "Black Ice" but they seem clueless about the reality of human nature or anything beyond their own skill set. The picture above illustrates the dangers on the road today around Raleigh. Yes, you can't see the ice in the dark and that is why it is called "black ice" but most people who are not used to winter weather are clueless how to handle a car when it starts to slide on "black ice" or any ice. Not everyone knows what to look for or how to drive on roads that have not been plowed or were plowed and are now covered in slick icy spots. Again... this doesn't happen often. It's much like Miami and hurricanes as only the old timers there know what to do and how to prepare properly. Raleigh, much like Miami and Seattle, is a city that has a diverse transitory population. People move here to work on projects at various tech companies and then often put down roots. We have the three of the top colleges in the country with many out of town students who don't always know how to handle the hilly streets in Raleigh or the roads when covered in snow or ice.  The city and the school board errs on the side of safety and asks people to stay home and off the roads. In a day or two everything melts or ends up in slow melting piles if it has been plowed and we go back to normal.

No Swimming today...

...though the sun feels warm!

Raleigh is in the mix for the prime prize Amazon is awarding to a city it deems worthy of their incredible presence. I know how incredible it is as my son interned and worked there and I've spent some time at the Amazon buildings in Seattle. Amazon should stand for #Awesome when it comes to adding life and energy into any city lucky enough to host it's new headquarters. They are modern, ecological minded and they even allow people who work there to take their dogs to work for the day when needed. From something as small as pets to tall beautiful buildings employing people from all over the world it's a win win for any city who does indeed wins this prime prize. 

Raleigh is a great city to live in and I mean pretty much throughout the whole year not just a few months here and there such as Boston which is beautiful but too cold or Miami which is wonderful but really hot and humid most of the year. Raleigh is a lot like Seattle in that we have abundant water for fishing, sporting, boating and taking great #selfies and mountains near enough for a nice weekend away. We have a wonderful airport which would get much more crowded should we become an Amazon city but it's new and easy to access as are many cities such as Seattle as it's easy to fly out and in unlike some cities that are wonderful but... they have limited access. I love Savannah and Wilmington but the airport is smaller and you have to get off the highway to get there. Amtrak is building a new Train Station in downtown Raleigh and there is a brand new station in Cary. It's an easy place for people who like to commute or travel often and we all know I do. Beaches are not far away though a bit too far for me though the beaches in Seattle are mostly scenic vs the ones you find in Florida. 

In Raleigh people are so friendly at times you want to puke .. if you come from a colder, impersonal city where people pass each other without even blinking. It's a great place to raise a family and there are many places downtown to party or hang out at night. If you were raised on Miami Beach it's a bit boring, but boring is usually good when you are a young family trying to pay off your student loans while living in a very affordable large home in a safe neighborhood. I do complain often to my friends but in truth those are unique complaints that I have that the average person living here does not have such as a nice trendy Kosher restaurant or any kosher restaurant for that matter. But being a Southern Jew whose family goes way back in the South several generations I do love many things about Raleigh. I still think it's Eastern Tennessee but that's another talk for another day.

I also want to warn you that riding Greyhound Bus into Raleigh is akin to taking your life into your hands if you get stuck at the Richmond VA bus station which happens often to people it seems. Raleigh has a nicer bus station (new) and the people are friendly. My daughter took a bus to Raleigh as she is on a budget and has taken the bus here before and it was "okay" in that it is always easy to jump on a bus for a fast ticket out of town on a when you are on a budget. Plus you can use your power stick that stays full for up to 260 hours and play video games or watch TV while you are traveling those friendly roads. 

