montana_charlie
01-19-2014, 01:44 PM
My wife and I get much of our news from Foxnews, so we are regularly entertained by the 'cable version' of weather reporting.
The weather person (usually a nice looking female) will break a sweat talking about high temps, drought, and fires in California, and she will shed tears over flooding in Texas.
She gets blown away by tornadoes in Kansas and her knickers will be double-knotted if a hurricane points toward any target in the western hemisphere.
We can sympathize with her anxiety knowing that she has probably experienced none of these 'disasters'. We, on the other hand, have seen all of them up close.
But, our smiles break out during the dramatic reporting of regular old, hum-drum, everyday-type weather systems moving through the country ... especially in winter.
Regardless of where the front spent the last three days, it becomes 'a tense situation' once it gets east of the Great Lakes, and becomes 'potentially life-threatening' when it enters the I-95 corridor.
I'm talking about winds like 30 or 40 mph ... and some may get over 50.
I'm talking temperatures down to -30, but those are 'wind chill equivalents' ... not actual air temperature.
If the temperature (the real one) is zero, and the wind is going at 30mph, that produces a wind chill number of -28. Neither of the two primary values are 'life threatening' (really) and the combination is only a problem if you are running around outside naked.
But to hear the news lady tell it, life as we know it is serious jeapordy.
Sometime recently the news lady mentioned winds in New England that she called 'hurricane force'. I don't remember the actual speed so I can't say if it reached up to the required 74 mph, but we can call it 'high wind'.
Montana is known for being windy on a frequent basis. In the winter, we get the Chinook wind in our area, which raises the temperatures, and melts off the accumulated snow.
For this week, we have been experiencing some balmy weather with gentle Chinook winds. But, last week the winds were something to write home about.
We knew it blew hard, but we didn't get all crazy wondering how hard. Yesterday, a report came out in the Great Falls Tribune that listed some of the highest speeds recorded in our neck of the woods.
The speeds mentioned in the article ranged from 87 mph at Choteau to 117 mph at Augusta. Obviously, winds below 87 just weren't bad enough to report on.
If it was mentioned on TV at all, she would have said 'windy out west' or '(maybe) 'breezy in Billings'.
If the news lady on Foxnews saw something like this in the I-95 corridor, she would be broadcasting from an underground bunker.
The weather person (usually a nice looking female) will break a sweat talking about high temps, drought, and fires in California, and she will shed tears over flooding in Texas.
She gets blown away by tornadoes in Kansas and her knickers will be double-knotted if a hurricane points toward any target in the western hemisphere.
We can sympathize with her anxiety knowing that she has probably experienced none of these 'disasters'. We, on the other hand, have seen all of them up close.
But, our smiles break out during the dramatic reporting of regular old, hum-drum, everyday-type weather systems moving through the country ... especially in winter.
Regardless of where the front spent the last three days, it becomes 'a tense situation' once it gets east of the Great Lakes, and becomes 'potentially life-threatening' when it enters the I-95 corridor.
I'm talking about winds like 30 or 40 mph ... and some may get over 50.
I'm talking temperatures down to -30, but those are 'wind chill equivalents' ... not actual air temperature.
If the temperature (the real one) is zero, and the wind is going at 30mph, that produces a wind chill number of -28. Neither of the two primary values are 'life threatening' (really) and the combination is only a problem if you are running around outside naked.
But to hear the news lady tell it, life as we know it is serious jeapordy.
Sometime recently the news lady mentioned winds in New England that she called 'hurricane force'. I don't remember the actual speed so I can't say if it reached up to the required 74 mph, but we can call it 'high wind'.
Montana is known for being windy on a frequent basis. In the winter, we get the Chinook wind in our area, which raises the temperatures, and melts off the accumulated snow.
For this week, we have been experiencing some balmy weather with gentle Chinook winds. But, last week the winds were something to write home about.
We knew it blew hard, but we didn't get all crazy wondering how hard. Yesterday, a report came out in the Great Falls Tribune that listed some of the highest speeds recorded in our neck of the woods.
The speeds mentioned in the article ranged from 87 mph at Choteau to 117 mph at Augusta. Obviously, winds below 87 just weren't bad enough to report on.
If it was mentioned on TV at all, she would have said 'windy out west' or '(maybe) 'breezy in Billings'.
If the news lady on Foxnews saw something like this in the I-95 corridor, she would be broadcasting from an underground bunker.