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High temp today, here: -5. Dewpoint then: -9. High dewpoint: -9.
High temp today in TO: -3. Dewpoint then: -9. High dewpoint: -9.
Something that's become evident keeping up these records: the temperature doesn't go up and down with the sun nearly as regularly in the fall/winter as it does in the summer--as, I guess, you'd expect. It tends to stay at the high temperature for a number of hours, whereas in the summer, the high temperature fairly predicatably occurs at 4 p.m. each day. That's why the high dewpoint lately is almost always the same as the dewpoint at high temperature.
Epsilon, against all odds and indications, remains a hurricane. Forecaster Avila again threw up his hands this morning and said: "I AM AM NOT GOING TO SPECULATE ANY MORE ON THE FUTURE INTENSITY OF EPSILON AND WILL JUST FOLLOW SHIPS AND GFDL WHICH ARE THE BEST GUIDANCE AVAILABLE." I think next year maybe I should save all of the various tropical weather forecasts from the various tropical weather forecasters and see if any of the others (there's Forecaster Pasch, Forecaster Knabb, maybe a couple of others) exhibit any kind of discernable personality.
There ought to be a word--I can' t think of quite the right combination of words--for that attitude consisting in the will to have it believed, by oneself and others, without justification and for no reason except to feel oneself superior, that some particular third party is foolish. Scornfulness is in there, and so is mendacity, and so is pettiness. My favourite example of this is the time (several years ago) that a student asked me what the other TA's name was, and I said, "Hakam," and she said "Camo?", and then turned around and announced to the other students within earshot, "The TA's name is Camo!", in a tone indicating that the other TA was, clearly, a hopeless joke. (She may have said "Camel". I'm not sure.)
Anyway, here's today's example, which begins with an article in today's Globe about Environment Canada's climatologists predicting a colder than normal December (and rest of the winter, I guess) across the country. Toward the end of the article, there was a tangent about white Christmasses, and how Quebec City always has them, and Victoria has them 11% of the time, and some other places that are guaranteed to have white Christmasses include Thunder Bay, ... a short list of other cities I can't remember, and the North Pole.
Now. Since the Globe, some months ago, took as its slogan "It's Not Just News: It's A Conversation", it has allowed people to post comments, blog-style, on the articles on its website. (These comments are often--no, usually--really depressing, in their multifaceted stupidity. If I were the Globe, I would have shut this thing down real quick, lest it besmirch my brand.) One of the comments on the "cold winter" story was something much like: "It takes an Environment Canada climatologist to tell us that there's going to be a white Christmas at the North Pole?"
Now, you know, maybe that person was joking. But I don't think so.
Another one, not quite the same sort of thing, but even more annoying in its own way: "Environment Canada can't even tell us what the weather is going to be like tomorrow! How's it going to tell us what the weather will be like next month? In any other business, if you're wrong more than 50% of the time, you get fired!"
Hoo. Hooooo. Definitely not anything.
High temp today in TO: -3. Dewpoint then: -9. High dewpoint: -9.
Something that's become evident keeping up these records: the temperature doesn't go up and down with the sun nearly as regularly in the fall/winter as it does in the summer--as, I guess, you'd expect. It tends to stay at the high temperature for a number of hours, whereas in the summer, the high temperature fairly predicatably occurs at 4 p.m. each day. That's why the high dewpoint lately is almost always the same as the dewpoint at high temperature.
Epsilon, against all odds and indications, remains a hurricane. Forecaster Avila again threw up his hands this morning and said: "I AM AM NOT GOING TO SPECULATE ANY MORE ON THE FUTURE INTENSITY OF EPSILON AND WILL JUST FOLLOW SHIPS AND GFDL WHICH ARE THE BEST GUIDANCE AVAILABLE." I think next year maybe I should save all of the various tropical weather forecasts from the various tropical weather forecasters and see if any of the others (there's Forecaster Pasch, Forecaster Knabb, maybe a couple of others) exhibit any kind of discernable personality.
There ought to be a word--I can' t think of quite the right combination of words--for that attitude consisting in the will to have it believed, by oneself and others, without justification and for no reason except to feel oneself superior, that some particular third party is foolish. Scornfulness is in there, and so is mendacity, and so is pettiness. My favourite example of this is the time (several years ago) that a student asked me what the other TA's name was, and I said, "Hakam," and she said "Camo?", and then turned around and announced to the other students within earshot, "The TA's name is Camo!", in a tone indicating that the other TA was, clearly, a hopeless joke. (She may have said "Camel". I'm not sure.)
Anyway, here's today's example, which begins with an article in today's Globe about Environment Canada's climatologists predicting a colder than normal December (and rest of the winter, I guess) across the country. Toward the end of the article, there was a tangent about white Christmasses, and how Quebec City always has them, and Victoria has them 11% of the time, and some other places that are guaranteed to have white Christmasses include Thunder Bay, ... a short list of other cities I can't remember, and the North Pole.
Now. Since the Globe, some months ago, took as its slogan "It's Not Just News: It's A Conversation", it has allowed people to post comments, blog-style, on the articles on its website. (These comments are often--no, usually--really depressing, in their multifaceted stupidity. If I were the Globe, I would have shut this thing down real quick, lest it besmirch my brand.) One of the comments on the "cold winter" story was something much like: "It takes an Environment Canada climatologist to tell us that there's going to be a white Christmas at the North Pole?"
Now, you know, maybe that person was joking. But I don't think so.
Another one, not quite the same sort of thing, but even more annoying in its own way: "Environment Canada can't even tell us what the weather is going to be like tomorrow! How's it going to tell us what the weather will be like next month? In any other business, if you're wrong more than 50% of the time, you get fired!"
Hoo. Hooooo. Definitely not anything.
