No Weather for Old Men

Our sister paper in Fredericksburg gave some space to a guy who feels betrayed by those of us in the weather business.  Even though his essay evokes memories of Dana Carvey’s grumpy-old-man persona on Saturday Night Live, you might be surprised to hear that he has some valid points.

He appears to be somewhere between Culpeper and Fredericksburg, which is actually the genesis of the problem.  He has not found anyone that is looking at his weather locally.

But the weathermen, both the D.C. folks and the experts from The Weather Channel, predicted storms for the afternoon. Many people adjusted their plans accordingly.

The Washington folks have far more people to serve within a 25 miles radius of the capital.  The harsh reality is that he is not worth their personal attention. 

And The Weather Channel is in Atlanta. 

About 11 a.m., I got a Weather Channel alert on my phone saying that storms would begin about 1 p.m. A few minutes later, the National Weather Service issued a severe thunderstorm watch.

The phone alert is automated. A computer algorithm. Yes, it is based on actual data, but there is no human oversight of most weather apps.  We could go on and on about the marketing and the folly of some weather apps, but that’s an essay for another time.

A Severe Thunderstorm Watch means conditions are favorable for damaging thunderstorms in the coming hours.  It doesn’t mean they are on the way.

Similarly, we don’t have the time here to go down the whole watch vs. warning rabbit hole. I’ve known the difference since I was 9 years old, but I will admit, the wording could be better.

Forecasters do okay when they make general predictions but too often they mess up when they try to pinpoint times.

There is a grain of truth here, at least in the summer. In July and August, when the processes that initiate thunderstorm development are so small, forecasting the precise location and timing of them is still not something that is done well, by a human or by a computer simulation.

It is unquestionably better than 30 years ago, but it still has a ways to go.  It’s like figuring out where the bubbles will form in a pot of water when you turn on the stove.  That’s not to say there is no skill, but that level of precision is exceedingly limited during July and August.  Other times of year, forecasting arrival times of precipitation is easier, as the processes involved are larger in scale and easier to simulate mathematically.

I’ve seen TV weathermen declare that it is raining over my house when the sun is shining.

Everyone taking in weather information on a screen needs to understand something. The radar will not tell you precisely what is going on at your house. 

The radar that serves Fredericksburg is on the grounds of Dulles Airport. Because Earth is curved, the radar beam is about 3000 feet above the ground by the time it reaches Fredericksburg. It is not uncommon, especially in the winter, for the radar to pick up water drops and ice crystals at that height, even though they evaporate before ever reaching the ground.

…lines of storms seem to split in my area with the rain going north and south while my fields stay dry.

I can pull out my own grumpy old man voice here: If I had a dime for every time I heard someone complain about storms magically splitting and missing them, I could have retired 15 years ago. 

Storms follow the Rappahannock and the Rapidan rivers, which is why places like Orange and Fredericksburg get soaked while Culpeper remains dry.

No.

Look, I really want to be tactful and polite, but that’s not how it works.  That’s not how any of this works.

Storms follow the average wind speed and direction through the middle part of the atmosphere. We have decades of actual data to prove it. Do conditions on the ground affect storms? Absolutely.  Do they magically follow a river?  No. 

By coincidence, several rivers generally flow west to east in Virginia, which is also a common direction of a thunderstorm’s steering winds.

Over the last 30 years, I’ve been continuously amazed at how important it is for some people to be emotionally involved in owning their weather. How they feel that their weather is different and more special than everyone else’s, defying the rules of physics and thermodynamics.

This happens frequently when a 100-mph microburst causes wind damage. If you tell someone it was a microburst rather than a tornado, they get offended, as if you’ve taken something away from them. 

I suppose “I survived a microburst” isn’t as good of a story as “I survived a tornado.” 

I have conceded that some people will never believe me, because I committed the mortal sin of studying the weather as a vocation for the last 30 years in the hopes of saving lives and property.

Saturday the Weather Channel predicted that the sky would fall so many times that by nightfall nobody believed the alerts that kept coming.

I have friends at the Weather Channel, so let’s just say that marketing the weather is very different from communicating the weather. There are several places to get good local weather information. And several that are questionable.  

