Julie Pippert: Using My Words

High today: mid-70s High tomorrow: upper 70s Lows: mid 50s to low 30s (when cold front comes through later this week) Everyone is all excited about a freeze, but,despite my really poor performance in my meteorology courses (yes! I took them! required for a geography degree!), I'm pretty sure the weather can't be at 32 for ten minutes and create a freeze, as much as some of us might wish it. So...show me photos, give data...what's December like for you right now? P.S. This is one of two waterside parks near my house that are my favorites for jogging/walking. Lately I've been at this one most of the time, and the relative warmth and green struck me as funny beside the Christmas tree in the gazebo.

As of this morning, Dean had strengthened to a Category 5 hurricane, with some unusual properties such as hail in the leading edge. Unusual properties + hurricane heading for Gulf of Mexico = Very Bad Thing So far they have it heading straight at us. WOO HOO! This story is slightly out of date for Dean (you know how dynamic hurricanes are), but: " Gulf States Mop Up After Erin, Ramp Up for Hurricane Dean " National Weather Service meteorologist Matt Mooreland said Erin dumped the most rain on south and southeast Houston, where nearly nine inches were recorded at Hunting Bayou and Lockwood. Hey! We got the most rain! An award! An award! Texas Governor Rick Perry Friday declared Hurricane Dean an imminent threat to Texas, initiating full-scale state hurricane preparedness efforts. I'm just surprised and impressed that Perry knows how to say the word 'imminent' much less what it means! If politics was a frat party, Perry is Bush's slightly less intelligent, sligh...

At 11:15 a.m. right when I was driving home... Driving anywhere nonessential in a tropical storm---even the edge of a sort of one---is seven kinds of stupid. I? Am seven kinds of stupid. For the record? The dentist is nonessential and not worth the twenty-five years I took off my life span driving to and from the office in this torrential rain. I knew it was not good news when, as I backed out of my drive, rain band 1 hit, turning the sky gunmetal gray with rain slashing down at about a 45 degree angle. I had about ten feet of visibility in front of me. I knew it was very bad news when, as I paid the dentist and prepared to leave, the sky turned black as night. That rain crashed down bone straight, and left about five feet of visibility. Everyone had to drive in the left lanes as the right ones were flooded. As we drove, the radio made that ghastly shrieking noise and issued storm and flash flood alerts for...everywhere I am. Then the sky and air got freaky weird. The edge of black cl...

Just because we all got complacent those NOAA guys had to fix our wagons and sic a Tropical Storm (Erin as she goes by) on us. Hey NOAA, I get it. You're Chicken Little and we all blew you off about the sky is falling. Okay you woke us up, now call back your storm. Tell it to sit, wait, lie, and play dead. I think the Rita-strength hurricane threat was a little over the top; I noticed even the news media didn't take you seriously. I mean, probably half of the area is all, "Erin? Erin who? And NOAA? Who's that? Her husband?" That storm? With its paltry 40 mph winds, rapidly approaching land just south of my town? It's leaving the Happy Hurricane Zone of the Gulf. That means the power and force it needed to pick up? TOO LATE BABY! So HA! I laugh in the face of your storm. HA HA HA HA It wasn't going to happen anyway because I employed my super secret anti-hurricane magic, also known as Preparing for the Worst. My flood insurance is paid up, the tree at risk ...