Thursday, February 25, 2010

My obsession with the weather

I’d like to tell you that my obsession with the weather has everything to do with avoiding unusually long drives to the mountains. But that’s just not true.

I check the weather each morning and night so I know what to wear, and what the kids should wear to school. The funny thing is, I work mostly from home so what I wear doesn’t much matter. But the kids need to know if they can wear shorts (default, this is California) or need to wear pants and/or jackets.
One afternoon during my sophomore year of college I was reading in bed. The sky turned black and I heard a siren. I kept reading. Only later did I learn that it was a tornado warning and that a twister had touched down on the campus. I won’t be so clueless again.
I’ve now got weather down to a science. I start by checking the default weather app on my iPhone. That gives me a general idea. Then I go to weather.com to check the hour by hour forecast. If it’s not a Chamber of Commerce Day, I go to my computer to the live doppler on cbs5.com to see exactly where the storm is and its severity. I love live radars!
If we’re in Tahoe or headed for Tahoe I go to the National Weather Service web site and click a few times to see exactly how much snow has fallen at several specific spots: Donner Summit, Squaw High Camp, Squaw Base Camp, etc. This information is updated hourly.
My family thinks I’m nuts.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...
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Tristan said...

You are so funny! I to try to get a general idea of the weather so I know how to dress myself and the kids. In Utah it means the difference from snow boots or regular shoes as well as heavy coats.

UGH! I miss California!

Polka Dot Moon said...

I check weather too. Although the worst conditions we've ever had here is the tarmac melting at the airport when the temps were 122.

Paige said...

This is hilarious. Especially in light of my just arrived 8 hour drive to tahoe with chains and now the highway closed in nyack so Celia had to turn around and go home. We should have checked the weather. Or at least called you!