Caveat emptor.

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Origin Story

The people who wrote the Constitution in the summer of 1787 knew what they were doing. The First Amendment follows the concluding section of George Mason’s Virginia Declaration of Rights, which was adopted by the Virginia Constitutional Convention a few weeks before the Declaration of Independence was approved by the Continental Congress.

They were imperfect, like everyone else, but they understood the history of Europe to that time. They had seen how empowering the state to enforce a specific religious doctrine was regularly used to intimidate, persecute, imprison, or kill people.

It is why French Huguenots settled up river from the falls of the James at the start of the 18th century. They are my ancestors; it is the origin story of my family in North America.

The Huguenots were Protestants, and they had repeated conflicts with the French monarchy, which was dominated by Catholics. During the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of 1572, a large group of Huguenots gathered in Paris for the wedding of Prince Henry of Navarre, a Protestant.

King Charles IX had 3000 Huguenots killed that day.

But in 1589, Prince Henry became King Henry IV, and even though he was Protestant, he remained deeply under the influence of the Catholic Church. After ten years, he was able to issue the Edict of Nantes, granting some limited religious freedom to the Huguenots, but it restricted Protestant churches and public worship to only certain towns around the country.

Decades later, after ascending to the throne, Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685. He exiled all Protestant clergy, and his military attacked and destroyed most remaining Protestant churches. Many Huguenots managed to escape to neighboring countries that were sympathetic, even though they were forbidden from leaving their home country.

Those who remained in France were either imprisoned, killed, or forced to convert to Catholicism. My family, which was living in the village of Sedan, near the Belgian border, had initially escaped to Germany before the Edict was revoked. But the French armies followed.

The family then resettled to London. It was not as oppressive there, but cultural differences made conditions far from ideal. In time, the British crown offered my ancestors passage to Virginia, where they settled upriver from modern day Richmond in the summer of 1700. Abraham Soblet, my 7th great-grandfather, was on that ship.

A dominant religion felt threatened by a non-conforming minority of people, who posed no legitimate threat to them or their power, but out of ignorance and fear, those in power attacked them anyway.

In America in 2022, there is a dominant religion that feels threatened by a non-conforming minority of people, who pose no legitimate threat to them or their power, but out of ignorance and fear, those in power attack them anyway.

In both cases, the people who follow that dominant religion believe they are better than you. More moral than you. Closer to God than you. They are saved. You are not. And in their mind, it is their obligation to remind you of that, rather than allow you to worship as your conscience tells you.

Notice the tone in their voice, the word choice in their rhetoric, the condescension in their mannerisms.

They take delight in telling you how lost you are. How wrong you are. How you haven’t found the right way. How you haven’t found the truth.  How you just don’t understand.

How there is something wrong with you for not blindly believing in the authenticity of a group of stories which has not been updated in 400 years.

And how are you going to hell.

A dozen thoughts before an election

One. When I was in 7th grade, I first took a short course in marketing and advertising. I think a lot about that class now, and how the right words, images, and music can convince you of an idea. How they can push your emotional buttons just enough to make you buy a product or turn you against one of your neighbors. Like when the word socialism is tossed around so haphazardly today as a scare tactic.

Two. To watch one major political party repress votes is a damning indication that they know they have a dim future, and the only way they can stay in power is to cheat. These last four years the federal government is drifting further toward authoritarianism. They frame their vision as “Real America” with the arrogance of oligarchs. These are things antithetical to our constitutional republic.

Three. I struggle to understand the women who support the current executive. Perhaps they imagine he is fighting for them against an imaginary enemy, using all those tools I first heard about in the 7th grade. But from here, those individuals bear a striking similarity to those who cannot break free from an abusive relationship.

Four. I am frustrated with those who tell me people should get along regardless of who they support in this federal election. While I agree that whether you want a more limited or active federal government does not make you a bad person, supporting the current executive – who is the very definition of a malignant narcissist – makes me question your judgment, your patriotism, and your commitment to playing fair.

Five. I remember the first moment of dread in the summer of 2016, when my mother started telling me how the older men in her church were speaking so highly of the person who would go on to win the election that fall. I thought for sure men who boasted about their Christianity would see the fundamental problems with that individual and would put country over party. I was wrong. Apparently, lying, cheating, abusing, belittling and mocking were all okay.

