Lake Effect

I thought this guy (since it's in his name) was going to blog about this, but I guess he is getting his "Fun with the Internets" post ready for Sunday, so he doesn't have any more doubles this week. So I guess I will blog about the crazy weather that hit Milwaukee Monday morning and briefly during the day.

It basically depended on what part of the city you lived in, and you could have received anywhere from literally no snow, to up to 14 inches. Now, I have heard of some variance in weather across a city or geographic area, but that was a huge difference.

So here's where I live. I woke up to about 3 inches give or take (my whore of a wife probably woke up to about 8 inches)

Now, this is where my parents live. They woke up to 0 inches of snow, and got 0 throughout the day. (Note that this is about 8 miles west of my location.

Now here is where I work. This is about 4 miles south of my home and about 3 miles west. It was an interesting drive to school because as I drove south I noticed more and more snow had fallen over the night from where I live, and then while I drove west, there was less and less snow.

Now here is the airport location where they got about 8 over night and another 6-7 during the day.

The funny thing about all of this is that the official count is taken at the airport, so officially Milwaukee got 14 inches of snow for the day. In reality the east and the south were the only places where snow fell. The farther west and north that you went, the less snow that had fallen.

They b;lamed all this on lake effect, switching winds, yada yada yada. I don't believe in any of that wizardry. To me meteorology is a fake science. Whatever it was, I have never seen any weather like that before in my life.

On an unrelated note, who didn't see this coming. D'oh.

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Due to the wrath of Mother Nature I did not have to work today. It is cold out, the TV is telling me that the temperature outside is -9 degrees and the windchill is -33 degrees. WTF? I didn't even know those types of temperatures existed below Canada. It also seems as if there is no end in sight. Over night temperatures are expected to reach -15 degrees with windchills below -40 degrees. Around tomorrow at noon, we are suppossed to snap out of it and reach 10 degrees and only -5 degree windchills.

Just as a side note with work being canceled today, we do have to make up the day at the end of the year in June, so I am not totally getting out of working.

Busy Days

So CHopper here has had an interesting few days.

• Friday night, went to wedding to once again see that love is not real. We got 11 inches of snow that day and I couldn't even drive on my street. I had to park at a hotel that I wasn't staying at and get a cab home at night, and then a cab to my car in the morning.
• On Saturday night I decided to stay out of town at my parents because they have a garage and my street was still s**t.
• Come Sunday Morning the windchill was minus 25 degrees! My car wouldn't start. We tried everything. We jumped it, tried cranking the engine, tried warming it up with space heaters. NOthing would work. I decided to wait til Tuesday when it was suppossed to warm up to a balmy 24 degrees.
• On SUnday night I officially won my Fantasy Football league somehow by 6 points. I'm waiting for the comissioner to put in his codes so he wins............
• I spent the day Sunday and Monday at my parents because my car wouldn't start. Oh-well. On Monday me and my dad were sitting around and the house began to get smoky. There was an electrical fire in the crawl space above the ceiling in his front office. The fire department came, no flame, but they had to rip a hole in the ceiling of the office. THe whole ceiling came down. Some stuff (computer, desk) will have to be replace, while some made it through (bookcase, chair). ALl in all it could have been worse. Someone is coming in on Monday to put the ceiling back together and what not, until then the room is condemned. (Literally the housing authoirty came and closed off the room). The funniest thing is that 2 local news came becuase the fire department came out and they must listen to the airwaves. They asked my dad for a statement, but he said it wasn't a story and it was ridiculous that they were covering this when there were major accidents and murders happening in Milwaukee.
• Today (Tuesday) I went to start my car when it was "warmer" and it still wouldn't start, so I took it in. (I have free towing with my cell phone). Yada yada yada, it has something to do with coordided spark plugs and stuff. $500 later it should be fixed in about 3 hours. (I'm at the dealership now).
• So I am going to be off the airwaves until Friday, I will have no access to the Internets over the holidays do to the computer room being "condemned." (I'll make up with it over the next week.)
• Happy Festivus.

Seriously people......

So for one last time I am going to warn Mother Nature. Last night we got 3-4 inches. I am not going to be one of those a-holes that says "Oh, we only got 304 inches of snow." No, that is still enough.

So far this year to date we have gotten more than last year at this point. And the end of December and all of January was the worst winter I have ever experienced in my life. This trend had better stop soon.

The worst part is that on Thursday night we could get anywhere from 1 inch to 12 inches. "They" are not sure if winds are going to blow a certain way or not and how that will affect everything. With technology the way it is, I find it hard to believe that they don't know within 11 inches, how much we are going to get. I am pleading for very little. I have a wedding to attend on Friday (always the bridesmaid, never the bride) and I have to travel all over the city on Thursday night and Friday during the day.

I was disgusted at today paper that had this headline.

It appears Tuesday's snow was an appetizer for a several-course snowflake meal that forecasters predict will be served through Christmas.

Oh, I get it, they are making a joke out of getting a@@-loads of snow. Ha,ha, I get. The snow makes life miserable for everyone, and actually kills some people in car accidents, some people lose heat, etc. Hilarious joke Journal Sentinel.

