Francine did my hair this afternoon. It was warm and sultry when I pulled into her shop on the Branford Hill. I knew something was coming (it is my job to predict the future) so I was a little fidgety and stopped a few time to check the radar on my BlackBerry.
Yeah–I know it’s a CrackBerry!
As I got to work I could some some pretty vivid lightning to the west. There was already a Severe Thunderstorm Watch up.
You know the expression “it never rains, but it pours?” These aren’t simple one-shot episodes. They’re really event-after-event-after-event. Following them is like trying to play “whack-a-mole.”
And, of course, when you’ve got torrential downpours¹ you’ve also got flooding. And when you’ve got strong thunderstorms you also can have damaging wind and large hail. Good grief.
It’s just really tough keeping in front of this stuff. You don’t want to concentrate on one small area lest you miss the bigger picture.
I have never finished covering this type of weather where I’ve been totally happy. There are always places better work could have been done.
I’m typing now because the bigger storms are gone. Usually that would be the end of it, but there is still rain falling on our already saturated ground.
I’m looking forward to the weekend.
¹ – Tweed/New Haven Airport reported .5″ of rain in just three minutes!
Geoff,
I was watching your live broadcast on the WTNH website yesterday since DirecTV won’t give me CT local stations because I’m in Fairfield County. I only get NYC local stations.
Anyway, kudos to WTNH for putting the live broadcast on the website. Watching a NYC station does not give me the information I need in a severe weather station.
This is not a criticism of you or Dr. Mel but I felt you two were stumbling over each other trying to get information out. I know its a crazy time when tornado warnings go up so I attribute the awkwardness to being live in a stressful situation.
Dr. Mel did make a very good point in the broadcast. I guess NWS is using radar and computers to detect tornadic activity and issuing warnings accordingly and that leads to a lot of false positives. I can’t remember ever seeing so many tornado warnings as I have this year and last.
I took a drive down Woodruff Dr. in Milford today. Wow, what a mess! I wonder if NWS is going to pay a visit to determine if the damage was caused by straightline or rotational winds.
I love storms. I turn off the electronics and get to take a little break. Of course, you have a Blackberry, so I guess you never really get away from technology. It follows you everywhere.