h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I slept through it and the eye passed within 50 miles of me or less. We got a bit of rain and wind, but the wind never got as strong as it was just last week when a random thunderstorm passed by and knocked over my habanero plant dislodging 4 chilies. (That's ok, they're good when they're green as well).

Anyways, I was stuck at home through what basically amounted to a puffed up summer shower. Watching the local media was quite entertaining. Four different channels of complete slobbering mediotry (tm).

Here's a few hilarious examples:

Scene: Mediot standing in a parking lot on Galveston Island. There's very little indication of severe weather at all.

"We want to remind folks out there to watch out for flying debris."
[bends down for the following]
"For instance this palm frond flew at us just minutes ago [picks frond up] and this thing is kinda heavy. [tosses it aside]"



Or even better:

Scene: Another mediot standing in another parking lot somewhere inland East of Houston.

"While we haven't seen any street flooding there have been reports of ponding. Here we are at a Denny's parking lot and behind me you can see that there is some ponding. [an SUV backs out of a space directly through the ponding... it's an inch deep at most]. And over here behind me you can see a group of people huddled under the eaves. I want to remind the viewers of the extreme conditions out here. These folks must have been caught out with out their rain gear. They probably wish they had at least brought an umbrella. [The SUV they focused on previously drives up to pick up the huddled folks right where they are negating any need for "rain gear".]"



There was also some excellent coverage of a truck driver who had to be rescued by a fire crew from the cab of the truck he drove into a ditch in an actual flooded intersection (one that floods every time it rains for more than an hour). The driver climbed out of his cab in the scene and walked up to the firemen in ankle deep water. WOO HOO... WHAT A RESCUE!


It was like that all day. There were literally dozens and dozens of media crews spread out all over the area desperately trying to find even some broken limbs or overflowing ditches. My dad noticed that the cameramen seemed to be purposely neglecting to wipe the condensation from their lenses to make the weather look worse than it was.

That's sad. Really, really sad.

I know, now I've got to wait another week for another batch of ripe habaneros.

Oh calamity

I hear from the radio that were a few showers just before dawn around central Texas, and indeed the ground outside my window does seem damp where there aren't any sprinklers, but honestly, this whole storm was a non-event. I mean, I didn't hear my wind chimes even once. That's how unwindy it was.

Oh, yea... I left my wind chimes out and the flag attached.
http://www.musicofspheres.com/audio/TenJ24k.MP3

Normal service has been resumed - scorchio plus one.

Number of days so far this year at 100° or more - 43.

Scorchio plus two. Number of days at 100° or more so far this summer - 44. Number of days at less than 100° in the eight-day forecast - none.

Scorchio plus two. Number of days at 100° or more - 45.

This is starting to play havoc with our refrigeration at work. Twice in the past four days our walk-in has packed up. First thing tomorrow I need to call the tech and get him to adjust something up on the roof. Apparently there are summer settings and winter settings. And just for Texas there are also hot as Hades settings.

Scorchio plus four. Number of days blah blah blah - 46. Possibility of rain and sub-scorchio temperatures on Tuesday.

That's my day off

1C last night -

Heavily overcast this morning. So much so that I could hardly believe it was 6.55am when my alarm went off. I thought I'd accidentally set it an hour early.

Scorchio, precisely. Number of scorchio days - 47.

There's a 50% chance of showers and storms tonight and a 40% chance in the morning. I'm dubious but I'd like to be proved wrong.

Depending on which weather mediot I listen to, we either have a 50% or 60% chance of rain around lunchtime. Grr... I seriously hope it comes pissing down at lunch because I took the car into work. I want it to be justified.

Taking the car not only means using more gas, it also means battling for a parking spot after lunch. Even more so now that I've got a longer shift and want to take a later lunch.

I'm going to try splitting the difference and only go 30 minutes later. Maybe I can sneak in while the noon lunch crowd are still away.

There's a pretty good band of rain passing by Austin right now so you might be in for some. I don't think we are though. Austin is almost completely ringed by rainfall as if there's a force field bounding the city

Well, I just got back from lunch. Again, I got lucky, there was exactly 1 parking spot open in the nearest lot.

As for rain... just the lightest of sprinkles to and from lunch.

I shoulda rode the bike.


Maybe there'll be a downpour on my way home.

Scorchio minus eight But no rain We'll probably be back to scorchio for a few days before another possibility of rain at the weekend. The temperatures aren't going to dip too much so the weekend will probably be squelchio.

Wednesday - scorchio. Number of scorchio days - 48. No rain. Temperature at 7.30am today - 80/26.7. This is officially the hottest summer in Austin since records began with an average temperature of 87.3/30.8 (I think that's the temperature he said on the radio this morning).

Scorchio plus one. Number of scorchio days - 49. No rain.

From this point (August 14th) we need 20 more scorchio days to equal the record, 21 to break it. Since we could feasibly (easily, even) have scorchio well into September that's not too far-fetched.

I just checked the rainfall almanac btw. We're close to 10" short for the year so far here in Austin, but I've seen plenty of rain on the radar outside the city where it's going to fall on farmland, woodland, grassland etc and be soaked into the ground rather than running off concrete and tarmac into the drains.

Scorchio minus one. Number of scorchio days - 49. There is rain in the vicinity.