Six. I have heard a group of people complaining that electing Democrats will mean their guns will be taken away. I’ve heard this for 40 years. These are the same people that keep telling me that the rapture of the church and the return of Christ are just around the corner. Neither have happened.

Seven. People I love and respect told me they didn’t vote for him, they voted for the Republican party, so they held their nose and cast their ballots. Holding your nose and voting for a monster is still voting for a monster. It is still voting to give power to a bully and an abuser. I listened, shocked and disappointed, to the stories they would invent about the other candidate to make them feel better about the poor decision they just made in the voting booth.

Eight. The confederate statues along Monument Avenue in my hometown needed to come down. For as much fear and trepidation that was sold by religious conservatives during the Obama administration, all of those statues stayed put. Unchecked police power, a long history of racial repression, and a spiteful, hateful federal executive were the catalysts to bring them down. When I walked down that avenue in the summer of 2020, it was far different from the old-money avenue of the 20th century. Conservatives abandoned it for the suburbs.

Nine. I’m angry about the cost of healthcare and higher education. They have spiraled out of control. I don’t want them to be free, but as a percentage of median incomes, they are egregiously high.

Ten. When did we embrace laissez-faire capitalism again? A hundred years ago, Teddy Roosevelt recognized what was going on globally, as true socialist movements were on the rise. To keep them from happening in the United States, he made it a point to break up Standard Oil — putting a check on corporate economic power. Capitalism with some modest regulations allowed the country to prosper outside of wartime. Dwight Eisenhower understood that as well.

Eleven. When did we start celebrating and elevating ignorance? Thirty years ago, I worked my college summers and breaks at a construction site, and the conservative men in their 50s and 60s repeatedly told me, “Get your college degree, you don’t want to be doing this when you’re my age.” Now there is a political party which mocks educational achievement and embraces conspiracy theories. Running away from facts and established knowledge because you don’t like them is not the way to build a competitive nation in a 21st century global marketplace.

Twelve. What would Jesus do? I’ve worshipped in Baptist and Catholic churches. If you think He would re-elect the current executive, you’re not really following Christ. If you fail to see that, you might want to find another church.

Science is real. Black Lives Matter. Women’s rights are human rights. Love is Love. Vote.

You Get The Media You Deserve

Can’t read it now? Listen to a narration of this post at SoundCloud.

***

Blaming the media is blaming the Constitution. But this is nothing new. After all, the Alien and Sedition Acts were passed in the 1790s — the ink on the Constitution was barely dry.

For those of us born before the 1980s, we need to come to terms with something: there is no mainstream media anymore. The falling costs of audio-visual hardware and high-speed internet have made 21^st century media a free-for-all. Let the buyer beware.

Sure, there is legacy media, what we used to call the Big 3 Network newscasts. And of course, there is cable news, which has largely devolved into opinion and personality driven programming.

And there are the local outlets. I have personally worked with people I would trust my life with at some of these local shops, and with good reason. By and large, local media are trusted far more than national media. These are people who live and raise families in the communities that they serve. They work very hard to get the best information they can to you. But you need to know something.

They are under tremendous pressure. Especially now. But they were under pressure long before this.

The most comical thing I repeatedly read is that the people in the media are telling you what they want you to believe. More ludicrous is the idea that one outlet, or another, is telling you the real story, while everyone else is lying.

The goal of television news is to get you to watch. Period.

The means to that end may differ among outlets, depending on what demographic they are trying to attract, but it is the same goal.

It is why managers and ownership groups spend ungodly sums of money researching what kind of stories viewers want to see.

Station owners – corporations, if you will — are sinking tremendous resources into figuring out what types of stories you want to watch. Viewers have more choices now than in the 1970s, ‘80s, or ‘90s. Far more. Eyeballs are going elsewhere.

What types of stories are these? Ones that get you emotionally involved so that you continue to watch. Facts are boring. Emotions? Well, that hooks you. That pulls you in.

Does the story piss you off? Does it make you feel good?

Does it expose the powerful abusing the weak? Or perhaps the weak getting revenge?

