Weather -- or not

Cristoforo Colombo had heard about the powerful Caribbean storms that the Taino Indians called "huracan" on his early voyages, and when, on his fourth trip to the New World in 1502, the natives told him that one such storm was approaching Hispaniola, he strategically moved the ships he commanded to the opposite side of the island, saving the small fleet when the rain and wind struck the following day.

Today, of course, we have much more warning and information on hurricanes than Christopher Columbus, as he is now known, did. There is radar and satellite images and computer projections -- and we have the broadcast media, which seems to go berserk when any type of extraordinary weather event unfolds. The flashy graphics and dramatic music bursts from the screen as if America were going to war again, meteorologists and anchors repeat warnings and narrate video with hyperbolic commentary, and reporters in the field -- those poor souls -- are made to stand in outlandish conditions so we can see the worst of the weather without going out there ourselves.

I know that all this drives some people crazy, and I admit that much of it is over-the-top, but I am a weather junkie and when noteworthy storms strike -- as was the case with Hurricane Irene -- I get excited, flip channels, scroll through news items on the Internet, and post updates on Twitter as if the outside world were getting their only information from me. And with Irene, as with other storms of all types, I heard a chorus of voices before, during and after dismissing the hurricane as a "dud." For most people in the Boston area, the storm entailed some wind and rain, leaving them feeling that the projections and the coverage were all hype. However, even in the city limits of Boston, several thousand people lost electricity and 500 calls came in to City Hall about downed trees.

The bigger picture is awe-inspiring -- especially because Irene made landfall as weakening Category 1 hurricane and did significant damage after being downgraded to a lowly tropical storm. Fourteen states, plus Washington, DC, Puerto Rico and a number of other Caribbean Islands were affected; more than seven million people lost power on the US East Coast; damage at this early point is estimated at $10 billion; and, sadly, the death toll now stands at 54. The state of Vermont, far from landfall and coastal surges, is experiencing the worst flooding in a century due to Irene's downpours; at one point 11 towns were isolated as a result of rising rivers and washed-out roads.

Maybe you didn't need that bottled water and flashlight that you ran out and fought crowds to get, but some people did. The information and warnings from the National Weather Service should not be confused with the melodrama that broadcast news -- especially the local TV stations -- foments to go along with it. Local TV is over-the-top every night on virtually every story, so it's annoying, but no surprise, when they do the same every time a storm is on the way. The have to fill their time and they have to keep viewers on edge, and when they go live all day, as they did Sunday with Irene, there are a lot of hours to fill. At one point an anchor narrated a piece of video that showed a roof with two tiles fluttering gently in the breeze. "Look at that," she said. "Roof tiles are being torn off by Irene." Um....no.

The larger point I want to make is that, despite decades of cliches about their unreliability, meteorologists are terrifically accurate, especially these days. We were told, for example, at the end of last week that the weather in Boston after Irene passed would be upper 70s/low 80s all week and there might be a quick midweek shower but the next chance of a storm would be the weekend. Right on. I hear people complain when a snow forecast is a few inches off, not seeming to grasp that -- despite all the variables of weather and the complexities of predicting what will happen at any moment -- we were told several days in advance that a particular type of precipitation would fall from the sky for a predicted amount of time. Sorry if the forecast eight inches fell in the town next to you and only seven fell on your house.

Someone I know complained out loud one day last spring when it started to rain and I reminded her that the forecast had said there was a 20% chance of showers. "Yeah," she said. "That means it's not supposed to rain." I started to explain and then just threw up my hands.

A short stack on a winter morning

There's something about midwinter cold and snow that awakens in me a desire for pancakes. Maybe it's some primeval urge to pack on carbs and fat to survive the frigid months, or perhaps it's that I have more time to cook in general because I'm indoors more. Regardless, I rarely eat any breakfast -- I know, that's bad -- but I made pancakes yesterday and today, and they were quite enjoyable.

Of course, I made them from scratch. You won't find any box mix in my cupboard. As with most of my cooking, I don't measure anything. I use intuition (which sometimes can lead to problems, but more often than not works fine) and sometimes I use substitution as well. Because I don't drink milk, I avoid using any dairy when making pancakes. Instead, I use apple cider. Laugh if you wish, but the texture and the taste are quite enjoyable.

