Showing posts with label predicting weather. Show all posts
Showing posts with label predicting weather. Show all posts

02 February 2018

If Triathloners Don't See Their Shadows....

Today is Groundhog Day.  The media will focus this country's attention on the most famous groundhog of all, Punxsutawney Phil. He's said to be the only one who really knows whether spring is just around the corner or winter will keep its grip on us for another six weeks.

Closer to (my) home, there is Staten Island Chuck. He and Phil aren't always in agreement.  Then again, they live about 500 kilometers apart.  It must be said, though, that from 1992 to 2016, Chuck's predictions were accurate 68.4 percent of the time, while Phil got it right only 42.1 percent of the time.

Hey, Chuck's a New Yorker. Waddaya expect?

Anyway, I think I've found an even more accurate way of predicting weather for the next few weeks:




The question is, of course: Do they see their shadows?  

Their shadows are behind them.  Does that mean they can't see them?  Or they can act as if they haven't seen?


Hmm...I wonder whether a groundhog can pretend not to see his shadow. If he did, would that mean spring is at hand?

Update  Phil saw his shadow.  But Chuck didn't.

30 August 2015

Seeing The Coming Heat Wave

Every few years, it seems, we get the sort of summer we've been having this year:  Not exceptionally warm through most of June, July and August--until a heat wave comes right around Labor Day. 

Officially, today wasn't part of a "heat wave". But tomorrow is supposed to be the beginning of one.  Today, the temperature reached 33C and the air grew more humid:  a  marked contrast to the dry, almost crisp conditions we'd had for a few days.

I went for a ride anyway, out to the middle of Long Island and back.  I sweated, but no more than I have on other rides, and I wasn't really tired after 120 km.  But tomorrow will be toasty, the forecasters say:  about 35C.  And the two days after that will be hotter, and more humid.

I'll be working, so I'll probably ride late in the day, or the evening, when--at least in theory--it should be a touch cooler, if not less humid.


Even if I hadn't heard the forecast, I think I would have known the heat wave was coming.  I believe I saw it in the slightly reddish hue of the full moon that loomed over the Amtrak trestle that transverses Randall's Island when I was riding home last night: