The R. I. Pocock's Birthday Storm
March 4th is the 153rd anniversary of the birth of British zoologist Reginald Innes (R. I.) Pocock, whose name definitely sounds like the punchline of a Bart Simpson prank call.
Anywho, this little storm is going to be our last real tangle with Old Man Winter.
What to expect:
Thursday 3/3 is sunny and cold, but with much calmer winds. High in the mid to upper 30s. Snow showers roll in starting around 10 or 11pm. Snow on and off throughout the night. Temperatures hold steady just below freezing, so most of the accumulation should be on grassy and unpaved surfaces. Still, watch for slippery roadways.
Friday 3/4 will begin with snow showers making the morning commute a bit hazardous; snow ends toward noon. There may be a lingering snow shower or two in the afternoon (or a flurry), but that's it. High in the upper 30s, low in the lower 20s.
Chance of delay Friday: 29%
Chance of cancellation Friday: 17%
Saturday 3/5 will be partly sunny, but clouding up toward evening. There could even be a snow shower or two on Saturday night. High in the mid 40s.
Sunday 3/6 looks overcast with temperatures rising toward 50.
Monday 3/7 (Wanda Sykes' birthday), upper 50s.
Tuesday 3/8 (Micky Dolenz' birthday), upper 60s!
Wednesday 3/9 (Emmanuel Lewis' birthday) and Thursday 3/10 (Chuck Norris' birthday), 70s!!
Then we get back to normal (highs in the 50s), but no more snow.
Monsoon
The Edward James Olmos' Birthday Storm
Legendary stage and screen actor Edward James Olmos, best known for his roles as the stolid Lieutenant Martin Castillo on "Miami Vice" and as cal-KOO-lus teacher Jaime Escalante in 1988's Stand and Deliver, turns 69 on Wednesday 2/24. He's a really good actor and I have long admired his activism, especially around Chicano issues. So he deserves a storm, right?
There are all sorts of factors at play for the EJO B-Day Storm: sun angle, jet stream, extreme low pressure, and convective bloviation.
Confession: that last thing, I made up. (All the rest of them are real.)
Here's what to expect over the next 10 days or so:
Tonight: cloudy with a shower or two. No big. Temperatures falling from the 50s now to the 30s by morning commute.
Monday 2/22: clearing with highs in the upper 40s.
Tuesday 2/23: afternoon showers with a high in the lower 40s, then rain likely in the evening and overnight. Lows will be at or just above freezing, so we could see some travel issues for the Wednesday morning commute. (If the storm tracks farther east, we could see a bit more of an issue with snow and/or ice. But right now, it looks like all rain.)
Wednesday 2/24: rainy and breezy all day with temps in the mid to upper 40s. We will likely get an inch to an inch and one or two fifths on Wednesday, so pondiness and flooded roadways are something to watch out for.
Chance of delay Wednesday: 21%
Chance of cancellation Wednesday: 6%
Thursday 2/25: overcast, quite windy and drizzly. Highs in the upper 40s.
Friday 2/26: partly cloudy, but breezy and noticeably cooler. Highs in the upper 30s will feel like the upper 20s. Overnight lows in the low 20s will feel like the teens. So, colder.
Saturday 2/27 and Sunday 2/28: sunny with highs only in the low to mid 30s.
Leap Day: snow. For real. Right now it looks like the kind of event that would give us 2-4 inches, but that's way premature. Nah, I shouldn't have said that. Forget I said that.
Lion Day: I call it that because March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. And because March 1 is also the birthday of Winston Rodney, better known as Burning Spear, who took his stage name from Kenya's liberator and namesake, Jomo Kenyatta, who was a contemporary of Haile Selassie, who is a central figure of Rastafarianism, which considers him "the conquering lion of the tribe of Judah." So it all fits.
Anywho, the weather on 3/1 will be sunny and cold (high near freezing).
Future action: Anything else on the horizon? Maybe a little dusting on Thursday 3/3. Otherwise, nah.
Monsoon
Light wintry mix overnight, then windy, then springy.
A weak cold front will move through overnight Sunday to Monday. It will produce a few light snow showers and flurries overnight (between about midnight and 6am). Accumulations will be 0 to 0.1 inches, mostly on grassy surfaces. No travel impacts. No delays or cancellations. (But anytime we're talking about wintry precipitation, it's still officially boot weather.)
Clearing on Monday. Becoming mostly sunny with a high of 56. Monday 3/30 is MC Hammer's 53rd birthday. And on March 30, 1964, Tracy Chapman (singer-songwriter best known for "Fast Car") and Ian Ziering (actor in "90210" and the Sharknado franchise, as well as a memorable turn as host of the all-too-brief reality dance competition, "Your Mama Don't Dance") were both born. I cannot think of any cosmic significance to the fact that they were both born on the same day. But it was information I felt you needed.