Finally, one must use maple syrup -- the genuine article -- to top the fluffy stack of flapjacks. In fact, one may go so far as to label pancakes as "a maple syrup delivery system." If I had a banana I would have sliced it up to pile on the plate, but as it was, the pancakes were perfect -- and my body has the necessary insulation to combat the winter's chill.

The big chill

I have a sweater -- an  LL Bean Norwegian fisherman's sweater -- that is so warm I only wear it on days that are below zero (or quick trips outside in blizzards). I think I'll bust it out today.

It's currently -1 in Boston (wind chill -22) and may drop another degree or two before the sun rises enough to pull us toward 10 or 12 degrees -- the day's forecast high in Boston. Out in Orange, a town on Route 2 that is often the coldest spot in the state, the air temperature is -20 right now.

I remember Christmas Day, 1980, as being the coldest day in Boston in my lifetime. It was -7, and when I walked the short distance from my apartment to my aunt's house, carrying some dish my mother made for dinner later that day, I inhaled and felt the chill in my lungs. A half-dozen years ago I was out in central Massachusetts when the forecast called for extreme cold. It was -13 that morning, and I went outside to feel what that was like.

There is something I find intriguing about the cold, something alluring, spellbinding. Of course, that's only the case when one has somewhere warm to retreat to. Otherwise, the cold can be painful and dangerous pretty quickly. When I was growing up on Chelsea Street in East Boston I remember crowding up against the side of our kitchen stove, the main heat source in our apartment, on cold winter mornings. Do they still make stoves that are also heaters?

Our cold snap won't last long, but there's an icy mix forecast for midweek. The weather always has the power to get our attention.

Fun in the storm

My neighbor's kids know how to enjoy the snow.

Storm furor unfair?

I was returning from Italy in the summer of 2009 when the second leg of my flight, from New York to Boston, was delayed due to weather and I was forced to spend seven hours at JFK, wandering around the airport and trying to nap on the dingy carpet. What most frustrated me during that episode was not the fact that my airline was not willing to send a jetliner into thunderstorms, but the lack of information I was getting from the company's employees.

Still, looking back, the airline's first job is to convey me to and from my destination safely, which of course they've done every time I've flown. The monotonous delay is now just a slightly funny anecdote, a footnote on the story of my fantastic trip to Europe. I don't fly that often, so I've been lucky enough to avoid horror stories about sitting for hours on the tarmac, which would be understandably terrible. This week tens of thousands of travelers will have their own horror stories about trying to get somewhere for the holidays when the recent snowstorm struck.

I do think, however, that the furor people are expressing is a bit unfair. I am not one to defend giant corporations, but imagine how incredibly complex the air travel system is and then add to it a weather event that cripples a number of important transportation hubs, including the New York metro area's three airports. This was, I read, the Big Apple's sixth-largest snowfall on record and it struck during the height of the post-Christmas travel period. Do people really expect that the planes, pilots, personnel and passengers can all be swiftly repositioned so that everyone is where they want to be?

Of course, if I missed a long-planned trip or the funeral of a relative or a holiday dinner I would be understandably upset, but the weather answers to no one.

Maybe people really were not irrationally angry about air travel delays; maybe it was just the media coverage that created hysteria where there was little. In New York City, however, people seemed genuinely upset by the municipal response to the two-foot snowfall, with Mayor Michael Bloomberg eventually accepting responsibility for the shortcomings of the response. Not being there, I'm not sure how well or poorly the city tackled the storm, but I again feel like the fickle feelings of the public were on display here. The nation is emerging from an economic crisis, people want governments to spend less, but when services -- from border security to trash pick-up -- are scaled back the citizenry goes beserk.

Today, Americans seem to want to have their cake and to eat it, too -- and then to have another piece while complaining about the price of the cake. It cannot go on like this forever. Another old but relevant proverb comes to mind: If we want to dance, we have to pay the piper.

Eastie storm photos

Holiday plants along Bennington Street look even more appropriate.

No one is waiting at the bus stop at Bennington and Byron streets, though I did see a bus pull up and let off one passenger.

This house remains in the holiday spirit despite the storm.

Bennington Street looking north. Green lights, but no cars.

Cars along Byron Street are already covered pretty well.

The winds drive the snow.

