4.7.2024 – dimmed the daylight

dimmed the daylight
made darkness come upon us
noon and the sunshine

Nothing will surprise me anymore, nor be too wonderful
for belief, now that the lord upon Olympus, father Zeus,
dimmed the daylight and made darkness come upon us in the noon
and the sunshine. So limp terror has descended upon mankind.
After this, men can believe in anything. They can expect
anything. Be not astonished any more, although you see
beasts of the dry land exchange with dolphins, and assume their place
in the watery pastures of the sea, and beasts who loved the hills
find the ocean’s crashing waters sweeter than the bulk of land.

Poetry fragment by Archilochus of Paros, [8th-7th century] in Iambi et elegi Graeci ante Alexandrum cantati, M.L. West, ed. (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1989)

Total eclipse of the sun on Monday.

After this, men can believe in anything.

They can expect anything.

3.13.2024 – oh the rains came down

oh the rains came down
the floods came up, it was gone
in seventy two hours

An affluent group of beachfront property owners in Salisbury, Massachusetts – a coastal town 35 miles north of Boston – are mourning the loss of their investment after a safety measure they took to protect their homes failed.

The dune, made of 15,000 tons of sand, was meant to keep dangerous tides from encroaching on to the shore and damaging beach houses. The dune had just been completed in February but was gone within 72 hours.

From the article, “Swept away: $500,000 sand dune built to protect US homes disappears in days” by Erum Salam, March 13, 2024.

Don’t tell me those hours in Sunday School were wasted hours.

3.2.2024 – further furthermore

further furthermore
moreover meanwhile and
additionally

This morning I read the article, ‘We knew this was coming’: western US hunkers down amid avalanche warnings and gale-force winds” by Nina Lakhani and Dani Anguiano in the Guardian (March 1, 2024) and I got hung up by the quote from the National Weather Warning that stated:

There is a high chance (over 70%) of substantial, long-lasting disruptions to daily life in the higher elevations of the Sierra Nevada Mountains Friday-Saturday, where blizzard conditions and 5+ feet of snow are expected.

I liked the idea of … a high chance of substantial, long-lasting disruptions to daily life … through Saturday.

And I wrote this haiku:

high chance substantial,
long-lasting disruptions to
daily life expected

I guess that it means that the substantial, long-lasting disruptions to daily life could HAPPEN through Saturday but the substantial, long-lasting disruptions to daily life could LAST much longer than just through the weekend.

On the other hand, my wife pointed out that 24 to 48 hour power/cellphone/internet/TV outage WAS a substantial, long-lasting disruption to daily life for a lot of people today.

I went and read the complete Short Range Public Discussion Weather Statement from the NWS.

As this blog and these haiku are meant to be about words, I have to take my hat off and applaud those folks at the National Weather service for the all inclusive text in their Short Range Public Discussion.

The Short Range Public Discussion consists of 4 bullet points and seven paragraphs.

The first paragraph starts out with, “A second winter storm will impact the West Coast …”

The following six paragraphs start as follows:

Furthermore, the storm will …

Moreover, in addition to …

In addition, the …

Further, cold air will …

Meanwhile, upper-level energy …

And finally, Additionally, upper-level energy moving …

With a “Also, on Friday …” tucked into the last paragraph.

I don’t know but there something hypnotic, something Shakespearian, like a bass note in a Bach fugue as each new aspect of this storm is introduced into the Short Range Public Discussion of the weather.

I can easily imagine it as a rant of someone in a movie or tv show spouting off on all the things that went wrong on their weekend off.

It was Oscar Wilde who said, “Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative.”

Well!

Mr. Wilde never met the United States National Weather Service.

PS – OH AND, here is the complete Short Range Public Discussion as it appeared on Thursday, February 29, 2024 at 2:58AM (EST).

Short Range Forecast Discussion
NWS Weather Prediction Center College Park MD
258 AM EST Thu Feb 29 2024

Valid 12Z Thu Feb 29 2024 – 12Z Sat Mar 02 2024

…Heavy snow over parts of the Cascades, the Northern Intermountain

Region, Northern Rockies, Northern California, and Sierra Nevada
Mountains…

…Heavy lake-effect snow southeast of Lake Ontario and over the Upper
Great Lakes…

…Rain from the Gulf Coast to parts of northern Mid-Atlantic and shower
and thunderstorms along the Central Gulf Coast and Southeast…

A second winter storm will impact the West Coast on Thursday and Friday. The storm will create heavy mountain snow that will affect many passes. Multiple feet of snow are likely (over 80% chance) for higher elevations, especially above 5000 feet, including many Cascade and Sierra Nevada Mountain passes. Extremely heavy snow rates surpassing 3 inches per hour are likely.

