Weather gripe: What drives you mad?

[Justin Turcotte]

Seems every time there is a potential northern light show it is cloudy at my location. Very annoying. I'm not too fond of the "valley effect" here in eastern ND either. The valley is about 80 miles wide and is very efficient at trapping moisture and maintaining clouds. Troughs like to mix out to the valley rim and then sit. This makes for some annoying winter days when the temp an hour drive west is 15 degrees warmer than my location near the river. The one plus is the same scenario occurs in the summer which allows for good chasing on the convergence zone.

 

[Charles Kuster]

For me, I hate the winter up here. We have 8 months straight (Oct.-May) of snow and cold. There is usually a period of 7-8 months where I don't hear thunder and there basically aren't any storms. It is rare for us to get a snow storm of 6" or more (although we have had 2 so far this year). On top of that, I really don't like cold or snow. Plus, during the summer we get thunderstorms, but they are pretty pathetic. We have never had a severe thunderstorm here and "large" hail for us is pea size. I guess my weather gripe for stormless Leadville is the entire year. At least it is a nice town, just sucks for weather.

 

[David Draun]

I have a couple gripes. One being the doggone lake breeze during the early to mid-spring. A nice warm air regime setting up on a sunny march, april day, temps hurtling towards the 80 degree-mark, then the wind turns northeast and sends 50-something degree air all the way to Rockford! The surface southerly winds just aren't strong enough to overcome it and I'm caught outside in summer clothes without a jacket in 10 minutes reach.

The other one was especially common this summer, and that was the lack of any interesting thunderstorms in that little area between I-90W and I-88. I live right in that area, and I remember watching great storms on the radar fall turn into nearly nothing as they approached. What was worse was if they developed to the south!

And people here are griping about the warm weather, and how we may not have a white Christmas. I think there will be a little snow before the holidays, the models seem to show it.

 

[Aaron Kennedy]

Ditto on both Justin and John's comments. Not suprising since I am also in "the forks".

 

[Gerrit Gulden]

I can agree with Charles's comment, "It is rare for us to get a snow storm of 6" or more". In Southeast Idaho since I have lived here have received at most 4 inches of snow. That is a huge weather gripe of mine since my idea of a snow storm is 10+ inches or more. Hopefully We will get an Upper Low that closes directly over my area and just dumps. All the good storms seem to dump at the Wasatch and bring the remnant here which is very little.

I can say I was quite lucky on Getting a good number of lightning shots this year. The Monsoon just wasnt that active here.

Hoping for a Huge Snow storm and a Very Eventfull 2007 chase season.

 

[Terrence Cook]

I think atleast JFarrar would agree with me when I say that our number one issue in the Ohio Valley and Great lakes region is the water loading that almost ALL supercells succumb to in these reigions. The vegitation is alot denser than tor' alley and the "corn-belt" through Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, etc... also contributes to abundant moisture at the surface. This is not always the case, but can certainly ruin some great looking storms by going HP.

For this reason I look forward to 07' and chasing the alley for the chance to see an LP or Classic supercell.

 

[Dustin Wilcox]

It drives me crazy when its December 21 and we have a fairly strong upper level system tracking North-East through KS and we're too warm here in E NE to see any winter precip; system tracks similar to the traveling path of this one generally mean big snows for this area. Its a bunch of BS, if we dont at least pick up an inch or two from the backside of this system on Friday morning I may move to Oklahoma where it actually snows!!!

 

[Tarmo Tanilsoo]

It drives me mad that it is December 21 and temperature is blazing 36 degrees Fahrenheit... Snow is melting.

 

[Greg Campbell]

Tucson from Mid May 'till the storms start in early July.

Two months of utter misery.
No clouds.
No wind.
No change. (Well, it does get HOTTER as the days grind by.)
No 'weather' to speak of...
... just relentless, baking, overpowering heat.
For what seems an eternity, you look to the sky, hoping to see something, anything, other than pale blue heat. A cloud, please!, any sign that the sky hasn't been burned to death; that weather, maybe even rain is not a delusional false memory. All you find is that damn sun glaring down on you. Frying your eyeballs. Burning your skin. The sun withers cactus and litteraly crumbles rock. Even the rattlesnakes hide from it.

Day
after day
after day
after......ARRRRGH!!!!

Once past the worst of it, the fun 'monsoon' season starts and all is forgotten. Storms! Thunder! Lightning!! Water.

The world is alive again!

-Greg

 

[B. Kotcher]

I'll unleash my Inner George Carlin:

1. Why do people seldom mention a tornado without pointing out that it's ON THE GROUND. Where else could it be?
2. Why do weather reporters seldom mention a downpour without pointing out that it's "heavy." You mean there's such a thing as a light downpour?
3. Why do half of the Weather-Channel reporters talk about "warm, humid air coming up from the golf"? You'd think that, being meteorologists, they'd know the difference between the gulf and a game that consists of whacking little white balls around.

--Bob

 

[Justin Turcotte]

I'm not sure what is worse:
1. Stuck in the valley inversion during winter.
2. North Dakota cold versus Arizona heat.
3. Seeing stratus crapus on a chase day.

Actually my biggest weather peeve is wind. It might be great on a hot day but here in NoDak it makes a cold day into hell freezing over and a mild day into a windchill ob. North Dakotans will tell you -20F isn't too bad without the wind. It is not something I want in abundance when riding the bike or fishing either.

 

[Shane Adams]

Isn't it obvious? I've lived in Oklahoma my entire chase career, and for the majority of it we've been in a tornado drought, at least by OK standards. I guess to sum up my weather gripe in a sentence, living in central OK and having to drive out of state for 3 outta 4 chases on average the past several years, while my friends in Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, and even the Dakotas get stuff handed to them on silver platters. I want some silver platters too!!!!

Maybe this weekend?

EDIT: I have to be fair....in 2006 75% of my tornadoes were in Oklahoma.

 

[Adam Atkins]

Growing up in Portland the summers are beautiful, relative to the rest of the year...mild and dry (80 F). However, the Willamette and Columbia river valleys are typically shrouded in low clouds and fog until mid-day. The boundary layer takes FOREVER to mix due to the lack of any sort of flow just off the boundary layer.

Here in Oklahoma I hate the NW flow with wrap around moist advection following a cold front/surface low where it stays cloudy and cool for two days.

And who doesn't despise a weak cap on classic dryline days where a raging squall line develops

 

[Tony Laubach]

Annoying snows... snow that falls which doesn't require stuff to shut down, but creates havok with the idiots on the road who freak out on every single flake... after this winter, it was all or nothing with snow... either 3 feet or don't do it at all... this 5 to 10 inch crap got annoying really quick! LOL

 

[Melissa Moon]

In Asheville the main weather gripes are in the winter...basically that Asheville doesn't get much snow because we are in the valley. But when we do get winter precip, if it's ice the power goes out.