When TV Weather Gets It All Wrong

[MineralMan]

Here in the Twin Cities metro area of Minnesota, the 4th of July weather forecast was dire. A Heat Emergency was declared, with Heat Index readings of 100-104 degrees. Severe thunderstorms were predicted for the 4th.

Emergency! Everybody to Get From Street!

People cancelled their holiday plans, bought cases of "hydrating fluids" and barricaded themselves in their air-conditioned homes. Cities opened "cooling centers" for the elderly and poor, so they could avoid "heat illness."

The freeways were empty as my wife and I drove over to a friend's house on a lake. Nobody went out, in an "abundance of caution." We were prepared for the heat emergency, and had stocked our cooler with refreshing beverages so we could stay properly hydrated.

So, the temperature never got above 80 degrees. It didn't even rain on the afternoon of the 4th. We still consumed plenty of beverages, though, and consumed twice as much food as planned, since most of our friend's guests opted out due to the "heat emergency." There were no thunderstorms either.

The TV weather lady this morning, though, didn't even mention the mistaken forecast. How embarrassing...

[lapucelle]

1. Sounds like the day the dam broke....

[MineralMan]

2. Delightful!

[Leith]

18. If You Like That Story

You should read The Night the Ghost Got In. Laugh out loud funny!

[dflprincess]

3. It depended on where you are in the metro

It rained quite hard in Bloomington between 2 and 3
It also got quite muggy, though the temperature took a dive after the rain.

[MineralMan]

4. We were in Medicine Lake at that time.

It sprinkled a little. Still, there was no "Heat Emergency" anywhere in the metro, I think.

It's just funny, really. In other parts of the country, though, heat really was an issue. But we had a little cold front move through that kept the temps down. Lucky us, really.

[treestar]

5. Hurricane Irene passed us by

after a ton of preparation. I guess they figure better safe than sorry.

[MineralMan]

9. Yes. Preparation is important.

Still, with all of our technology, we still get it wrong sometimes when it comes to weather predictions. It's way better than it used to be, though. Back in the day, the first you knew of a tornado was when you heard it approaching your house.

[treestar]

11. We were taught some signs

like the sky turning green in the northwest or something like that. But never had a tornado here. Midwestern DUers likely know more.

[MineralMan]

12. I'm a California guy. Since we moved to Minnesota,

the sirens have gone off twice in my neighborhood, but no tornado. Still, we did go down in the basement and turned on WCCO-AM 830 to listen to the weather guy.

Earthquakes were the worry in CA. There's never a warning about those. You're doing whatever, and things start shaking. My wife, who is a Minnesota and Illinois girl, really never got used to earthquakes. They rattled her pretty badly whenever they happened. Me? I never got too excited by them. The first one I remember happened when I was 4 years old. It rolled me out of bed and woke me up. I didn't understand how I got onto the floor. Seemed funny at the time.

[treestar]

13. one of my cousins was known for sleeping through the earthquake

in SoCal in the early 70s. It was 6.5 or so. He was a teenager. He missed it.

[MineralMan]

14. I've slept through several earthquakes.

My wife woke me up one morning, saying, "Did you feel that?" I didn't. That was the day of the Northridge Earthquake in the 90s. About 150 miles south of where we lived. My brother's house was shaken off its foundation in that one, and had to be demolished and rebuilt. But, I slept through it.

[fierywoman]

20. I was sleeping in Pasadena that night -- believe me, I felt it!

[MineralMan]

21. I was in San Luis Obispo County then.

My wife said it was quite a roller. That was pre-Internet, but I got the information and realized that it had affected my old home town.

[fierywoman]

22. I was a houseguest in a home where the husband was a big-shot earthquake scientist.

We all jumped out of bed when it struck around 3 a.m. After it stopped shaking he went immediately back to bed, saying, "There won't be any real info about this for hours." My friend his wife and I sat glued to the tv, waiting and hearing nothing real for hours (of course)! Then for days afterwards he would come home at night and tell us of all the gnarly stuff that the media wouldn't report on. I learned what liquifaction was that week.

[MineralMan]

23. Now, we can go immediately to the USGS earthquake pages

and find out what's going on. Back then, those resources weren't so easily available.

[fierywoman]

24. I always enjoyed the (I think it was...) Cal Tech lady who used to have briefings

every day. She was really cool.

[cornball 24]

6. As I always say, if you want weather info, look out the window!

[MineralMan]

7. As my wife's late father said once,

"There's six inches of 'partly cloudy' on my driveway!"

[Wounded Bear]

8. Well, it is important to know how to cope...

[MineralMan]

10. Indeed!

[kwassa]

15. Well, we got that weather you didn't.

We've had it for days. Over 100 with the heat index. Suburbs of DC. Very high humidity.

Spent all morning of the 4th at our community parade, then went to a house party in the afternoon. I stayed in air-conditioning, the kids played out back on a waterslide and a dunk tank. I felt the effects of the heat the rest of the day. I think I drank a gallon of water over the course of the day. Some dizziness, a little nausea, aside from sweating completely through my clothes at the parade.

Storms tomorrow with a cooling trend. I can't wait.

[MineralMan]

16. Yes! A lot of the country did.

Here in Minneapolis and St. Paul, we were right on the northwestern edge of it. Things shifted just a little to the South and East, and we dodged the high temperatures by just a few miles, really.

What went through here will get to you, as the weather pattern moves. We cooled off a little earlier than the meteorologists predicted, because the edge of that hot mass of air moved a few miles. It's interesting. For the rest of the midwest and southward, that edge hasn't reached those areas yet.

Relief is on its way.

[kwassa]

28. This is the worst stretch in years ...

of really bad days in a row.

A friend from Alabama once told me that DC can be just as hot and awful as Alabama in the summer, but there are fewer days of it. We've had five days in a row.

[AZ8theist]

17. Mineral...

I love the reference to the movie "The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming!"

Classic comedy from the 60's.

[MineralMan]

19. I've referred to that particular scene often.

It is a classic comedy, which I remember very well.

[AZ8theist]

27. me too!!

[lunatica]

25. That's the problem with climate change

You can’t predict it with obsolete tools.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

26. Sometimes those summer thunderstorm systems surprise even the experts.

They change course and build up pretty fast. I'm glad it didn't get hot as predicted but it was tropically humid anyhow.

[kwassa]

29. the pop-up thunderstorm ...

when the conditions are right, it is like spontaneous combustion.

I've looked at doppler radar, seen nothing, and then been hit by thunderstorms 20 minutes later.

[pansypoo53219]

30. around 2pm in milw. it was sunny, then a brief downpour & a little thunder.