Furthermore, the storm will produce blizzard conditions in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. In detail, strong winds will cause significant blowing/drifting snow and whiteout conditions, making travel impossible in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. There is a high chance (over 70%) of substantial, long-lasting disruptions to daily life in the higher elevations of the Sierra Nevada Mountains Friday-Saturday, where blizzard conditions and 5+ feet of snow are expected.

Moreover, in addition to the snow, coastal rain will develop over parts of the Pacific Northwest Thursday into Saturday. Coastal rain will develop over parts of California Thursday morning, continuing into Saturday.

In addition, the widespread damaging wind will develop over the Western U.S. Wind gusts of 55+ mph are forecasted across much of the West, particularly across higher elevations and the Intermountain West, where 75+ mph gusts are possible. These winds would likely down trees and power lines, resulting in power outages across affected areas.

Further, cold air will lower snow levels Friday into Saturday. As the storm moves south, snow levels will lower into some Northern California and Sierra Nevada Mountain foothill communities. Much colder air is forecast for Saturday, with temperatures 10-20 degrees below normal.

Meanwhile, upper-level energy moving across the Great Lakes into the Northeast will create lake-effect snow over the northeast portion of the U.P. of Michigan, with the heaviest lake-effect snow southeast of Lake Ontario on Thursday.

Additionally, upper-level energy moving over the Southern Rockies will move eastward to the Mid-Atlantic by Saturday, producing rain and higher-elevation snow over the Southern Rockies Thursday. Overnight Thursday, showers and thunderstorms will develop over parts of the Southern Plains, moving into the Lower Mississippi, Tennessee, and Southern Ohio Valleys and parts of the Southeast by Friday. The showers and thunderstorms will continue over parts of the Southeast through Saturday. On Friday, rain will move into parts of the Mid-Atlantic and Ohio Valley, moving into parts of the Northeast by Saturday. Also, on Friday, scattered pockets of rain/freezing rain will develop over the highest elevations of parts of the Central/Southern Appalachians.

2.3.2024 – hype train leaving the

hype train leaving the
station doesn’t mean we need
to all get on it

What else could I be talking about but the weather?

In the story, When the Storm Online Is Worse Than the One Outside By Shawn Hubler, Mr. Hubler writes:

“The online environment in 2024 is a mess,” said Brian Ferguson, a spokesman for the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services.

In recent years, amateur weather trackers’ posts have quickly spread through social media. Some have responsibly shared the latest information from experts, but others have found that extreme language can result in more shares and likes.

Brian Garcia, the warning coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service’s San Francisco Bay Area office, said he and his colleagues had become more aggressive in combating misinformation.

“People want to increase their following on social media, and one of the best ways is to go catastrophic and alarm people,” Mr. Garcia said. “But just because the hype train is leaving the station doesn’t mean we to need to all get on it.”

The weather.

The poor old weather.

Everybody talks about the weather but nobody every does anything about it.

2.2.2024 – here we are again

here we are again
the days of the long shadows
were we ever here?

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

My wife and I try to walk around out in the neighborhood everyday, twice if the weather and my schedule work out.

It is an exercise regime that works with my outlook on physical exercise.

I have noticed that several times a year (it really should be only twice a year but the time change throws a curveball into the mix) the sun lines up low in the sky with a length of sidewalk and produces these long shadows.

From the picture, you can see we are some minutes or maybe a day or two away from the shadow lining up exactly with the sidewalk but you can’t count on sunny days even here in the low country of South Carolina so I thought I better grab the image while the grabbing was good.

I have, by the calendar, seen these shadows stretch out and line up about 16 times since we moved here.

The sidewalk is the same.

The street ahead is the same.

The shadows pretty much look the same thought the bulky of our clothes changes from early spring to late fall.

The sun is the same.

What has changed in the last four years?

Truly the more things change the more they stay the same.

With this in mind though, I agree with Delwin Brown, who in his 1994 book, Boundaries of Our Habitations: Tradition and Theological Construction, (State University of New York Press) wrote, “There must be some continuity with the past, “or else the world is a madhouse.” Hence, the more things change, the more they stay the same; the more things stay the same, the more they change.”

Full disclosure I am not familiar with this book but when I looked up the the saying to get the french spelling of Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose, I came across Mr. Brown’s quote in the lazy man’s best friend, Wikipedia.

I am reminded of snow.

If you grew in the western part of the State of Michigan in the back half of the 20th century like I did, you saw a lot of snow.

Early in your life, your learned from your Mom or your brothers or your sisters or your kindergarten teacher that NO TWO SNOWFLAKES are the same.

I put it to you that NO TWO OF ANYTHING are the same.

No two snowflakes.

No two days.

No two nothing.

But besides being different, all snowflakes are snowflakes.

They are all the same.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

The more things stay the same, the more they change.

Then again, there is the shadow.

Here and gone.

Dark and bold in its outline in bright sun and a cloud comes along and covers the sun and the shadow is gone.

Was it really there?

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

The more things stay the same, the more they change.

Maybe we weren’t really here in the first place.