Does it make you feel nostalgic? Does it make you feel good about being an American?

Or does it push the most primal button of all?

Fear.

Fear of things, ideas, or people you don’t understand. A threat to your job and livelihood, a threat to your health or the health of your family, or even a threat to your life.

A threat to long held, yet potentially incorrect ideas that you have otherwise grown quite comfortable with. Ideas that you’ve based your entire identity upon, which may not actually be true.

Look, I’m not a fan of this model. I shake my head when I see large text across the bottom of a screen that reads, MILLIONS UNDER TORNADO THREAT or TERRORISM ALERT DESK.

***

This emotional aspect is especially true of cable news programming. Bring on commentators that are going to stroke your ego and tell you what you want to hear. After all, it’s cheaper that way. Pay a talking head to get people riled up so they keep coming back to watch. It’s easy. You don’t have put any resources — time or money — into gathering information or vetting its credibility. And if you’re not reporting on facts, the threat of legal action against you is minimal. You find just enough of an audience to get emotionally involved and develop a small but loyal following for a program.

You show advertisers that your program has a loyal following, and just like that, you turn a profit.

***

I have not watched much television media during this pandemic. And I feel like I owe my friends working in local broadcast media an apology, but there are certain facts that I am in search of that take too long to find while wading through the ocean of information that is television media. I am fortunate — I know people who work in science and science journalism who know how to make complex science topics more understandable.

The current pandemic does not scare me, but it does give me pause. I’ve spent my career in science and science communication, and this does come with some basic scientific training and the desire to put emotions aside and view the information through a scientific lens:

• Understanding probabilities and risk
• Knowing the difference between linear and exponential growth
• Learning that plain old bar soap breaks down the outer walls of a virus, collapsing it and rendering it harmless
• Understanding the strengths and limitations of mathematical models

But recognizing when you are out of your league is just as important. I’m not a doctor or a virologist. So, I make it a point to find a few of them and listen carefully to what they say or share on social media.

Maybe you will too.

In this crisis, the people doing the groundwork in the media — the producers, the editors, the reporters — are doing their best to inform under a bizarre set of conditions. I’m not certain the media evolution of the last 20 years has them prepared. But I know they are working hard and doing everything they can.

If you think the media can go to hell, then you can go with them. Don’t blame the media. Blame yourself.

The media are a reflection on you… and on all of us.

The Well-Regulated Militia

Amendment II, ratified December 15, 1791:

A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

***

Last Saturday, my daughter and I spent the day at the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia. Our republic is 243 years old, and we still cannot agree on what the above amendment to our constitution really means. I’m not a constitutional scholar or an attorney, so I’m not going to fix this here (and you probably won’t either).

The shooting in El Paso happened while we were at the museum, relearning about the sacrifices that different people, in culturally different colonies, had to make together (as Ben Franklin’s 1754 image suggests) to begin this experiment of a self-governing republic… a representative democracy.

The political cartoon largely credited to Benjamin Franklin, which first appeared in his Pennsylvania Gazette, May 9, 1754.

After the immediacy of the horror Saturday, the same tired talking points emerged, either on television or social media. And we now live in a time where you can get whatever argument you want validated; an unfortunate drawback of the information age is the prevalence of bad information.

So let me say this up front. If you want a gun, or even a few guns, to protect yourself, your family, your property, your farm, or your ranch… you should be able to have them. I hope you have the sense to learn how to operate them correctly and keep them away from children. If you want to hunt, you should be able to do so. In fact, I love it when my brother-in-law brings me ground venison at Christmas.

But that’s not what this is about.

The question at hand is this: “Is there anything we can do about this problem?”

The answer is certainly not to take away everyone’s guns.

But that’s what the Democrats want, Sean!

No. They don’t. You’ve let influential blowhards in the media or in politics (or perhaps behind a pulpit) convince you of that. And your response smacks of sloppy and poorly thought-out paranoia.

Yes, they do, Sean! They want to disarm the population and install a socialist state!

No. You’ve lost the good sense God gave you. You are letting people ignite your otherwise well-buried fears and insecurities.

Well what do you expect when we’ve removed God from all traces of public life?

