Sephy’s Platzish

You would think that there was a big snowstorm out there. However, there isn’t. It’s just cold, as one would expect it to be in winter. We’re having the (in general) annual trip below the zero Fahrenheit mark (that’s -18°C). The weather service says that it’s not expected to go back above zero until Monday sometime, however, they have also issued an advisory about the wind chill until 10 AM Tuesday.

Most people would think, yeah, it’s winter; you’re supposed to get cold weather. But to the TV stations (who have had consultants tell them that a lot of people like this kind of reporting), they have to tell us in excruciating detail the exact weather. Even though it’s close to midnight and very few people are probably actually watching TV, there are two stations who insist on having graphics on screen informing us of the temperature and the wind chill. One of these stations also had a story about the safety in using a space heater, and how to keep warm.

On top of that, invariably, there will be some social functions closing because of the extreme weather (in particular I can think of places that mostly senior citizens would attend, such as Bingo halls). Yesterday one of our vaunted trustworthy local TV stations had a story on if the major school district in the city will shut down on Monday. I could understand this on Sunday, but on Friday? Come on.

Ah well, life will go on even if it is going to get down to 13 or 14 below zero (that’s -25 or -26°C). The same people will be crowing about the heat in August, and for one station, the fact that it stays cooler near the lake until then.

Well, we had more snow today, and for the first time all winter there were actually snowmobiles. I guess it was either a lack of snow on the ground, or maybe it was too cold to go out and ride. However, today was the perfect day (I mean, who wanted to watch the Bears beat up on the Saints anyway?) for some folks to head out on the trails.

Radioactive Jam discussed them today, and I made a note that the people we entrust to tell us the outdoors conditions have a hard time with “thinking outside the box”; the “box” being the border of the county or city that their studio is located in.

Something that always happens is that it might be clear as a bell here but the traffic cameras (and the TV stations’ cameras on the, well, taller buildings in the area) will show that there is a bit of reduced visibility. The result? Weather people will be then advising everyone that they need to take it easy on the roads on the way into work today. The reverse is true; it might be foggy enough that you can’t see 10 feet in front of you, but the city will be clear, so there’s nothing to worry about at all.

We’re having another “major” snow event here - in other words, time for the TV stations to send someone out to a pile of salt and look at nothing happening. This means that the weatherdorks are all giving their best shot at telling us, the loyal viewers, how much snow will actually fall. The National Weather Service; essentially officially, says that the snowfall will be somewhere between 4 and 6 inches; one TV station says that it will be the same, but some locations near the lake will see greater amounts. Another station says that the same base amount will fall, but there is no caveat for the lake. Lastly, the third major station says that it will be one inch greater - solely because they use the totals at the lake for the forecast.

Ah well; it’s always fun listening to them complain when it’s 45° in the middle of May and in the 60s out here. Thanks, lake, for keeping the east cool in the summer; it helps the hot air that eminates from that area of the city. :p

A thought came to me today while I was watching this video on YouTube - Why can’t we start doing something like this over here in the States?

It’s not like the TV stations could easily whip up a way to stick a couple of more characters on the weather graphics; I can see this happening - the person reading the weather could say “For Tuesday, Partly cloudy with brisk northwest winds at 20-30 miles per hour and a high of 28 or two degrees below zero celsius. Tuesday night, Clear, low 18, that’s minus eight Celsius; winds west at 10 to 20 miles per hour with gusts up to 30.” Doing something that simple would go quite far in getting people more literate in this odd thing called “international standards”, because let’s face it folks, we aren’t the only country in the world here.

As it is, it’s not like we’re not exposed to metric units in every day life as it is - there are some banks who put Celsius temperatures on their thermometer displays; the National Weather service has the option of viewing forecasts in degrees Celsius (though they don’t convert the wind speeds to kph or m/s). Almost all products sold in grocery stores have both conventional and metric measurements on them. Bottled water is sold in metric sizes - the most common being 500 mL (marketed as 16.9 fluid ounces). Soda is sold in 2-liter bottles. There are also some dry goods sold in metric units - I’ve seen 20kg bags of dog food, even 17kg ones. Even taking the simple step of making the metric unit the primary unit of measure on the product would be beneficial.

The one area where you’d probably see the most resistance, however, is distances. For the longest time, when you drove to Chicago, you would see a sign just south of the Airport that read - “Chicago 81 mi 131 km”. It was a peculiar oddity, but a neat one. However in the late ’90s, the Department of Transportation replaced the sign with one reading only in miles. Again, as with the weather forecasts, it would be quite easy to start to integrate metric units into road signs - most of them have enough space on them to add a little piece of extra material that would read the kilometer equivalent to the mileage listed. Admittedly, it would be strange to see a sign that says “Airport Exit, 1 mile (1.6 km)” but you would adjust to it, and eventually some states would swap the distances.

However, in an odd coincidence, I believe that the UK still has everything measured in miles on road signs and in cars like it is over here. I think that Ireland just made the switch to kilometers in the last couple of years.

The only questions that would linger are ones of people being willing to accept having to finally learn how people outside of this country measure everything. It’s by no means trying to force it down the throat; I mean if that were the case, we’d just say “Ok, from July 1st 2007 we’re only going to be measuring things in metric units, you better know them now.” All I’m suggesting is to try to encourage the integration of the international standard into everyday life, and allow it to become acceptable to use these units.

I will add that I sometimes have to convert back to conventional units to allow myself to get a grasp of things.

Oh, and one last thing - if you switch to kilograms, the number representing your weight reduces by a fact of 2.2…

It was only three weeks ago that we had a massive snowstorm that dumped nearly a foot (30cm) of snow on the ground here, but there is no trace anymore that the snow was even here. Now, it’s been raining off-and-on since Wednesday night, and I’ve even heard some thunder in the vicinity.

If you look outside, you’d swear that it was April, with the mixing of green grass with large patches of brown. It’s best summed up with this line from an email sent out from a local meteorologist -

Subject: Which Holiday is this?

Given today’s weather, it would be perfectly understandable if you felt we were approaching Easter instead of Christmas. Get the scoop on the unusual weather headed to your location by going to your Personal forecast.