Weather gripe: What drives you mad?

[Susan Strom]

Today’s forecast for the Phoenix metro area: Severe Clear

I know what you’re thinking. Sunny, 65 degrees, boo hoo, right? If you’re sitting in Minot, that sounds pretty darn good about now. So, North Dakotans are entitled not to send me any sympathy. But tomorrow’s Phoenix forecast: Clear, sunny. The day after that: Sunny, clear. Nov-Jan: Variations of Clear and Sunny, and not a lightning bolt to be had :/ Chamber of commerce weather abounds…but every day?

Back in Northern California where I’m from, the “storm door” is open, as the locals put it, allowing the Pacific winter gales to blow through every couple days. They shake the house. They topple trees. They foam up the sea and pound the beaches with fury, howling like something from a Bronte novel. I think I have storm envy.

However, it is not all stormy bliss in Northern California. The biggest weather gripe of all: Fog city. Fog fog fog in the winter. Driving can be treacherous. Day after day under a blanket of gray winter skies, people get cranky. High for the day: 42 wet degrees. Low: 35. Fog refugees take up Sierra skiing just to break the gray monotony of winter. Even my childhood dog came from the fog. She literally ran out of a fog bank on the beach. After we learned she was a stray, Sam the white Fog Dog came home with us.

There are some ways to cope with fog. Nothing beats the little clam chowders in a bread-bowl, sold on the street corner at the wharf in San Fran or the mochas from The Bread Store in downtown Sacramento. Fog looks dramatic in the vineyards too. The fog, bare black oaks and the burnt amber leaves after The Crush, that is my mental image of a Northern California winter. Still, after a while, most are longing for a glimpse of blue sky.

Meanwhile, here in Phoenix, I’m sleeveless again. Christmas is a state of mind, not of the weather.

So it makes me curious. What is the weather gripe in your town? Hurricanes, June Gloom, ice storms, dog days of summer, the Mistral…what drives you mad? What is it like and how to the locals cope?

 

[PeteMcConnell]

Most of the locals here in Hastings, Ne prefer moisture for the farmers and people's lawns. Moisture that arrives in a non-threatening manner. Other than that they seem to enjoy mild weather. What drives me nuts is the painful waiting period between tornado seasons!!

 

[Danny Neal]

My biggest gripe was this year in May. For a week and a half straight, we did not get out of the 50's and did not see the sun. It rained non-stop it was like early November weather. And to make matters even worse was that at the same time, our college was in regionals for baseball and we had to host them. So for ten days straight I had to be up at 530 AM drive an hour and half through the rain and work on the field for 3 hours BEFORE even playing. There were three games a day so after that we would play and then wait for everyone else to finish. Then retarp the field and let me tell ya tarping a field in a lot of wind was an adventure haha. Long story short 6am - 10pm was my day of wet, mud, and baseball for a week and half straight. That is my gripe!

 

[Robert Dewey]

I'm kind of "flip-floppy"... If there isn't any interesting weather to be had, then I want sunshine... By interesting, I mean steady heavy rainfall, heavy snowfall of 6 or more inches, or just anything interesting (snow squalls, freezing rain, dense fog, wind, etc). What I absolutely can't stand are days that are cold and cloudy with a few flurries or drizzle.

At least up here in Michigan, there really isn't an "off-season". I would imagine that the southern states get pretty boring with nothing meteorologically-interesting occuring... Then again, if you're in OK or KS, you get your own share of interesting winter-time stuff, and you aren't that far from the mountains or other interesting geographic features.

 

[David Wolfson]

Susan was "too cool" to post our area's weather gripe: four months of nuclear heat. Heat that melts solar window shields; heat that makes you hold the steering wheel with asbestos gloves; heat that makes the electric meter hum like a gas pump; heat that makes going hatless for almost any male over the age of forty a one-time only mistake; heat that turns your hot water tank into the cold water supply....

 

[Jayson Prentice]

Well the current gripe around here is the fact that we are once again nearing Christmas and we still don't have snow on the ground for the white Christmas. Although I'm sure most don't mind the near record warmth today, by Christmas nearly everybody wants at least a thin blanket of white on the ground.