Spare me your arrogance. Spare me your smug self-righteousness. It is not the job of the government, or you for that matter, to tell me how or when to worship. I’m rather tired of hearing such a simplistic and cowardly argument tossed around.

There are people (mostly men) who pervert Christianity and its scriptures to build personal wealth and to maintain power. The examples are numerous and go back centuries, and it goes on to this day.  The people I know who do not follow a religion walked away from it for just this reason. It wasn’t because they were lost. It was because they grew tired of how people in power abused it. This is a country of 300 million people. Not everyone needs the same theology as you. Go twist scripture for your own benefits on your own time.

Guns don’t kill people. We need to punish the criminal, not the gun. We are punishing the responsible gun owners.

Yes. We need to punish the criminals. Yes, people need to be held accountable for their actions. But what level of weapon is enough to defend yourself? You don’t need an assault rifle. Are you just that delusional? Or worse, does it just make you feel more like a man? Go back and read the first few words of the Second Amendment: A well-regulated militia.

It’s not a free-for-all. Regulation is spelled out in those first few words.

Criminals don’t obey laws.

You can’t even be serious. Why have any laws to begin with? To dissuade us from our darker nature. Humans repeatedly make poor snap judgements. Easy access to this level of weaponry only invites problems.

But Sean, all these violent video games…

Again, you are being lazy.

No other Western country has this problem. Not Canada, not Great Britain, not Germany, not Australia. They have the same video games, they have people with mental illness, and if anything, they are far more secular than the United States.

This is a uniquely American problem. Too many of us are too hard-headed to learn how other Western nations have dealt with this level of weaponry. Too many are too stubborn to have the courage to mold other ideas into a solution that improves the situation while still preserving individual liberties.

What about personal responsibility?

There are mentally ill people in this country who have been teetering on the edge. Some for a long time.

When the chief executive repeatedly uses the power of his office to denigrate and dehumanize others, it justifies the feelings of these ill people. Enough so that they act upon them. Words matter. This is not policing of thought or forcing political correctness, this is dangerous. The current executive has done this over and over during the last several months. He sows this hatred and violence, and he does not care. No, he didn’t pull the trigger, but he motivated the shooter.

But Antifa…

Stop it. You’re changing the subject. The current executive is an individual who is supposed to represent all citizens of the United States. There is no reason to support him any further. He is a reckless, power-hungry demagogue who has benefitted from Russian interference in our elections.  There is no comparison.

***

Article II, Section 4:

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Based on the testimony of Robert Mueller, Obstruction of Justice would be my charge.

***

At the end, this is about fear.

Older Americans, generally Christians who are of European descent, have held power for the entire history of the republic. And world history has shown that ethnic groups who have long dominated in government will not suddenly begin to share power. On the contrary, they will dehumanize others and fight to the teeth as soon as they feel threatened by something remotely out of their comfort zone. Witness the madness in some of them at the election of our republic’s first mixed-race president. We have seen many of them wrap their fears around their faith and the flag, denigrating those who dare to question them. Taunting others like bullies on a middle-school playground, insisting theirs is the only right way for the republic.

It’s not. History will remember them as it does George Wallace. Don’t be George Wallace.

Hatteras

Hatteras Forecast – made Wednesday evening, June 26. Update coming Thursday evening.

Overview:

• A good week. Highs generally in the 80s, lows in the 70s.
• No sign of a washout this week.
• Small chance of scattered showers/thunderstorms on Sunday… then again Wednesday night, Thursday, and Friday, but no reason to change any plans.
• Typical high summer humidity, although a small easing of the humidity on Monday and Tuesday.
• Water temperatures 75-80.
• Sunrises around 5:55. Sunsets around 8:20.
• New moon on Tuesday. Great stargazing.

Saturday travel: Mostly sunny, hot and humid. High in the low 90s, 80s on the Outer Banks.

Sunday: Mostly sunny… isolated showers or thunderstorms late in the afternoon or evening. High 86. Wind SW increasing to 5-15 mph in the afternoon. Waves 1-3 feet. High tides at 5:55 am and 6:33 pm. Low tide at 11:57 am.