So far, so.............okay

So far this winter (oh wait, it's still technically Fall), Mother Nature hasn't been too bad on us. Yes, it has snowed twice in 3 days, but both times it wasn't as bad as predicted. On Sunday night and Monday morning we were originally predicted to get 8-10 inches, and ended up without about 2 (kind of like EdGrimley's wedding night). Then today we were supposed to get up to 4, and so far have only gotten about 2 inches (knock on wood).

I guess it has something to do with lake effect, Canadaien air, gulf streams, yada yada yada. I don't get science, what has it ever done for me.

P.S. My arm has been really hurting me this week, I am going to the hospital, I really hope medical science can help me.

Watch the roads people

So I was driving home today and I drove past 7 accidents, 7! Keep in mind it was barely snowing, I would not even call it flurries. But since it was the first time this year we had any snow, people panicked. I even witnessed a lady break at a stop sign, lose control, or go up on the curb nearly hitting the stop sign.

People, drive a little slower, stop talking on the phone, and just get home and lock your doors. It's only snow. If this is any sign of things to come, it will probably be an even more frustrating winter than last year. Oh joy! Mother Nature, you are already on notice!

Still Dead to Me.....

Mother Nature has been Dead to Me for about 10 months now. The many reasons why are here. Then today I come out of work at 4 PM and it is doing some kind of precipitation, not quite snow, not quite rain. I didn't know what it was. I do know that it sucked. Just 2 days ago it was 75 degrees and sunny, now today it was 34-40 degrees and totally cloudy. Now on Saturday the weather is forecasting to snow. I swear if we have a winter even half as bad as last year...........

Wet, wet, everywhere

I don't want to turn into a weather blog. But, with what Mother Nature has been giving us lately, I may not have a choice. It rained again over night. I read today in the paper that it has been the 2nd wettest June in the history of Wisconsin, and it is only June 10th. And this isn't the good kind of wet......




Dear Mother Nature, Enough already.

Noah's Ark

Well Mother Nature hit us hard last night. There is water everywhere. Many streets are closed, the river is overflowing and the best part is that we are suppossed to get another 3 inches of rain today. The sewers are already overflowing, there is no place to put the rain.

Yes rain did that.

Now I know that many areas of the country would kill for rain because they go through month long droughts in which they can only use water at certain times of the day (California). But, this is ridiculous. With rain coming every day this week, things are going to get very interesting quickly around here.

Welcome Summer, please have a seat

Whenever I question why Mother Nature is Dead to Me she comes in with a roar again. Once again here in Wisconsin we had no Spring. We went from Winter and having temperatures in the 40s to temps in the 80 in a week.

We have also been getting the wrath of Mother Nature in terms of storms. Its down poured the past 3 days and I just checked the 10-day forecast and there is 50% chance of thunderstorms EVERYDAY. WTF? We also had tornado warnings all day yesterday, and many parts of the city had the tornado horns go off, making people go to the basement of wherever they were (I was at work). Today, I'm sitting here trying to enjoy a baseball game on Fox and we have been interrupted by local weather 4 times, and currently some idiot meteorologist has been talking for 15 minutes and put up tornado warnings for all of the area until 8 PM, and its only 3 PM.

Its Raining Men, I mean Mudd

Mother Nature is doing some odd things lately. Yesterday I think it rained mud for a while during the day. On Thursday night it downpoured all night and when I got inot my car Friday morning it was clean from the rain. I drove to work, yada, yada,yada. When I left work at 4PM my car was covered in what looked like muddy rain drops. Similar to this picture.
Muddy Rain Drops would make for a great name for an emo band, but when falling from the sky its not as cool. I'm not even too sure how the science behind this would work.

I'm Blind!

I'm not a meteorologist, I'm barely litterate, but apparently when it downpurs for 24 hours and the next day is a lot warmer, crazy amounts of fog form. Driving to work today I experienced probably the thickest fog I have ever experienced in my life. You could barely see 3-4 car lengths in front of you. Driving in fog is no big deal, the roads are still fine, you just have to pay a little more attention to the road. All that meant to me is that I couldn't send my usual 6 text messages to my ex-wife while driving to work. What got me angry however was that I saw about 10 cars driving without their lights on. Thats just stupid, no one can see you, you a**-hole. If you want to kill yourself do it the privacy of your own home, or on the front lawn of your ex-lover, not on public roads.

Why Jeebus Why?

So the lovely state of Wisconsin received another nice little f**k-you from Mother Nature on Friday. She decided to drop upon us another 12-15 inches of snow in one day, and remember this was the second day of Spring. So by now everyone has a pretty good system on how to deal with the snow. I decided to go out to my parents house to hide away for the day. They have a drive way and a garage (and electricity), 3 things I do not have. If I stayed at my place I would not be able to park on the street, and I have no where else to park, so I usually leave when it snows more than like 4-5 inches.

