During a quick run to Kroger on Saturday, I heard a girl complaining to her mom that it was cold. (It was 31 with no wind, bearable.)
Mom said: "Stop it! You're from Ohio; you should be used to it."
Those words were spoken like a true Buckeye, because all Buckeyes know, "If you don't like the weather now, wait a minute...it'll change."
In the meantime, buck up, buttercup.
[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Showing posts with label weather. Show all posts
Showing posts with label weather. Show all posts
Monday, March 06, 2017
Monday, January 05, 2015
'The Old Farmer's Almanac,' the Weather, and Being Culture Current
For some reason, ever since I saw a copy of The Old Farmer's Almanac hanging by a wall telephone in the kitchen of a farm house my parents were thinking of buying when I was a kid, I've been hooked on the annual publication. The editors say that the publication goes back to 1792, when it was first published by a journalist named Robert B. Thomas. One online encyclopedia says that the almanac "has proven to be the most durable periodical in American publishing."
Almost every year I pick up a copy, mostly to see how far off or on target the editors are in calling the weather. Each year, the almanac presents an elaborate set of forecasts for the eighteen regions into which they divide the US, including ones for Alaska and Hawaii.
Tonight, the National Weather Service says that here in the Dayton area, we're going to get a fairly heavy snow this evening, with accumulations of between three and five inches.
The almanac designates this area as part of their region 7, the Ohio Valley, and says that on January 1-5, we should expect, "Snow showers, very cold."
Well, it did turn very cold today. The current reading 17-degrees. So, maybe the almanac editors know what they're talking about.
But they also say that January 6 to 10 are to be sunny and mild. The National Weather Service forecast doesn't jibe with that. We'll see.
The almanac claims that it uses three sciences in projecting a year's worth of weather across the US: solar science, studying sun spots and solar activity (the inclusion of which in their method they trace back to Thomas himself); climatology; and meteorology. They claim that last year, they had an 80.6% accuracy rate. If true, that would be pretty impressive forecasting for a whole year.
The publication has a section on astronomy each year. (As well as amusements, the year's big anniversaries, calendars and holidays, food, gardening, home remedies, husbandry, outdoors, romance, and miscellany.)
But disappointingly, it still features a section on astrology, which sort of makes you question the credibility of all the other content.
By the way, this is only the fourth post I've ever written about the weather. But all of them were written during winter. Guess I'm too busy enjoying the weather the rest of the year to talk about it much.
And it's the first time I've written about The Old Farmer's Almanac, proving once again how culture current and cutting edge I truly am.
Almost every year I pick up a copy, mostly to see how far off or on target the editors are in calling the weather. Each year, the almanac presents an elaborate set of forecasts for the eighteen regions into which they divide the US, including ones for Alaska and Hawaii.
Tonight, the National Weather Service says that here in the Dayton area, we're going to get a fairly heavy snow this evening, with accumulations of between three and five inches.
The almanac designates this area as part of their region 7, the Ohio Valley, and says that on January 1-5, we should expect, "Snow showers, very cold."
Well, it did turn very cold today. The current reading 17-degrees. So, maybe the almanac editors know what they're talking about.
But they also say that January 6 to 10 are to be sunny and mild. The National Weather Service forecast doesn't jibe with that. We'll see.
The almanac claims that it uses three sciences in projecting a year's worth of weather across the US: solar science, studying sun spots and solar activity (the inclusion of which in their method they trace back to Thomas himself); climatology; and meteorology. They claim that last year, they had an 80.6% accuracy rate. If true, that would be pretty impressive forecasting for a whole year.
The publication has a section on astronomy each year. (As well as amusements, the year's big anniversaries, calendars and holidays, food, gardening, home remedies, husbandry, outdoors, romance, and miscellany.)
But disappointingly, it still features a section on astrology, which sort of makes you question the credibility of all the other content.
By the way, this is only the fourth post I've ever written about the weather. But all of them were written during winter. Guess I'm too busy enjoying the weather the rest of the year to talk about it much.
And it's the first time I've written about The Old Farmer's Almanac, proving once again how culture current and cutting edge I truly am.
Wednesday, February 02, 2011
We Don't Drive to Our Accidents
Here in Logan and Hocking County, Ohio, we avoided the major "shellacking" of the big winter storm that hit this state and the whole Midwest yesterday. We had icy rain and we experienced high winds, but roads were passable and we got no snow.
But at the Daniels household, we did wake up this morning to a surprise left by the extreme weather. We discovered that a branch broke off from a tree in front of the parsonage in which we live. It crashed into the windshield of our 1997 Ford Escort station wagon, a vehicle affectionately known as the Nanny Mobile.
Fortunately, a new windshield can be installed tomorrow.
But our vehicles haven't fared well when parked curbside since we moved here three-plus years ago.
Shortly after our arrival, a mirror was clipped from our van.
About a year later, our two vehicles were hit by a car that careened into them, totaling all three of them.
After that, we parked one of the replacement cars we purchased in our garage. But there's really only room for one vehicle there.
The local police department, because of what happened to out two totals (on Halloween night, I might add), has allowed us to pull our car over the curb, leaving it to straddle sidewalk and street. But no amount of straddling could have avoided that branch, weighed down by ice, last night.