Monday: Mostly sunny and windy. Turning a little less humid. Daybreak temperature 74. Afternoon high 84. Wind NNE 10-20 mph with some higher gusts. Water a few degrees cooler. Waves 2-4 feet. High tides at 6:45 am and 7:20 pm. Low tide at 12:45 pm.

Tuesday: Sunny. Daybreak temperature 74. Afternoon high 86. Least windy day of the week. Wind SSE 5-10 mph. Waves 1-3 feet. High tides at 7:35 am and 8:08 pm. Low tide at 1:35 pm.

Wednesday: Sun and clouds. High humidity returns. Daybreak temperature 78. Afternoon high 88. Wind SW 5-15 mph. Waves 2-4 feet. Scattered showers and thunderstorms Wednesday night. High tides at 8:26 am and 8:57 pm. Low tide at 2:25 pm.

Thursday and Friday: Sun and clouds. Humid. Isolated showers and thunderstorms. Daybreak temperature 78. Afternoon high 88. Winds generally SSW 5-15 mph. Waves 2-4 feet.  High tides 9 to 10 am and 9:30 to 10:30 pm. Low tides around 3 to 4 pm.

 

 

Hurricane Florence Update – Sunday afternoon (Sept 9)

3pm, Sunday, September 9, 2018

There has been no fundamental change in the thinking of Florence.

Watching the satellite imagery suggests a hurricane that has begun the process of strengthening rapidly.

There will be two major impacts. The initial hit on the coastline… with wind damage and coastal flooding from the storm surge. This looks like it will be somewhere between Wilmington, NC and Cape Hatteras… but areas south to Myrtle Beach and north to Virginia Beach still cannot be ruled out as the initial hit.

This will probably happen on Thursday… leaning toward afternoon or night. But 12-24 hours of wiggle room should be considered.

Likewise, it will very likely be a Category 3, 4, or possibly a 5 at coastal impact (aka landfall). Everything we understand about hurricane intensity indicates a rapid strengthening should take place between Sunday afternoon and Tuesday afternoon. I would not get too hung up on small fluctuations in intensity, say bouncing back and forth between a 3 and 4 or a 4 and 5, as there is nothing to suggest a miraculous weakening would happen before landfall.

While the strongest winds are concentrated in the wall of clouds and rain around the eye of the hurricane (the eyewall), damaging winds usually are found at least a few dozen miles away from the center, so please do not focus solely on the point of impact.

After the initial landfall, the storm will turn north through central North Carolina and into Virginia for Friday and into the weekend (Sep 14-16). While still having some 40-50 mph winds by then, the devastating wind impacts from the storm will probably subside by Saturday. Nonetheless, at least scattered tree damage would probably happen in central NC (Raleigh, Greensboro), and into southern Virginia (Roanoke to Richmond)… and perhaps farther north toward Staunton and Fredericksburg.

This leads to the second impact, which often gets lost in the runup to landfall… inland flooding.

There are very worrisome indications that the storm center will stall somewhere over Virginia or North Carolina Saturday and Sunday and then slowly drift back toward the coast… or perhaps back out to sea. However, that is still 7-10 days out. And the storm will continue to weaken as it drifts, so the wind threat will be long gone.

But as mentioned above, the storm is not a point, the rain from these post-landfalling systems extends far out from the center, and the rainfall pattern is NOT symmetric around the center. So there is much uncertainty about precise rainfall estimates next weekend. Having said that… it could mean historic flooding for Virginia. Flooding would first hit streams and creeks Friday and Saturday…. and then into the state’s larger rivers Sunday and into the following week.  Is it definite? No. But there is a very serious flooding risk developing for Virginia, and it should be taken seriously.

Specific to Virginia… how much rain? Over the course of 3 days (Friday through Sunday), 5-10 inches is a conservative estimate… probably highest in the areas west of I-95 and toward the West Virginia state line. More disturbing is that some of our more reliable computer simulations suggest 12-16 inches of rain covering several dozen square miles in the western part of the state. Imagine encircling an area that includes Danville, Lynchburg, Charlottesville, Staunton, Covington, Roanoke, and Blacksburg. This would be devastating to the James River (all the way to Richmond) and the Roanoke/Staunton Rivers. But the Shenandoah (and ultimately the Potomac), York, and Rappahannock Rivers would also be at risk.

