Complaints? Stifle them
The WeatherBlog's Complaints Dept. is closed for the week. Sorry. The forecast calls for sunshine most of the week, with daytime highs in the 86 to 89 degree range, which is almost exactly "normal" for this time of year. Ditto for the overnight lows - in the upper 60s to low 70s through the weekend.
On Wednesday, we go over the Heat Hump for the year, the date when the 30-year daily average temperatures begin their long, slooow cooling trend. That will continue through Jan. 30, when the average high of 41 degrees once again turns upward on the long climb toward summer.
There is a chance for some thundershowers later in the week, and through the weekend. But it's not a huge risk, and besides, it's gotta rain every once in a while to get the dirt off my car.
While we're at it, I should take a paragraph here to thank Baltimore Magazine for citing MarylandWeather.com's WeatherBlog as Baltimore's "Best Blog" for 2006. See the current edition. My 93-year-old mother agrees, of course, although she's not altogether sure what a "blog" is.
Comments
I have to agree with Baltimore Magazine, as scary as that sounds. You may not feel loved, since there aren't tons of comments, but I always have the marylandweather.com site up, and send links to your individual entries to my friends, especially as my mood is very weather dependent. Your site is clearly written and accessible, but you also go into the gloriously geeky details!
Posted by: April Walters | July 24, 2006 3:44 PM
Thanks, April, who I swear is not related to me by birth or marriage. But you raise an interesting point. This blog gets thousands of page views per week, usually the second-highest traffic of all our Sun blogs. And the numbers double or triple when snow threatens. So why doesn't it get more comments? What's missing? What's boring? Are weather geeks shy? Have they no opinions? Why do sports blog readers always have so much to say? Not everybody goes to (or cares about) the ball games, but everybody experiences the weather and lives under the sky. What's up with that? Huh?
Posted by: frank roylance | July 24, 2006 4:50 PM
OK, remember you asked for comments :-)
Question: why do people here in Baltimore get so excited about a little snow, when the summer weather here is so brutal? Back in Cleveland we got "lake effect" in the winter and lots of snow (so the city has lots of snow plows) but snow and cold can be handled - put on extra socks, insulate your windows, etc.
What on earth can you do in 100 degrees plus heat? Yes, you can stay inside your airconditioned house - or room. If you're like me and don't have central, that means the whole apartment doesn't get cooled - so part of the place is a Turkish bath.
And how do you go out, like to buy groceries or go to work or that kind of inessential stuff? Has anyone invented a portable air conditioner? Why is a little bit of snow so much more hysteria-worthy than 105 degrees in the shade?
Karen (previously of Cleveland)
Posted by: Karen Heckert | July 25, 2006 7:51 AM
I suspect it's all about what you're used to. You get lots of cold and snow, you have warm clothes, snow plows and slick-driving skills. You have more hot, humid weather, you wear as little as possible, move around as little as possible and stick by the AC or the fan. You slow down and you acclimate. You sit on the stoop.
Posted by: frank roylance | July 25, 2006 10:39 AM