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blizzard, California, Chicago, England, gobsmacked, humor, Illinois, Meteorology, moles, National Weather Service, spring, Steve Goodman, Tornado, Weather, winter
Weather and politics. It’s all local.
When I first moved to Chicago, I was too young to appreciate The First Law of Local Weather: no matter where you move, the natives have never seen this kind of weather before. Rain amazed Californians, blizzards amazed Chicagoans, hurricanes amazed Virginians, and tornadoes especially amazed central ‘Tornado Alley’ Illinois. Russians probably told invading Germans they never have such cold winters. I’ll bet you could go to Mars and little green creatures would assure you, “It’s a very unusual year. Normally, we have MUCH more oxygen here…”
An eight-year stint in Chicago still didn’t prepare me for real weather because winter is not scheduled in that city. Blizzards come as a complete surprise to Chicago officials every year. They would announce after the first snow of the season that municipal supplies of salt and sand were exhausted because of unusually severe weather, the like of which hadn’t been seen since the previous winter.
I know I’m not the only one who remembers the Lincoln Park Pirates. One January the City of Chicago was so shocked at the unusual occurrence of winter, their outsourced towing company hauled hundreds cars (including mine) to a lakeside park and then forgot where they put them. The snow-encrusted forms were soon obliterated by the snow removal crews who were also using that park as a dumping ground. Months went by before melting snows revealed missing vehicles.
[For Chicago fun, anyone remember Steve Goodman’s Lincoln Park Pirates?] Good times.
Although central Illinois has strict zoning restrictions prohibiting any actual scenery, it does provide quite a bit of entertainment in the form of weather. My theory is that the powerful Weather Team Forecasters (WTF) demanded at least two tornado sightings a month in summers, plus premium pay for blizzards. That first summer we were in Illinois, every time we got into the car the WTF would respond with a weather situation. As we scanned a cloudless sky, they assured us that conditions were ripe for the formation of a tornado, and pleaded with us to seek shelter. Although we couldn’t help noticing that our neighbors would be out washing their cars and grilling brats, we chalked it up to the devil-may-care attitude for which Midwesterners are famous.
[NOTE to my Midwest cousin before she gets on my case: No, I am NOT accusing anyone in the Midwest of being in any way connected with the devil/ Satan/ Prince of Darkness/ the Republican Party. It’s called irony or sarcasm or something like that.]
Every once in a while, if the WTF got really lucky, actual weather would occur. Meteorologist: “There are big clouds forming… getting larger… pulsating… closer and… yes… we have reports of a funnel… Oooh, yes… It’s SO big, and it’s (pant, pant) getting ready to… touch down (gasp)… almost there… NOW… right now… YES! YES! YES!”
Afterward, the weather bureau had a cigarette and we lit more candles down in the basement.
Some years ago we moved to England. Our first winter there, our neighbors were gobsmacked by their conviction that was the wettest, coldest winter on record. Now we live in Scotland, and several of the other dog owners (and really, who else would even be at the park in a snowstorm?) just told me this is supposed to be our coldest year ever. Since last year, at least…
Spring will come to the north of England eventually. Fluffy white clouds, green fields dotted with sheep, lines of dead moles strung up by their noses…
Mary Smith said:
Love it. In the paper today (in Scotland) it said temperatures might drop as low as minus 15 and IF they did then it would be the coldest temperature on record – since 2012.
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barbtaub said:
Bwahahah! (Although…it is pretty cold today!)
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BunKaryudo said:
I guess when nothing in particular is happening, they talk of it as the most unexceptional year on record.
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barbtaub said:
No, that would be exceptional!
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BunKaryudo said:
Yes, but would it be exceptionally exceptional?
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barbtaub said:
Almost certainly the most exceptionally exceptional year ever!
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BunKaryudo said:
Really? Oh not again.
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Gordon Rottman said:
I’ve lived in Texas most of my life and people love to say, “If ya don’t like the weather, wait a minute, it’ll change.” I’ve lived in and visited a lot of other places too and you know what? They all say the same thing. Yep, its an unfathomable fact that the weather does indeed change, and often changes frequently.
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barbtaub said:
I’ve heard that everywhere I go too. But the amazing thing is that every season is the most [fill in the blank] they’ve ever seen around these parts.
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quiall said:
hahaha Here in Canada . . . well we just keep changing our weather! Never a dull day!
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Elyse said:
You know something? I’ve always wondered why weather forecasters were so often wrong, and how they got away with being so bad at their jobs. I didn’t realize it was part of their job descriptions as outlined by you — WTF.
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barbtaub said:
WTF–those weather rascals.
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ionamorrison said:
Funny, a great read. 🙂
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Ellen Hawley said:
What the British add to all this weather weirdness is that they actually apologize to visitors for the bad weather (and there’s always some to apologize for). I bet no other group of people does that.
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barbtaub said:
And the weird part is that when someone does their weather apology, you feel you should forgive them…as if the weather really was all their fault.
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Ellen Hawley said:
And they’d probably feel better if you did.