Pick a peck

There's nothing like a trip to an apple orchard to enjoy an autumn afternoon. Picking apples, drinking cider, listening to a little bluegrass music -- I will take the fall over summer any time.

Saturday was, however, a bit warmer than I'd hoped for, so I found myself doing more sweating than picking. October into November is really an optimal time weather-wise, giving me the opportunity to put my vast array of flannel shirts to work.

I did come home with cider, and if you've read this blog before you may know that I have a devout love for unpasteurized apple cider, which can only be purchased at the orchard of origin. My best spots are several small farms in Stow that sell the sweet, rich elixir deep into the season. I was recently telling someone about a cider mill in a small central Massachusetts town where jugs were sold from a cooler on the front porch, which also contained a jar for money.

Ah, the honor system. That really is a leftover from a time gone by.

Wet week

The rain appears to be coming to an end, but the Herald just posted a report that said parts of Routes 1A and 145 in East Boston are closed because of flooded roadways, with one woman trapped inside her car.

Update: Check out this photo of a flooded East Boston Greenway...or should I say, the Bremen River (via Universal Hub).

Update has corrected reference to the Greenway rather than Bremen Street Park.

Eastie notes

***Thursday night's storm did some damage and knocked out power throughout the region, and some of the most powerful winds were recorded in the neighborhood. The Globe said that "sustained wind speeds of over 50 miles per hour were recorded in East Boston" and that gusts "blew over 60 in East Boston," among other places.

***Our friends at EastBoston.com have posted a link to a fascinating bit of history: the published proceedings of a civic-group meeting that was held in East Boston to honor Abraham Lincoln within weeks of the 16th president's assassination. The local council of the Union League of America met at Sumner Hall on Elbow Street on May 8, 1865, and the program included the recitation of a dirge by J.W. Turner of East Boston and music from the East Boston Sumner Glee Club. Then the Rev. Warren H. Cudworth, the pastor of Eastie's Unitarian Church, delivered a long eulogy, which included this excerpt:

Abraham Lincoln! upholder and defender of the Union, purifier of the Constitution, friend and emancipator of the oppressed, the people's choice and champion; fearless amid dangers, steadfast in uncertainties, uncorrupted by temptation, faithful in trial as in triumph, faithful from the beginning to the end, faithful in life, faithful even unto death! the noblest patriot, the purest politician, the grandest man, the greatest benefactor, the most glorious martyr, of the age.

Pretty sweet.

***There have been several stories in recent days about tenants evicted from 22 Princeton Street by the building's new owner, Paul Rolff, a real-estate developer and business owner. We don't need well-heeled speculators flipping houses in the neighborhood and tossing poor and working folks into the street.

Snow job

Well, the snow didn't come when it was supposed to and when it did show up it packed not a wintry punch, but rather a wee pinch. Now there are grumbles all over Greater Boston about how the forecast was blown and how meteorologists don't know what they're doing. In these situations, I often rise to the defense of weather professionals.

It's true that we were expecting close to a foot in the city today, and as a result schools were closed, public employees were told to stay home, the plows were ready to go, and all eyes were on the sky. However, forecasting the weather involves multitude of factors, any of which can change suddenly, causing storm systems and other meteorological phenomena to alter their course or behave differently. The fact that most forecasts are on target is often overlooked.

There is significant snow to the south of Boston, and a number of places -- most notably, Philadelphia, New York City and Washington -- got walloped today. Airport closures caused nearly 6,000 flights to be canceled, the National Guard was called out in DC, and Maryland's governor is asking that his state be declared a disaster area.

Newscasts said that 100,000,000 million people were affected by the storm, which ranged from the Midwest to the Mid-Atlantic and into the Northeast. Just because it didn't snow on my house is no reason for me to whine about the forecast.

Beware the cold

The temperature is supposed to bottom out around 8 degrees in Boston tonight, with wind chills below zero. Christmas Day, 1980, was the coldest day in the city during my lifetime. I remember distinctly the short walk from the house I grew up in to my aunt's house -- just a half block down Chelsea Street -- and feeling the cold as I'd never felt it before.

I remember, as a staff member at the Boys & Girls Club, playing tag football one night when it was minus-1 outside. I was able to galvanize a handful of brave souls to join the game, and after a while most of us shed our outer layers as we got used to the cold.