It is my hope that in the next day or two, there is some trend in the simulations away from this phenomenal rain idea for Virginia, so there is still another day or two to refine the forecasts. But these are the kind of figures that make me think about the James River flooding from Agnes in ’72 and Camille in ’69.

Below is a map of Virginia River basins. Know where the heavy rain is falling, ’cause this is where the water ends up.

I have also enclosed one rainfall totals simulation below (from the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting), indicating the total amount of rain between now and 8am Monday morning (17th). Do not focus on the specific amounts in small numerical print. The broad area of very heavy (purple) rain is what is most troubling. This particular simulation was from 8am Sunday, Sept 9. A quick review of the data shows that 80-90% of that rain would come from Florence. Again… it is one simulation, but it does underscore that there is a legitimate risk of a once-in-a-generation flooding scenario for Virginia.

On a personal level, I will not be able to spend as much time as I would like on the analyses of the storm in the coming few days. Find a trusted meteorological source in your area. I encourage you to listen to his or her words and the tone in his or her voice. Do not get caught up or distracted by flashy television graphics or fanciful wording from news anchors. Do not fall for click bait on the web. Some trusted media colleagues that I have known for a long time… John Bernier, Jim Duncan, Andrew Freiden, Brent Watts, Will Stafford, Jeff Lawson, Aubrey Urbanowicz, Travis Koshko. And the National Weather Service offices in Blacksburg, Wakefield, and Sterling are staffed by good people who live in their communities and know their areas well. Follow them online.

Sean

PBS NewsHour – Hurricanes and Climate Science

Thanks to the folks at PBS NewsHour for inviting me to discuss hurricanes and climate science on Labor Day weekend.

Moby’s Memoir and Alternative Histories

I bought tickets to see Sting and Peter Gabriel last winter, and to my surprise, an introductory subscription to Rolling Stone came with them.

Paging through the magazine, I came across an ad for Moby’s memoir, Porcelain. I only knew his music from his popular CD Play, but the advert made me curious, as it discussed his personal struggles leading up to that CD’s release.

I enjoy memoirs from popular musicians that discuss what their lives were like before they made it big. Sting’s Broken Music and the early parts of Sammy Hagar’s Red were page turners. But those artists became huge. Although Moby has had a successful career, he has not attained stratospheric pop star status. As a result, I imagined I could relate to Moby in a way that was far removed from Sting or Sammy.

I downloaded a free preview of the book out of curiosity. One page into the prologue, I was hooked. Moby is only 4 years older than me, had been an awkward and skinny kid, and watched his hair line recede rapidly during his 20s. But the passage that grabbed me described his childhood in 1976 as the son of a financially struggling single mother, riding along with her in her Chevy Vega.

I instantly remembered the fall of 1976 when my single mother, my sisters, and I briefly lived in a small apartment in Harrisonburg. I was a few months shy of my 7th birthday. Mom was working toward a degree at James Madison University that would lead to a better job to support us. And at the time, she drove a forest green and very unreliable… Chevy Vega.

We did not last in Harrisonburg very long. Within a couple of weeks, I casually ventured off with a new friend and his parents for a few hours without telling my mother, which of course, panicked her to no end. A few days later, I let a kid borrow my bicycle, and I never saw him or the bicycle again. Mom, my sisters, and I went back to Richmond a few weeks into the experiment. Mom continued her course work at John Tyler Community College.

A few years ago, on one of my numerous trips along Interstate 81, I diverted into Harrisonburg and found that apartment complex. It was occupied and functional, but not in good condition at all. Eerie.

When I reached my 30s, Mom would occasionally tell me how lucky my sisters and I were to have turned out as well as we did. Perhaps even blessed. The odds had been stacked against us: three kids who had not even reached school age when our mother made the agonizing decision to divorce my father.

Over the past few years, I have thought more about what Mom had said. I sometimes think that if 2 or 3 decisions had been made differently by the adults in my family before I reached my 10th birthday, my life may have gone in a very different direction.