Tuesday, March 31st is the 88th birthday of William Daniels, who provided the voice of K.I.T.T. in a little series called "Knight Rider." On the same day in 1927, Cesar Chavez (the great labor leader and civil rights activist) was born. (He has since died, back in 1993.) Again, I cannot peg the cosmic significance here.
Oh, and the weather on Tuesday: generally overcast with a few (rain) showers in the afternoon; high of 48.
Wednesday: sunny, seasonably gorgeous. High of 53.
Thursday: partly sunny and quite mild (but a bit breezy) and a high of 94! Wait, make that 64. But still.
Friday: overcast, a few showers, still mild. High of 66. And it's the 70th birthday of Bernie Parent (pronounced "puh-RAHNT" - he's French Canadian). For the uninitiated, Bernie was the best Flyers goaltender of all time. Flyers, hockey. Ice hockey. A popular regional bumper sticker in his heyday read, "Only the Lord saves more than Bernie Parent." See, when the goalie stops the puck, it's called a "save." (The puck, no, not a urinal puck. The thing they play with. Well I don't know why it's called that! Forget it.) He led the Flyers to two consecutive Stanley Cups (championships) in the mid 1970s.
The weekend: a bit cooler (highs in the low to mid 50s) but sunny and really nice for the first weekend of April.
The following week looks rainy in general with highs fluctuating from the 50s-60s (Mon-Wed) to the 40s (Thu-Fri).
Thereafter, we here at the Monsoon Martin WeatherCenter see a warming trend: highs in the 60s and 70s throughout mid-April.
Enjoy your lives.
And stay tuned for updates!
Down to 19 tonight, then springlike
Moses Malone (r), elated. Like, the happiest he's ever been, and that's his face.As of today - Sunday, 3/22/15 - there are 53 days of school remaining. (Not that anyone is counting.)
Really cold tomorrow morning: down to 19. Monday 3/23 will be sunny and breezy with highs around 40. (It's also Moses Malone's 60th birthday.)
Haywood Nelson as Dwayne Nelson in the critically acclaimed comedy-drama, "What's Happening!!"Tuesday gets a little milder: high in the mid 40s with sunny skies and calm winds.
Wednesday gets up to 50, but is mostly cloudy with a few showers in the afternoon and evening. It's also Aretha Franklin's 73rd birthday. She is the Queen of Soul. When I was little, I would pronounce her first name as "Urethra" and then giggle madly. Alright, I still do.
3/25 is also the 55th birthday of Haywood Nelson (Dwayne from "What's Happening!!"). Here is the entirety of my exclusive interview with Mr. Nelson:
Monsoon: What's happenin'?
Mr. Nelson: Hey HEY hey!
Monsoon: You are turning 55. Do you enjoy getting older?
Mr. Nelson: Uh-UH!
Monsoon: I enjoyed you in the series "What's Happening!!"
Mr. Nelson: Hey HEY hey!
Monsoon: Good talk.
Mr. Nelson: Uh-UH!
Vicki Lawrence (l) with Tim Conway and Carol Burnett.Thursday is rainy and even a little humid with a high of 62! Windy, too. So that's a swing of 43 degrees between Monday morning and Thursday afternoon. ("That's how you get sick," my Nana would say. She would also say, "He doesn't know his ass from a hole in his ass," so it was a mixed bag with her.)
Birthdays on Thursday: James Caan (75), Bob Woodward (72), Diana Ross (71), Vicki Lawrence (66), Martin Short (65), and Keira Knightley (30).
Breezy, chilly, and variably cloudy on Friday with a high of 41.
Vince Vaughn as Wes Mantooth in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.Next weekend looks seasonably nice: high of 43 on Saturday, near 50 on Sunday. Sunny and dry both days. And Saturday is Vince Vaughn's 45th birthday. And Kate Gosselin's 40th! So Happy Birthday to the pride of Berks County!! (Note: if someone knows her, please tell her that I would be delighted if she'd grant me a birthday interview. Seriously!)
Getting up to 70 (!) by April 1st and 2nd.
Stay tuned for updates!
Friday update - Thursday 3/19
Winter Weather Advisories have been issued for the northern and western suburbs of Philadelphia as well as Berks and the Lehigh Valley.
I think even in the places where mostly snow falls (mixing only briefly with rain in the afternoon), we're going to get 2-3 inches at most. (Estimates of up to six inches of accumulation are overstated, I think.)
Snow begins by 7 or 8am, continues on and off throughout the day, then drops off starting around 7 or 8pm (then ends by midnight). I think the accumulations are mainly on grassy surfaces. The roads will be a bit slippery initially (maybe up to about 10am), but then should just be slushy and/or wet.
Chance of delay Friday, 35.66%
Chance of cancellation Friday, 27.31%
Chance of early dismissal Friday, 11.94%
Wyatt Earp, age 47. He lived a hard life.It's the 167th birthday of Wyatt Earp, whose eclectic employement history includes stints as a pimp, mining speculator, boxing referee, sheriff, bouncer, shepherd, turnip farmer, and inventor of the iPad. Remember the Gunfight at the OK Corral? Back in the early 1880s? That guy. He died 86 years ago.