During the winter when Winter Storm Inga was threatening for days and there were Winter Weather Advisories and Winter Weather Warnings Greyhound in NYC insisted there would be no delays or problems riding their Express bus to Raleigh the night the storm was beginning. She never would have gotten on the bus had they not insisted that there would be no problems and there were no weather concerns. Obviously..... Greyhound ignores winter weather advisories the way cruise ship lines ignore hurricane warnings. Their need for showing they can get their passengers where they want to go seems to beat out common sense and concerns for safety.  It seems their bus drivers refused to drive the bus even when Greyhound insisted they could safely drive through Black Ice Warnings. I know this as the bus drivers had fights with their managers in Richmond in front of their passengers who after sitting there for more than 4 hours with no information began to argue so much that the police had to be called in to stop the fight. I suppose the Captains on the cruise ships are less likely to abandon ship in the middle of the ocean. Either way it's pretty pathetic. I was worried she would get stuck in Richmond and equally worried no one would be able to pick her up at the bus terminal as we had black ice warnings until Noon in Raleigh yesterday.

My daughter who lives in Brooklyn is pretty tough, she has driven from Ottawa to Miami more than once and traveled extensively and lived in North Miami Beach in an area that is pretty tough at times if the wrong person gets upset but the scene in Richmond was something out of a bad movie. Greyhound seems to have a Cowboy mentality and they put you on the stagecoach and they drive it until the driver disappears into the dark night while they are watering the horses. To make this more ridiculous their website insisted there were no travel delays so I suppose it's a sort of FAKE NEWS issue by them because if they don't report they are having a travel delay there is no delay. She did get in around 4:45 PM yesterday (8 hours late) while the sun was still up and we were able to pick her up and run to Trader Joes on the way home to buy Ice Cream before they closed at 5 PM due to safety concerns for the black ice that forms as soon as the son goes down around here during a snow event. She brought freshly baked chocolate chip cookies with her that we crumbled over Trader Joes Vanilla Pareve Ice Cream after a nice warm hot meal.  Glad she is here but seriously it's pathetic she had to go through that but I guess it could have been worse. She could have been locked in her cabin cruising through a Hurricane for hours and hours. We have this great organization called the National Weather Service they might want to check it out.

http://time.com/4916794/hurricane-harvey-cruise-ship/

http://fox8.com/2017/01/30/bus-gets-stuck-in-snow-spins-tires-catches-fire/ a few weeks ago...

So........  this is why so many people I know who don't like to fly (and there are many) drive cross country rather than trust others to get them where they need to go. That said Southwest and JetBlue that fly out of Raleigh are usually very good as is Amtrak as they are quick to inform travelers of safety problems.  

Lastly I'm going to post some pictures here to show the beauty of Raleigh in the Snow. And....thanks again for taking the time to read my blog in the winter when I go long on personal matters and muse about life vs informing the public of the latest tropical trouble. I do appreciate your feedback and your follows on Twitter. 

Speaking of personal. My youngest daughter had a birthday yesterday in Miami and rather than hope her friends and family bought her presents she asked everyone to donate money to Alzheimer's research. Facebook lets you post a page (they need time to approve the charity by the way.......) and it can be posted and shared in social media. The link to her page is below. She did achieve her original goal and has far surpassed it but you can still donate. As I said online elsewhere Alzheimer's and dementia is an equal opportunity disease and cuts across all boundaries of race, color, religion or political persuasion. It is the one equalizer that finds a way to hit all of us where it hurts the most. Be it a parent or a friend's parent it's painful and it hurts to watch a person slowly slip away. Money makes the world go round and it pays for research to find ways to prolong people's lives with a better quality of life and hopefully one day we will have a cure. So any amount donated makes a difference as we are truly a village (honest) and we all one human family. Thanks to all who donated and I appreciate it greatly as does my daughter who is happy to have made a difference. Know you can do this on Facebook with your family and friends as well. 

Besos BobbiStorm

@bobbistorm on Twitter

http://act.alz.org/site/TR?fr_id=11139&pg=personal&px=9601092

Link above helps you navigate to the page :)

Ps... enoy the pictures :)

Car dealerships above.

Snow glowed like diamonds in the sun.

As it melted ...froze and melted.

The sky was so blue yesterday...

Just beautiful.