 

[Karen Politte]

Susan/David - you live in Phoenix! Now admittedly I gripe and moan about not getting any decent winter weather......but out in the Plains and eastwards it's a damn sight more common than in Phoenix! If I were to move to Phoenix I think I'd kiss my winters goodbye until I moved to the northwest or somewhere east of the Rockies......

So far here in central AR I only have one gripe - and that was how we were cheated, tricked and cajoled out of our winter storm with the last system that came through. Up until a day before the event it was looking like we were in for some early winter precip and possibly some accumulating snow - "yes!" I thought......it'll be awesome to see some wintry weather again after so long without anything I would call "measurable", let alone "decent".

What happened? A cute little low developed on the front slap-bang in the middle of AR on the day of FROPA. This kept a finger of 40+ temps clinging on and hanging on all the way from southeast AR up into......yep you've guessed it......central AR. We stayed in the balmy mid-40s until bedtime as the rain and post-frontal wind howled outside......precip which was forecast to be and SHOULD have been of the frozen variety. But nooooo.......we hung on and hung on to our above-freezing temps longer than the precip could last. El-Freaking-Dorado AR got to 32 before we did.

Consequence? A soaking of rain, a windy morning that had allowed not even one bit of aesthetically interesting ice to form, and news reports of residents in northern Oklahoma having to buy their first snowblowers.

Niiiiice.

KL

 

[Dan Robinson]

For me it is the misting rain that constantly changes intensity, requiring constant adjustments to the speed of the windshield wipers.

Other than that, it would be for all of these winter storms like we've had the past few years to not be 400 miles away.

 

[Dustin Wilcox]

I'm not a fan of the cloudy cool days with mist/light rain, esspecially when its enough to make it misserable and wet out but not enough to doing anything productive for the fields or to fight drought. Guess I wouldnt do so great in the NW

 

[David Drummond]

West Texas Sandstorms....nuff said.

 

[Billy Griffin]

Seattle = RAIN... November through May. Need I say more?

 

[Gerrit Gulden]

What Drives Me Mad

1.When it comes to "Storm of the Year" and the only highlight was 10mph winds and 1 inch of snow.

2.My Area Outlined in the Convective Outlook for Slight Risk with a Severe Thunderstorm Watch and nothing occurs

Hopefully others can agree with these.

-gerrit

 

[John Hudson]

Oh, that's an easy one. The serious lack of daylight, when our official daylight hours are just over 8 hours long, and we haven't even arrived at the Winter Solstice yet. Visible light's current duration is only 9 hours and 24 minutes, and even that's a misnomer because of the permanently installed stratus deck above southern Manitoba. It's enough to make anyone SAD.

Yep, my coffee buddy calls these the "wrist cuttin' days" of winter, and I couldn't agree with him more. The coldest days for us haven't even arrived yet; those come next month and into February. "As the days lengthen, cold strengthens" has long been a saying here on the prairies.

Never even got a single good lightning picture this year, either. The only reconciliation I find is through the occasional winter image, rendered by icy fingers and high dewpoints:

John Hudson
www.skywatch7.com

 

[Susan Strom]

Susan was "too cool" to post our area's weather gripe: four months of nuclear heat.

Ah yes, but that comes at the same time as the best season of all - Monsoon. Heat, torrential downpours, flash floods, sand storms, and crazy desert lightning...I'll take the whole package heat and all. One more reason that night time is chase time.

I forgot about a weather gripe. The sun in Phoenix no kidding feels 10 feet overhead. It really is crazy intense. All kinds of configurations are needed to block it while driving. The sun here has to be "managed". Even so, it does not seem as strong as the alpine sun at Lake Tahoe CA/NV. Aye carumba, that is the strongest sun I have experienced. It will fry you while you're skiing and you can get a tan at the beach while sitting in the shade.

 

[Brandon Sullivan]

my biggest gripe is non weather smart people confusing storm warnings and severe thunderstorm warnings. Storm warnings are for those along the coast, who can expect rough surf, windy conditiions.. and everone on here knows a SVR TSTORM warning criteria. that is what bothers me.