Cold Gray Rainy JOW #488

This part of Texas may not get a lot of really cold weather but it still gets nasty this time of year. Rain and low gray clouds can linger for days. I spent Christmas Week, 1991 cooped up with five children aged 12-7; I do not think we were able to go outside for more than 30 minutes for six days. Actually I have fond memories of that Christmas. However, I have not seen the sun in a week now and I am getting pretty darn tired of cold gray days. Since the weather is on my mind, I thought I would feature our climate in the JOW. Enjoy.

Although he was a qualified meteorologist, Hopkins ran up a terrible record of forecasting for the TV news program. He became something of a local joke when a newspaper began keeping a record of his predictions and showed that he'd been wrong almost three hundred times in a single year. That kind of notoriety was enough to get him fired. He moved to another part of the country and applied for a similar job. One blank on the job application called for the reason for leaving his previous position.
Hopkins wrote, "The climate didn't agree with me."
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The Michaels family owned a small farm in Canada, just yards away from the North Dakota border. Their land had been the subject of a minor dispute between the United States and Canada for generations. Mrs. Michaels, who had just celebrated her ninetieth birthday, lived on the farm with her son and three grandchildren.
One day, her son came into her room holding a letter. "I just got some news, Mom," he said. "The government has come to an agreement with the people in Washington. They've decided that our land is really part of the United States. We have the right to approve or disapprove of the agreement. What do you think?"
"What do I think?" his mother said. "Jump at it! Call them right now and tell them we accept! I don't think I could stand another one of those Canadian winters!"
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A husband and his wife were sound asleep when suddenly the phone rang.
The husband picked up the phone and said, "Hello? How the heck do I know? What do I look like, a weatherman?" He then slammed the phone down and settled into bed.
"Who was that?" asked his wife.
"I don't know. It was some guy who wanted to know if the coast was clear."
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The U.S. has only three hurricane warning centers - Coral Gables, FL, Guam, and Honolulu, HI (recently completed). All three have faced Category 4 hurricanes. Which only goes to show: If you build it, they will come!

• Rumor has it that they are going to rename the Miami baseball team the "Humidity" so that fans in Florida will be able to say, "It's not the Heat that's so bad, it's the Humidity."
• Two weathermen each broke an arm and a leg in an accident, and called from the hospital about the four casts.
• What happens when the fog lifts in California? UCLA.
• How to predict weather in Seattle: If you can see Mt Ranier, it's going to rain. If not, it already is.
• It's a bit "muggy" in New York today.
• There's a technical term for a sunny, warm day which follows two rainy days. It's called Monday.
• A postcard home: The weather is here. Wish you were beautiful.

Two tourist arrive in London’s Heathrow Airport in the pouring rain. One looks skywards and says, "So this is England. What's it like?"
The other replies, "Well, if you like the weather, you'll love the food."

From the Rocky Mountain News, "BEST EXPERIMENT":
"If you are caught without an umbrella when it starts to rain, will you stay drier by running to shelter instead of walking?
Thomas Peterson and Trevor Wallis, of Asheville, N.C., both climatologists, calculated that running made one 44% drier over 100 meters (about 328 feet).
To test their findings, they measured off a 100-meter course and waited for it to rain. They wore identical dry clothing that had been weighed before the test (they wear the same size) and wore plastic bags under their clothes to trap any water that might seep through. Peterson walked the course, while Wallis ran. Afterward, they weighed the clothes again. The result: Wallis' clothes were 40% drier.
Frankly, we'd take a cab."

And finally, here is a repeat from a few years back:
A long time ago, in Communist Russia, there was a famous weather man named Rudolf.
He's always had a 100% accuracy rate for his forecasts of the Russian weather conditions. His people loved him and respected him for his faultless foresight. He was particularly good at predicting rain. One night, despite clear skies, he made the prediction on the 6:00pm news broadcast that a violent storm was approaching. It would flood the town in which he and his wife lived. He warned the people to take proper precautions and prepare for the worst.
After he arrived home later that evening, his wife met him at the door and started arguing with him that his weather prediction was the most ridiculous thing she had ever heard. This time, she said, he had made a terrible mistake. There wasn't a cloud anywhere within 10 miles of the village. As a matter of fact, that day had been the most beautiful day that the town had ever had and it was quite obvious to everyone that it simply wasn't going to rain.
He told her she was to be quiet and listen to him. If he said it was going to rain, IT WAS GOING TO RAIN. He had all of his Russian heritage behind him and he knew what he was talking about. She argued that although he came from a proud heritage, IT STILL WASN'T GOING TO RAIN.
They argued back and forth for hours , so much that they went to bed mad at each other.
During the night, sure enough one of the worst rainstorms hit the village the likes of which they had never seen. That morning when Rudolf and his wife arose, they looked out the window and saw all the water that had fallen that night.
"See," said Rudolf, "I told you it was going to rain."
His wife admitted: "Once again your prediction came true. But I want to know, just how were you so accurate, Rudolf?
"To which he replied, "You see, Rudolf the Red knows rain dear!"

And all the felicitations of the season!