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.