The weather

I was reading a friend's BLOG and rather than submitting a comment to her BLOG, it reminded me of my dad and his fascination with weather. I, too, have been fascinated with weather forecasting for as long as I can remember. I really wanted to be a meteorologist (it only took me 10 minutes to recall that word in my declining brain) for most of my high-school life, until I found out that I would have to take that dreaded course -- chemistry. Aargh!

Back to my father -- he had a barometer, and for as long as I can recall, on a daily basis, he would examine that barometer, call me over to it, if I were in the room, and make adjustments and let me know that he thought we would have good weather, or bad weather, depending on what he read on the barometer. He especially loved it when we had hurricanes or northeasters and he could watch that old barometer bottom out.

He watched the barometer and when it got to a certain pressure he would order mom to get the candles ready because “it” was coming. “It” meaning a bad storm.
One day he watched that barometer and said, “We’re going to get a tornado.” I thought, “Dad, you’ve lost it. South Jersey doesn’t get tornados.” And I have to say that up to that time, no one ever mentioned even the possibility that during a bad thunderstorm we could get a tornado. But sure enough, that particular thunderstorm on that day did contain a tornado. It didn’t hit us and it was what is now known as a Class One tornado, but it came as close as Bellmawr – the next town to our north.

Let’s talk a little of northeasters. I don't know where the weather pundits of today come from when they say nor' easter. In all my life -- until recent weather prognosticators used the term -- I only heard of these storms referred to as north (emphases on the th) easters. We didn't drop those two letters. To me those weather people -- they aren't meteorologists by the way -- seem to be showing a sort of ignorance when they say that (nor' easter). It's like they're mimicking those folks from Maine, who are the ones who say it that way. I could be wrong about this, but I just don't recall every hearing a northeaster referred to as anything other than a northeaster.


Back to the weather. Where dad was proficient at reading a barometer, I used my nose. I knew we were going to get bad weather if I could smell the Delaware River. Who needed a barometer?

I am so glad that I now have the local weather channel (Insight 71) which gives the temperature minute by minute, wind velocity, etc. I also have a thermometer on my sun porch so I can tell if the temperature is warm enough (or cool enough) for me to enjoy sitting or working out there.

Today, Alan asked me why I was reading indoors instead of on the porch. I told him to look at the thermometer -- it was only 55 degrees out there. He told me he didn't even know we had a thermometer out there. I pointed it out, and he wondered why I had it pointing toward the living room, instead of toward the outside. I told him, that I wouldn't be able to read it without going out onto the porch if I had it turned from the living room. I just couldn't fathom why his engineering mind didn't gel with my logical placement of the thermometer.

So dad and I were always "weather" junkies. Once we got a TV, we waited for the TV weather person to come on to let us know what he thought (it was always a "he") the weather was going to be tomorrow and the next day.

I was able, however, by watching clouds, to almost predict what the weather was going to be on most days in south Jersey. I once even predicted a rather large snowstorm -- it was large enough to close school for 4 days.

So, dad and I had weather in common. He had his barometer. I had my nose.