So then it still gets warmer on Saturday: high 40s to 50, so all the snow melts.
Stay tuned for updates!
This crap about Friday.
So it's going to snow.
The vernal equinox at 6:45pm on Friday 3/20. At that moment, spring begins. And at that moment, it will be wet snowing / raining and it will be 34 degrees. It is a cruel, prickish joke that Mother Nature is pulling.
Snow begins about 6 or 7am Friday, spreading into the area from the southwest. Snow continues on and off until 3 or 4pm, when it mixes with rain. Precipitation changes back to snow before ending round about midnight.
Accumulation: an inch or two, mostly slush on the roads; the bulk of the accumulation will be on the grass and whatnot. The onset before dawn (when paved surfaces are at their coldest) could impact the morning commute. The sun angle and surface temperature will generally prevent travel issues in the afternoon and evening. We may see some slippery spots reemerge during the late evening.
A side note: it is kind of, really, awfully depressing to be talking about snow on March 18th. *sigh*
Chance of delay Friday, 19%
Chance of cancellation Friday, 9%
Chance of early dismissal Friday, 37%
Saturday will start cold (32 degrees at dawn), but temperatures will rise rapidly: 40 by noon, 50 by 6pm. So any snow that accumulates Friday will melt Saturday.
And then Sunday is windy and cold again, much like today (Wednesday 3/18).
Here's something, though. Friday is Ovid's 2058th birthday. (He died 1998 years ago, though.) He wrote the Metamorphoses, which is a super-long poem that chronicles historical stuff and is known to have inspired Dante, Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, and Stephenie Meyer. In that work, he said, "Be patient and tough; one day this pain will be useful to you." So that is profound.
Ovid, pensive.
Stay tuned for updates!
The vicissitudes of mid-March...
Hey there - just a brief forecast about the coming week. Some of you have been hearing about the potential for wintry precipitation on Friday, so here's the straight dope.
Note: the origin of this phrase comes from betting on the ponies. When stimulants had been given to racehorses (that is, they had been doped), gamblers wanted to know about it. The term "straight dope" started as a phrase describing what had been given to those poor animals, then came to mean the (very salient) information itself.
But, as always, I digress.
David Hasselhoff has been cast in Sharknado 3, due out (on Syfy) this summer. It's apparently set in Washington, D.C. and features Mark Cuban (the outspoken billionaire Dallas Mavericks owner) as the President and Ann Coulter (the hatemongering right-wing pundit/columnist/she-devil) as the Vice President. Whatever. Hasselhoff!!!
Tuesday 3/17 begins with a few showers and overcast skies, reaching a high in the mid to upper 50s by early afternoon. Then temperatures fall, winds kick up, and we get a few degrees below freezing by early Wednesday morning.
Wednesday looks windy and colder with highs only in the upper 30s.
Thursday is partly sunny and a bit milder with highs in the mid 40s.
Precipitation moves in late Thursday night into Friday. Surface temperatures will be above freezing, but cold air in the upper atmosphere could bring us some wintry precipitation. Right now I'd say we get mainly rain with a bit of wet snow (melting on surfaces) mixed in. We'd really need snow to fall heavily to accumulate at this time of year, and this won't be heavy. I think it's no big deal.
Chance of delay Friday, 17%
Chance of cancellation Friday, 3.75%
Saturday gets milder (high in the low 50s) but is breezy and overcast generally. A few rain showers are possible overnight into Sunday.
Colder, then: highs in the 40s and lows around freezing on Sunday and Monday. And Tuesday.
Stay tuned for updates!
A very little bit of freezing rain possible in the AM...
So the National Weather Service has put out an advisory or whatever, and I thought I should comment on it.
That is what could happen:
Overnight temps get below freezing, and light freezing rain showers between 2 and 6am would create an icy glaze on roads and sidewalks. And people would be like, "Do de do, spring has sprung, I'm not fully awake, but here I go to work--shit, I'm down." And they would fall on their asses.
Or toodling along to work in the drizzle and like, "Ah, balls, case of the Mondays, blah--shit, ice." And then your car skids.
Happy 44th birthday on Monday to Emmanuel Lewis, who played the title character in the 80s sitcom Webster, which was a truly terrible show that I nonetheless have inexplicable nostalgia for.The thing is, though, I don't think any of this is going to happen.
Chance of delay Monday, 22%
Chance of cancellation Monday, 0.0075%
And then Monday ends up near 50 with partly sunny skies.
Overcast with a little rain on Tuesday. High again near 50.
Wednesday and Thursday look mostly sunny with highs at (or just above) 50.
Rainy Friday, but no frozen precipitation.
We may even see the sixties next week (the 16th to the 20th)! And then we can all say it's too warm, where is spring, and crap.
Stay tuned for updates!