December 5, 2005 Archives

Stef and Helaine went to New York City and Jim Thorpe, PA to see Rick Springfield perform this weekend. I would expect no less. They are rabid fans.

As I hear the story, they were walking around before the concert as other fans started coming up to Steffie, congratulating her. She had no idea why, but it didn't take long to find out, she had been published.

In the new Rick Springfield 2006 calendar, Steffie is represented with four photos! Two are half page, two are quarter page.

She's an incredible photographer. Even better, she enjoys taking these concert pictures.

I am a very proud papa.

Here's an overview of some of her best.

I've just taken a look at the late night computer runs. For the past few days there's been snow in the forecast for Monday night/Tuesday morning. It's a big deal, because snow on the ground at wakeup time means lots of school cancellations, delays, and other grief.

It would be so nice if this was an easy forecast. Of course it is not.

Here's the simple truth. No one cares about the difficulty of my job. All they care about is whether I get it right! That's as it should be.

Earlier today, Gil Simmons, another one of our meteorologists, sent me an email. He was worried because the two models we most depend on were in total disagreement! Even tonight there's a 10:1 ratio between their predictions of precipitation.

I can't think of anyone who forecasts the weather who doesn't take a peek at the data, even on days off.

Luckily I won't have to address this 'in public' until 5:00 PM. By then the computer will have churned a few more times. The storm will be closer. There will be a better chance to see how the models initialized.

I'm sure I've written this before, but here's my secret. I don't have to bag the numbers exactly. Is there a difference between how you deal with 3" versus 5", or 9" versus 13"? No.

Close is good enough.

The real criteria will be, once the snow is falling will people be prepared. If they feel they got the right warning, I'm off the hook... until the next storm.

I don't want to be wrong. It is painful to be wrong. After all these years of forecasting, it's the my greatest work related fear.

On February 22, 1997, I had the opportunity to strap myself into an F/A 18 and fly with the Navy's Blue Angels.

I flew in the number 7 plane, a 2-place jet. There was a fixed camera pointing back at me capturing video of the flight.

The video of my Blue Angels flight ran on both WTNH and the SciFi Channel and is an amazingly constant request from Google users.

Here is the takeoff sequence from that day in El Centro, CA.