With that backdrop, I began to read Porcelain as a potential alternative history of myself. What could’ve happened?

Moby relives the ’90s in Porcelain. Living in an abandoned factory in Connecticut. The struggle to find work. DJ’ing questionable clubs in New York City. Drug use all around him. His time as an alcohol “enthusiast”, only to go sober and start drinking again. Discordant relationships with high-risk emotionless sex. Deep depression.

I will not profess to be a saint, but his memoir gave me insight into a dark world that I suppose I knew was out there, but I have never had to face. So yes, I have been fortunate. It reminded me that there are people living lives that I simply cannot imagine. They are beyond the scope of my experience. I have occasionally had the opportunity to glimpse into to some of those lives, but I had no true frame of reference to comprehend them.

The constant in the book and with me was the early relationship with his single mother. Moby reminisced about laughing and listening to the Bee Gees on the AM radio with her, recounting some of the brighter moments as she struggled through single parenthood. I remember much the same, telling my mother how cool it was that Cheeseburger in Paradise was sung by a guy named Jimmy Buffett… my 8-year-old brain thinking Buffett and buffet were closely related. Moby summarizes what I think we both felt:

I loved my mom. She was one of the smartest and funniest and most interesting people I’d ever known. But growing up with her had never been normal.

Indeed. Mom had to make tough decisions about educating us. The school year following the failed Harrisonburg experiment found me being bused into inner-city Richmond for 3rd grade. Four months and a head of lice later, I was living with my grandparents to get into the Chesterfield County schools. The homesickness set in within a few days, and I was back at home with Mom. Despite the cost, she enrolled me in a private Christian school for the rest of the school year. A few weeks later, I was nearly expelled for swearing.

But I was lucky. No drugs. No hard alcohol in the house.

Moby alluded to it late in the memoir: how his early childhood struggles still haunted him and many others into early adulthood. It took me years to understand how the things I experienced early in my life color the way I see the world even today.

Perhaps I’ll write something when I’m 50, but I can’t imagine my stories will have quite the impact as what I read in Porcelain. Wow.

Opening the Ears to Prince

My brother from another mother, Matt Lanza, does sum it up well.

We watch the passing of these pop/rock performers, and for many of us, we watch another little piece of our youth go with them.

Prince was different. Which, of course, is obvious.

The first song I heard from him was 1999 in late 1982. As a 13-year old living through the height of the cold war, and living in an area of the country in which some people seemed infatuated with the End Times, the subject matter resonated with me.

But I was largely an album-oriented-rock (AOR) kid at that time with a bit of new wave streak. I was more likely listening the The Police, Men At Work, or The Cars. So I didn’t warm up to Little Red Corvette or even When Doves Cry. At least not right away. However, when the second single from Purple Rain hit the radio in 1984, it changed some things.

The guitar solo at the end of Let’s Go Crazy screamed rock and roll. So much so, that it got substantial airplay on the local AOR station that I listened to religiously, XL-102 in Richmond. One of the teachers in my high school even asked a group of us at the lunch table one afternoon, “Is he trying to be the next Jimi Hendrix?”

Likewise, the opening monologue of that song spoke to me… as I’m sure it still does to many… about the internal struggles of life.

Sign O’ The Times resonated as well. A straightforward commentary on life in the middle 1980s.

Is it silly, no?
When a rocket ship explodes and everybody still wants to fly

Some songs you remember at precise instances of your life. I remember that one coming on the radio while I was in a pensive mood on the way to my senior prom. One of those moments of adolescence when you realize that some the biggest steps of your life are just around the corner. I would go to Penn State 4 months later in a leap of faith, hoping to walk down a path to make my career choice a reality.

In time, I grew to appreciate his musicianship, and enough of my naivete faded away that I finally understood Little Red Corvette. Of course other songs weren’t so subtle, smashing the listener over the head. I still remember a former girlfriend trying to embarrass me by making me listen to Darling Nikki in 1988.

A few years later, in graduate school, 7 hit the radio, and again, while no one could accuse me of being a massive Prince fan, I admitted to my roommate that there were certain songs of his that I just thought were incredible.

Prince made me open my ears to other styles of music. And taught me to enjoy them as well.