The coldest temperature I've ever experienced was one morning in central Massachusetts, when the temperature dropped to minus-14. I just had to go outside to feel it, and I bundled up and went into the frigid air. It was an experience.

Snow emergency tonight

I got my text message from the City of Boston announcing that a snow emergency and parking ban will begin at 10 p.m. tonight. May the parking scrum begin!

The latest forecast is calling for 8 to 14 inches in the Boston area, with more to hit the South Shore.

Update (12/20): The city's snow emergency ends at 4 p.m. Sunday.

That sinking feeling

Another model shows that East Boston -- at least the residential parts of the neighborhood -- will be underwater by the middle of this century due to global climate change. (Logan Airport looks like it'll be in decent shape.) Other parts of Boston, including much of the downtown area, will also be inundated, with the overall loss in assets worth nearly a half trillion dollars.

While I try to take several steps to be a more judicious consumer of energy and I support big steps the government should take, I fully expect that human beings will be unable to gather the will to stop the planet's warming. Even as the effects of our actions become more visible and more calamitous, people will still put profit and convenience ahead of our common interests and our species' long-term survival, like the dying smoker who keeps puffing away even while carrying around an oxygen tank. We're doomed.

On the other hand, East Boston was created by connecting islands with landfill, and soon enough she will return to the sea. The hands of man can only hold off the hand of nature for so long.

Map from Boston.com.

Cheap AND dry

I stopped at Market Basket in Chelsea today during the deluge and, when I came out, there were a couple of store employees with umbrellas in the parking lot to escort customers to their cars. I've never seen that at a store of any kind.

It's a crime

The Globe has a story today about the hazards of summer -- skin cancer, Lyme disease, EEE, West Nile, etc. -- and how they've been overblown, causing widespread worry when the dangers are relatively tiny. This idea is a microcosm of a bigger problem in our society: we worry too much about the wrong things.

Recently I heard Lenore Skenazy, author of a book called Free-Range Kids, on NPR and she cited crime figures that show that, as a rule, children are as safe today as they were when their parents were growing up. Crime did rise for a decade beginning in the mid-1980s, but the number of murders, assaults, rapes and abductions are way down in recent years. The perception, however, is that we live in crazy times and that children need to be chained to their parents.

This paranoia is fostered by local news and true-crime TV shows, but it isn't reality. Of course, every child -- every person -- who is the victim of a crime is one too many, but American parents seem consumed by the idea that a stranger is going to leap out and snatch their kid. Any review of the facts will show that when children are abducted or harmed it is almost always a relative or close friend; when they are reported missing it often turns out that they've run away or that they're with dad.

I remember going to see Michael Moore's film Bowling for Columbine and thinking that it'd be a liberal crusade against guns -- a crusade I support -- but the theme was actually quite different. Moore has been an NRA member since he was a teenager. His movie focuses on the fear that many Americans have that someone is going to burst through their door to attack them, rob them and/or hold them hostage. Again, this is an irrational fear. That is not to say that it never happens, but that it is extremely rare. Watching local TV news and true-crime shows, however, you'd think it happens every other day in your town.

As a result, people in the United States arm themselves with all sorts of weaponry and fight against laws that would exercise some control of their armaments. In the movie, Moore crosses the border and walks around Toronto -- a big urban center -- and into people's homes. Turns out they don't lock their doors as often in Canada because they don't fear crime the way we do. They aren't bombarded with fearmongering on the tube every day.

Yes, I know: crime does happen, and it can be devastating, but I don't believe that we should let the way we live be controlled by TV stations desperate for higher ratings.

Here comes the...fog?

Though the calendar says that July is about to begin, I would swear it is October. Today I stopped by the beach (Shay's if you grew up here, Constitution if you didn't) and found the lifeguard chairs empty. There was no one there to guard. Some small children were in the play area, and three had ventured onto the sand to make a sandcastle.

Over at Piers Park a steady wind blew off the water and a bank of clouds sat atop the city skyline, a blanket thrown down to keep us from seeing the sun. The showers and cool temperatures are forecast to continue until at least Friday. Don't despair: the 4th of July looks like it'll be around 80 with mostly sunny skies.

