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

We received another 4 inches of snow on Saturday in our third snow storm of the year.

The television weather people were predicting 6-24, but as is usually the case, their computer models were looking at a situation that I can only ever recall taking place one or two times in the past 20-some years. So instead we received the 4-6 that I was predicting instead (which always prompts looks from my lovely bride when I out-forecast the 'meteorologists').

Hey, I took a meteorology class in college and I've lived here for most of my life so I *know* the weather patterns for south-central Pennsylvania.

My dad never took a course in meteorology, but as a farmer, he *knew* weather, and would almost always out-predict the real meteorologists, just based on years of studying the local weather patterns. I learned a *lot* from him about weather patterns, even though my knowlege of "local" patterns is based on growing up in Maryland, not Pennsylvania.

I found it funny that this was expected to be a *MAJOR SNOWSTORM* (Read: Go stock up on bread and milk, because you may not be able to get back to the store for a month! ) in this area, when they were only calling for a maximum of 14 inches. At least that was the most outlandish forecast I'd seen.

Somehow, my definition of *MAJOR SNOWSTORM* has been forever changed by the nearly 3 *feet* of snow we had from one storm a few years back.

I tried to get a good measurement of the snow before it started drifting, and came up with not quite 7 inches for this storm.


By the way, you must have been listening to the rumor station, with that 24 inch forecast.



On a side note, my sister had the kids she went to college with in Dover, Delaware absolutely convinced that she could "smell snow" coming.


She'd apparently seen the radar and satellite images on TV and noticed that the sky definitely looked like snow, so she told them that it was going to snow. They thought she was crazy and asked how she knew such a thing, since it so seldom snows there. She told them that she could smell it coming, adding in a sniff of the air, just for effect.

The next morning, they woke up to snow on the ground, and were all totally amazed that she was able to "smell snow"!

That kind of stuff just adds to the legend of Pennsylvanians being a bit 'off'...

Speak for yourself - My family's from Maryland!

We had a dusting on Friday nothing to write home about. But a bit more on Wednesday last week. Still saving the stamps though.