Snow Day in Raleigh & Much of the East Coast

It's really so beautiful. The snow is just falling steady and I was so ready for it. A little over two weeks ago I looked at several long term forecasts as well as various loops and long range models and decided to go to Miami to see my new granddaughter from January 10th through the 16th. I chose those dates because airfare was crazy cheap during an "End of the Year Sale" on Southwest ($63 one way RDU to FLL) and because I figured I could go to Florida and enjoy some warm weather during the January Thaw. I could get back in time for the possible snow event in Raleigh and basically I nailed it. Kind of proud of myself as forecasting a snow event in Raleigh is close to impossible. When I moved here reading the forecast discussion in the winter was like cutting my teeth while trying to eat glass. It was a whole new weather lingo and trying to understand Miller A and Miller B storms along with warm nose problems makes a tropical weather person feel dizzy. But...over time... I got it down and now the snow is coming down. Years ago online I predicted where Hurricane Charley would most likely make landfall when the NHC was extremely iffy as the projected track paralleled the coastline. I'm more excited about nailing this forecast than that one.... go figure.

You can't control everything in life. Try controlling a two year old baby or a teenager. You can't always control your health or wealth or lack of ... You can't control the weather but you can try and work with the models and be where you want to be when a hurricane makes landfall or heavy rain falls from the ground. Harder to catch a falling star or the Northern Lights or that proverbial green flash as the sun sets into the water. You can control how you react and respond usually. I was in the market this morning picking up a few things fast and when it began to snow children started screaming and most of the people who moved to Raleigh from Pittsburgh began to grit their teeth and bitch. I'm from Miami, the local news is on nonstop and there is no Cat 3 on it's way nor is a storm surge headed towards downtown. Just a rare snow event in Raleigh; last time it snowed heavy was 3 years ago in this particular neck of the woods.

If you think it's intense in Virginia...

...check out those reds in Canada!

So let's get to the weather. This Winter Storm #Inga has left it's mark over a wide area from Texas and Louisiana to Raleigh and up the coast all the way to the NY NJ metro area. There are watches and warnings everywhere. Hopefully it will be a fast mover and move out just as fast. However there is a Low developing over the Carolinas that will give it that extra push that will amp up it's long term snow totals and wicked, winter weather. To quote Jimmy Buffett we are "all in it" and there's snow to the left and snow to the right and pretty much everywhere we are dealing with the Winter of 2017 - 2018. Tomorrow that blue will cover more areas and there may be some expanding lilac.

In North Carolina they dumped over 2 million gallons of brine on the roadways. We try to do everything in Raleigh these days to avoid the national spotlight of the snowmaggedon pictures of stranded tourists with photo shopped monsters standing on a very steep hilltop that iced over immediately as soon as the snow began to fall. Today the snow projections are on the rise with every new model run. If the models are right (GFS and EURO pretty close) five inches would be on the low side. But for now those are the official snow total projections below. If anything they will be upgraded to higher totals.

Allan Huffman always excellent.

NWS Raleigh

NWS NY

And everything in between is seeing snow.

Not a good time to be on I95 traveling.

Tomorrow will be better...

Miami was wonderful and today I'm in a Winter Wonderland in Raleigh. This recent trip was intense as I spent time with two sweet older women and two sweet babies. Kind of puts life into perspective when you hold a baby that weighs about 5 to 6 pounds and then you take your 85 year old mother to get a new pair of glasses and sit for hours with your husband's 97 year old Great Aunt. I'm not sure that my Granddaughter Olivia knew who I was but she's learning. I know my mother-in-law forgets who I am and God Bless the sweet 97 year old who is smart and quick like a whip.Life is short, it's like a fast moving river. Enjoy the moment, savor the moment and share those moments with others. That's what I try to do here on the blog. Sharing... 

One minute you are 3 weeks old...

In the blink of an eye...

..you're getting new glasses.

Or happy that someone came to visit you.

Or just happy to see the snow falling.

As always go to http://www.nhc.noaa.gov for official info and to www.spaghettimodels.com for tons of info, models and satellite imagery. Make sure your smart phones are properly enabled for weather warnings.

Besos BobbiStorm

@bobbistorm on Twitter