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Ellen Hawley said:
I forgot to say that I just posted a link to this, since I’d been rattling on about weather.
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Georgia Rose said:
All these comments…and yet no mention of the moles???? Now I like a mole, mostly because I don’t have a lawn…and apart from the ones my dog has delivered to me, as if they were a gift. Who is the prolific mole murderer???
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barbtaub said:
Ah, the moles! I took the picture along a road in Northumberland that was lined with fences, and the fences lined with ex-moles. Apparently (at least according to Wikipedia) back in the day, mole-catchers were paid by the mole. They would string their catch up along the fences and the landowners would be able to calculate the amount due.
Whatever the reason, the mole carnage along the Northumberland country roads was startling.
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Georgia Rose said:
Clearly I have just spent the last couple of days in the wrong part of Northumberland (as that is where I have been) as I didn’t see one mole…hung on a fence or otherwise!!
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barbtaub said:
I think it’s an early springtime phenomenon. Although, really… you can probably be just as glad to miss this one.
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vanbytheriver said:
Love the Lincoln Park pirates ! It seems that each year as we get older, we spend more time focused on the weather…good, bad or indifferent. We were warned this would happen. ☺
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barbtaub said:
I grew up in California, where we really didn’t have weather. My kids don’t believe me, but on the rare occasions that it rained, they would close school early for “Rainy Day Session” and send us home. I think they were worried we’d melt…
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vanbytheriver said:
I can’t even relate to that one. We lived near Buffalo, NY, where school was in session through heavy snows ! Way of life. ☺
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sknicholls said:
I’m really glad you explained the moles. I was starting to worry that you might be like some of my FB friends who seem to have a fetish with dead and abused animals.
Weather is tricky here. I mentioned it was the first cool night of the season in my book and my editor wanted to know why I didn’t have people bundled up at the nudist resort…well, because cool means 76 instead of 86 degrees. No need to bundle up.
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barbtaub said:
Actually…full confession. I was so grossed out by the moles, that I made the Hub get out and take the picture. Neither of us tried to get any closer.
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Kassandra Lamb said:
The first year we moved to Florida was the worst hurricane season in a very long time (seriously, it was–2004; look it up), and people kept apologizing to us for the weather. It was mind-boggling, as if they were responsible for our moving here at such an inauspicious time. We’ve had maybe one mild tropical storm in this area since.
I know when people have nothing better to talk about, they fall back on the weather, but this is ridiculous, folks! WTF
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Kassandra Lamb said:
Also glad you explained about the moles on the fence. That was a little spooky. 🙂
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kimberleycooperblog said:
When I woke up this morning we had snow falling like crazy, in coastal West Sussex, settling too. Ooh, pretty. By the time I got out the shower, it had all gone 😕 Oh well, there’s always next year.
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barbtaub said:
Well, it’s starting to melt but the snow is hanging in there up here in Glasgow. It was pretty fun to see all the little (and not so little) kids at the Botanic Gardens with their sleds!
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cutecelina16 said:
Wonderful
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judithbarrow1 said:
Reblogged this on Barrow Blogs: .
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barbtaub said:
Thanks so much for the reblog Judith!
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Paula said:
My town is snow obsessed. It might, maybe, snow once in a winter, and then often doesn’t stick or melts quickly. A huge snow event would be several inches remaining for a week.
But every year there are multiple snowpocalypse warnings from our local WTF ~ everyone gets all worked up and excited….then pffft ~ just rain folks, nothing to see here.
You’d think, given all the false alarms, people’d be more skeptical. But we fall for it every time.
Suckers.
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barbtaub said:
Well, that beats the City of Chicago (at least when I lived there), where winter comes as a complete surprise every year, with the city scrambling to come up with snow removal, road salt, etc. “Really? Snowstorms two years IN A ROW? What are the chances of that? How could we possible be expected to predict that?”
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Laura (PA Pict) said:
Ha ha ha! It’s so true. Every winter, my mid-Argyll neighbours would declare they had never known rain like it. But they had. Because the previous year was just as torrential as the present one. I’ve yet to decide which nation I’ve lived in is more obsessed with the weather,America or Britain, but both are pretty obsessed it seems and love to have weather as a major topic of conversation. Perhaps that’s why people like to deploy superlatives and otherwise exaggerate the weather: it simply gives them more to talk about.
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barbtaub said:
So true. Of course that’s because in the UK the weather is the only permissible topic for public conversations (or a dog if one of you is thoughtful enough to provide one). If you’re in a pub, you may (depending on how well you know your companions) add football and the telly as topics. And maybe (but only among lifelong friends and close relatives) you can even discuss the cricket.
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Laura (PA Pict) said:
Ha ha ha! That’s a very precise observation about British etiquette.
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patriciaruthsusan said:
Hilarious, Barb. We live in India and they had an exceptional drought here this year. Of course, there was one last year also. They always report the coming weather, but are a bit vague. Oddly enough I lived in tornado alley in Ohio for about 40 years and never saw one. There was always the danger of one, though. One did hit one year toward the center of the state.. 😀 — Suzanne
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