Rain has arrived!...in October. I have to say, I still find the weather strange. It was only a few weeks ago that temperatures soared up into the 110+ degrees Fahrenheit, but now it's the complete opposite with storm clouds dominating every part of the sky. The weather just doesn't seem to be making up its mind as to what it wants to do, which somewhat makes me sad.
 |
| I was told to look happy, but I was mostly laughing at the situation this picture was taken in. |
Lizzie is sad too. Actually, she's mostly sad over the fact that one of the weather blogs she followed is no longer posting (http://www.signonsandiego.com/weblogs/weather-watch/). I can't tell you whether or not the blog was a good one (especially since I didn't know that weather blogs existed), but I am taking it on Lizzie's word that it was the best weather blog to be created. Personally, I thought that a weather blog was somewhat strange and kept by bloggers who weren't sure of what else they should be observing or commenting on besides the weather, to which I think is fine since everyone has their own idiosyncracies. (Note from Lizzie: This weatherblog was fantastic, especially as a grad student who was based 3.5K miles from my field sites in San Diego most of the year, and whenever you thought, ‘boy, is it oddly wet’ you could check it and it would say ‘this is the wettest March since . . . . ‘ And it did a complete review of all ENSO predictions.)
Anyway, the other big issue with the rain is that it’s putting a crimp in field work plans. Doing phenology work on first leaf means getting the jump on the season. But scheduling that work also means having some guesses at the seasons. Lizzie and I were hoping to collect some coastal sage scrub high-resolution phenology data – in the winter (the winter being when things usually start growing). Now we’re going to re-assess.
To take my sadness and slight displeasure to the rain, I have written an open letter to the weather, to which I will not have any responses.
Open letter to the storm clouds:
Hello, how are you? Fantastic. I've noticed that you've arrived somewhat early this year, and though normally I would be glad to see you, I'm tired of you quite frankly. This year was the first summer that I spent in San Diego, and I had expected San Diego to live up to its amazingly beautiful and sunny reputation. You, however, have dashed my hopes of San Diego ever being sunny again. Don't take this personally, storm clouds, I do like you...just not at this moment.
Fortunately, the temperature is still warm enough that your cold raindrops do not give me chills when I bike downhill heading home after a day on campus. At times, I even enjoy the rain that you bring down upon me, but I'm not here to tell you how I enjoy some of the benefits of your arrival. No, I'm writing to tell you that I am displeased, that you make places much less convenient to get to. If only you weren't so finicky as to when you decide to rain.
And curses to you too, not-so-accurate Weather.com. You have not lived up to your services either, especially your 'hourly' tab, where you think you are so accurate as to what the chance of precipitation is and its time of arrival. I am starting to wonder whether or not you are working together with these weather forecast services, storm clouds.
I hope you will be able to find some time to respond to me and retreat for a while, just so the days are actually days instead of a seamless evening. I do really miss the sun. Also, my tomato seedlings need sunlight too. I hope to not see you anytime soon in the next few days.
Sincerely,
Winny
No comments:
Post a Comment