Thursday, April 7, 2005, 11:49 AM - Musings
Over this past weekend April 3 and 4, we drove to New Jersey even though heavy rain was forecast here in RI. Starting out at 7am Sunday morning we were having good weather and then two hours out a call was made to my host (Ken Negus in Princeton NJ) to see if all was well there as the reports came in that flooding was taking place in NJ. Ken reported that it was clear in Princeton, that they were on higher ground so we proceeded to drive on. The Sun was shining amidst some clouds and not a drop fell until we hit the New York border. It's such a pretty drive over the Tappan Zee Bridge and on the Garden State Parkway but we did encounter a heavy cloudburst for about 5 minutes - all in all a rather uneventful trip, despite what the tv forecasters were describing.
Of course I doublechecked my own weather charts earlier in the week and found no problem with driving down on the third. It is rather nice to report that all went well.
Princeton is a lovely town, prettier and more rarified than our local campus at Brown University - more ivy, I should think.
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Friday, March 25, 2005, 02:50 PM - Musings
One of my favorite weather forecasters besides Bill Gile of Channel 10 tv is Gary Ley. Bill is a gentleman and Gary seems so genuine and trys so hard and produces a heck of a good forecast. Why the bravo? Well, Gary opened his forecast (after the last storm where 8-10 inches of snow was forecast and didn't fall) with 'well, it was good for you but not so good for me'. I can't tell you how much I appreciate the lack of pretense or covering over a not so good forecast. I'll bet you did too. Well done Gary!
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Thursday, March 24, 2005, 03:06 PM - Musings
Hey, we didn't get the 8 to 10 inches of snow forecast by the tv meteorologists. What we got was a lot of something that looks like sorbet - a kind of sherbert served inbetween meals to clear the palate! They have had these nebulous systems to deal with and have to take their chances on the amount of snow that may fall. The exceptional downpour I expected mostly materialized. I don't really have a word for the sorbet like mixture - actually, the word is slush so I'm making fun. Here in Bristol RI I we had a very compact slush and a friend called me to say I was 'right on' with my forecast because she got about an inch of slush up in Quincy, MA. That was nice that she called.
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Wednesday, March 23, 2005, 05:46 AM - Techniques
Our local mets forecast for snow earlier this week didn't pan out. I thought the same wet event wouldn't amount to much and it didn't. However, I have a forecast for exceptional downpours at the end of this lunar period (23rd to 25th) and the mets have 4 to 8 inches of snow coming our way. One of the techniques used to insure an astromet forecast is to follow a longitude and a declination aspect of the same two influences within 24-36hrs.
In general, the colder influences in a chart are aspects from Mercury, Saturn and Uranus. The aspects for today and tomorrow, the 23rd of March are:
Moon opposite Uranus
Moon contraparallel Uranus
Moon parallel Mercury
Moon sextile Saturn
The mets could be right as the colder air seems to be coming into place. Let's see what happens.
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Tuesday, March 22, 2005, 08:58 AM - Musings
The Sun is shining brightly in a clear blue sky and there is a gentle breeze. It looks like spring and feels like spring today.On the way into town early this morning I saw a road sign that read: SPRING IS DELAYED UNTIL?
I gave a chuckle and wondered if someone had read my spring report where I said there would be no sustained warming for several weeks.
The local mets had us prepare for rain/snow on the 20-21st of March but all that fell were a few raindrops here and there. In my report I have lots more rain for the 23-25th and I can see the system approaching from the southeast on the weather channel. Take advantage of the good days when you have them.
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