It could have been worse. That it wasn't is reason for us to be thankful.
What's interesting, of course, is that all of this has happened to our cars when they were stationery and there were no drivers or passengers inside.
We don't drive to our accidents. They come to us.
But at the Daniels household, we did wake up this morning to a surprise left by the extreme weather. We discovered that a branch broke off from a tree in front of the parsonage in which we live. It crashed into the windshield of our 1997 Ford Escort station wagon, a vehicle affectionately known as the Nanny Mobile.
Fortunately, a new windshield can be installed tomorrow.
But our vehicles haven't fared well when parked curbside since we moved here three-plus years ago.
Shortly after our arrival, a mirror was clipped from our van.
About a year later, our two vehicles were hit by a car that careened into them, totaling all three of them.
After that, we parked one of the replacement cars we purchased in our garage. But there's really only room for one vehicle there.
The local police department, because of what happened to out two totals (on Halloween night, I might add), has allowed us to pull our car over the curb, leaving it to straddle sidewalk and street. But no amount of straddling could have avoided that branch, weighed down by ice, last night.
It could have been worse. That it wasn't is reason for us to be thankful.
What's interesting, of course, is that all of this has happened to our cars when they were stationery and there were no drivers or passengers inside.
We don't drive to our accidents. They come to us.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
I'm coming to you from an undisclosed ice chest (AKA: The State of Ohio)
There's a power outage affecting 98% of the households of the county in which I live, including ours. Hocking County, Ohio isn't alone, apparently. Also enduring major outages are a number of other counties here in Appalachian Ohio, as well as the Tristate area around Cincinnati and some parts of central Ohio.
Much of the country, it seems, is enduring the same ordeal.
And it really is an ordeal, for some more than others. Many in our county have been without power since yesterday morning. Our power went out at 5:50pm last night. We were able to sleep comfortably under layers of blankets and comforters.
Functioning outside of the sheets was a more difficult proposition. So too was digging our vehicles out of the striated layers of ice, snow, ice, and snow.
The temperature right now is 25-degrees with a chill factor much lower than that.
We're told that power may not be restored until Sunday night. We shall see.
I hope that you're staying warm and dry wherever you are.
(Our daughter, who lives in Florida, informed me today that the temp was in the eighties!)
[UPDATE, 9:00pm: The power is back on!]
Much of the country, it seems, is enduring the same ordeal.
And it really is an ordeal, for some more than others. Many in our county have been without power since yesterday morning. Our power went out at 5:50pm last night. We were able to sleep comfortably under layers of blankets and comforters.
Functioning outside of the sheets was a more difficult proposition. So too was digging our vehicles out of the striated layers of ice, snow, ice, and snow.
The temperature right now is 25-degrees with a chill factor much lower than that.
We're told that power may not be restored until Sunday night. We shall see.
I hope that you're staying warm and dry wherever you are.
(Our daughter, who lives in Florida, informed me today that the temp was in the eighties!)
[UPDATE, 9:00pm: The power is back on!]
Saturday, March 08, 2008
Snowed In
Logan, county seat of Hocking County, the rural wonderland that sets about fifty-minutes southeast of Columbus, wasn't as hard-hit as the capital city has been by the snow storm of the past twenty-four hours. But we've been under a Level 3 alert, meaning that only emergency vehicles could be on the roads.
In Columbus, over 20-inches of snow fell. Here, we got about half that. I spoke with my dad, who lives in Columbus, little more than an hour ago, and he says that, at this point, he can't even really open the door of his house. Fortunately, he and mom are stocked up.
Worship and all other Sunday activities have been canceled at Saint Matthew Lutheran Church, where I'm privileged to be the pastor. But because our Sunday worship celebrations appear on a local radio station (and carried on the local cable TV access channel), I will be sharing the Bible lessons and the sermon on the air. A member of the congregation, a former radio personality, has also said that he wants to interview me. We'll see how that goes. (Coincidentally, it'll be the second time I'm being interviewed on radio his week.)
Getting snowed in can occasionally be fun. But I am definitely ready for this winter to move on.
By the way, the Columbus Dispatch weather blog is great. Its coverage of the storm has, I think, been better than that appearing in either The Cincinnati Enquirer or The Cleveland Plain Dealer.
In Columbus, over 20-inches of snow fell. Here, we got about half that. I spoke with my dad, who lives in Columbus, little more than an hour ago, and he says that, at this point, he can't even really open the door of his house. Fortunately, he and mom are stocked up.
Worship and all other Sunday activities have been canceled at Saint Matthew Lutheran Church, where I'm privileged to be the pastor. But because our Sunday worship celebrations appear on a local radio station (and carried on the local cable TV access channel), I will be sharing the Bible lessons and the sermon on the air. A member of the congregation, a former radio personality, has also said that he wants to interview me. We'll see how that goes. (Coincidentally, it'll be the second time I'm being interviewed on radio his week.)
Getting snowed in can occasionally be fun. But I am definitely ready for this winter to move on.
By the way, the Columbus Dispatch weather blog is great. Its coverage of the storm has, I think, been better than that appearing in either The Cincinnati Enquirer or The Cleveland Plain Dealer.
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