Celebrating the season

With snowflakes falling outside my window and George Winston's CD December playing in the background, I want to mention a few things of interest:

***This is the shortest day of the year, with the longest night ahead. The actual winter solstice occurred at 7:04 a.m. EST today. For thousands of years people all over the world have marked and celebrated this day -- Saturnalia, Yule, Dongzhi, Mean Geimhridh and Midvinterblot are some of the names used to mark the occasion at various times by different cultures, and the observance of Christmas comes out of these traditions. While today marks the beginning of winter for us, in many parts of the world this is the season's midpoint.

***The Globe has a story today on Christmas caroling, which seems to be making a comeback. I think that's pretty cool. Can you imagine a group of carolers making their way down the sidewalks of East Boston? Anyone want to run with that idea?

***I've long been a fan of the holiday classic It's a Wonderful Life, and a recent piece in The New York Times discusses some of the charms of the Frank Capra film. Despite the feel-good conclusion, much of the movie is a rather bleak depiction of the modern world and of a decent man's complete unspooling. Look closely at Jimmy Stewart's face as his character's world crumbles and then as the course his small town would have taken without George Bailey becomes apparent -- the scene at Martini's bar where George prays before getting punched out; the scene where he grabs his son and desperately holds him close; the scene where he sits across from the delighfully amoral Henry Potter and realizes that the old man is right: George Bailey is worth more dead than alive; the few seconds before he jumps off the bridge to end his life in what he thinks is the most honorable way out; and, most of all, the scene where, in the alternative, George-less universe, he is rejected by his cold, impatient mother, and Stewart, unshaven and haggard, runs confused and frightened right up to the camera and stares out at the horrific world around him with crazy eyes. Though the opening is sappy, there is lots of wonderful stuff in It's a Wonderful Life.

***I was recently in a bit of traffic coming off Route 1 in Saugus at the Lynn Fells Parkway exit when I realized the source of the slowdown was people checking out the elaborate holiday displays at a pair of houses just off the highway. While a few lights can be nice, the over-the-top gaudy spectacles strike me as cheesy and wasteful. A Boston.com piece indicates that some other people agree.

So far, so good

The price of crude oil keeps dropping -- closing at about $66 a barrel yesterday -- but not all of that decline has, or will, translate to lower prices for home heating oil this winter. After a July high of $4.71 a gallon, according to the Mass. Department of Energy Resources, it's now selling for an average of $3.14, just 31 cents higher than last year at this time.

Regardless, I'm still trying to keep my oil consumption as low as possible, which is good for the planet and my wallet. This morning the temperature bottomed out at 35 degrees F outside and the thermometer in my kitchen reads 65, but I have yet to turn up the thermostat from its summer resting place of all the way to the dial's left.

I am not about to stand around shivering, but so far -- with a sweatshirt or an LL Bean double-layered undershirt, which I wear around the house every winter -- I haven't felt the need to turn on the heat at all. I did make sure that my storm windows were all down as of last weekend, but I've taken no other precautions. I've read and heard from friends that many are trying to get to Nov. 1 without cranking the heat, but I have no benchmark. I'm just trying to be smart.

Stay warm.

Dog days

It's mid-August, which should mean we're in the dog days of summer -- slow, languid afternoons and muggy nights -- but we've had a rather mild July and August. Today is actually the warmest it's been in a while, with the National Weather Service recording a high of 87 and the EBSB bank clock at Orient Heights reading 89 when I drove past about an hour ago. It's supposed to be in the 80s and sunny the rest of the week, but this may be the high point for heat.

My favorite summer insect, because I'm sure you're dying to know, is the dog-day cicada. First off, I like the name, and it's appropriate because the dog-day is only heard calling during the period of time it's named after and only then when the temperature reaches the 80s.

The other point of intrigue for me is that I've associated its call with the summer for years, but I never knew what exactly was making that sound. I tried describing the call to people (it builds up for a couple seconds, then holds and fades quickly, and it sounds like some type of electrical wire), but they looked at me strangely and had no idea what I was talking about. One day a couple years ago I decided to see what I could find out about it on the Internet and I found images (like the one above) and sound files of the call.

Now, on days like this, I listen for dog-days -- there is one that's been outside my window all day today -- and I know what I am hearing.

Luminous words

It looks as though spring-like weather will be here later this week, but we've got another gray Saturday on our hands. To bring a bit of luminosity to the day I thought I'd share some words written by Walt Whitman:

This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.