No bug deal, I just lie around watching movies all day. I go out and plow their drive three times, and each time there is a good 4-5 inches of really heavy snow. The last time I do this is at 10:15. I then decide to go out and get some food and just go out and stretch my legs. It had pretty much stopped snowing, but the roads were still pretty bad because the plows had not gone through yet. I came back around at around 12:30-1:00 to came back to this:

What are we supposed to do with this? Thanks a lot plow guy, how is anyone supposed to get through this. The real problem became that when it was actually snowing it wasn't all that cold, but now it was about 20 degrees, so this was all basically ice. After about an hour of working on it I got it down to this:

At that point at least I could get my car into the driveway and could work on the rest in the morning. I also lookeda cross the street and everyone's driveway was plowed in just as bad or worse. My parent's neighbors across the street are retired couple that hve no chacne of removing that snow, I hope they have no where to go for the next week.

What really gets me anger-ranting is that by the snow plow guy doing this he is indirectly putting tax=payers at risk. Lets say something happened in the middle of the night and someone needed to drive somewhere, they would need a good hour head start to remove the snow. Or let's say someone had a heart attack and called an ambulance, the paramedics would have a hard time getting the stretcher and other equipment into the house. Come on people. I know driving a snow plow at 11-12 at night is not the most luxurious job, but by you saving yourself a few minutes, you are having many a people waste hours trying to get out of their driveway and are inadvertently putting lives at risk. You are on notice.

Clever a*@-hole.....

SO today I drove past a church (that counts for actually going in and attending Mass, right?) and it has one of those electronic signs out front. I have blogged in the past about what these have said before, but it usually says either mass times, or some witty banter supposed to put a smile on your face and "believe in the power of God." Well today it said "God loves us snow much." WTF? Oh, I get it, it said snow instead of so. Hilarious? How's that working out for you? "Oh, you mean being clever?" No, I mean being an a*@-hole.

I hope God isn't sitting around thinking how he/she can show the people of Milwaukee how much he/she loves us, and thought about giving us this winter. We have had 10 days with the high below zero, we have had 58 inches of snow, 26 above our average.

That's almost as bad as how my wife showed me how much she loved me by sleeping with the mailman and leaving me with 2 kids and a mortgage in the middle of the night with no note. She loves me snow much.

On Notice....

So this morning I woke up (I know a lot of you are already disappointed) and turned on the local news while I had my orange juice. The local news did this story on the growing problem of potholes. Then there was this story a week ago. We all complain about pot holes but it seems that here in Milwaukee most of these new ones are not because of old and decrepit streets, it has everything to do with the weather. We have had consecutive days of of warm and cold back to back. The water has been getting into the pavement on warm days and then on the next cold day it is turning into ice and tearing the street apart and creating pot holes. I am putting these weather potholes On Notice. I swear if I hit one of these (and I have seen them) and it does anything to my car, even if it makes my Ashley Simpson CD skip, I will put them on the Dead to Me list.

You've been knocked the F@*k Out!

Mother Nature has officially Knocked us the F*#K out. We got another 4-6 inches last night and today. It took me twice as long to get to work yet again. This is ridiculous. Mother Nature is officially going to be a permanent member of my Dead List. Outside of Mother Nature somehow reuniting me with my ex-wife, it will always be Dead to Me and will never be removed from the list. Good Bye.

Dead Horse

I know it sounds like I'm beating a dead horse but, Mother Nature is still toying with us. It was 45 degrees in Milwaukee yesterday. Then at about 5 PM it started having 30 MPH winds and by 9 o'clock it was 2 degrees, with a -15 wind chill. What gives? Woke up today and all my doors were frozen shut once again, took 10 minutes to start my car, and we didn't even cancel school. It is currently minus 4 with a wind chill of -35. I wouldn't have mu child wait in that for the bus just to be educated by someone like me. By noon its suppossed to be 9 degrees again, and tomorrow it is 25 degrees. What is this 24 hour freezing all about? I;m done with Mother Nature.

Even more Dead to Me

I may need to start another category that is even worse than "Dead to Me" soon. Mother Nature is still dumping on the state of Wisconsin. After record highs in snow fall for December, and record lows for temperature in early January, we are still getting it. Here's a list of what it has done this week.

• Cost the Packer's a good chance of winning
• Gave us 8-10 inches of snow of Monday (were expecting 4)
• Wind chills of -20 all day Wednesday
• Got another 1-2 inches last night
• Broke my shovel when I was digging "a hole" last night
• Took my car 15 minutes to start this morning

Today going to school I drove past a church that usually puts up witty banter about God, like "we are prayer-conditioned." (I'll wait a minute while you stop laughing. This morning they had "only 55 days of winter left." F*#K you! Winter is only 91 days long, we aren't even half way done with it. A lot can happen in 55 days. I could get married 4-5 times, or we could get another 3 feet of snow and have 20 days of below zero temperatures.

Mother Nature: Still Dead to Me.

Oh My god! We're all gonna die!!

I was driving home tonight around 6 PM and you would think the world was coming to an end. It was snowing out; but it wasn't a blizzard and it was 34 degrees, so it was all melting as soon as it landed. Despite all this people were all driving as if it were a blizzard or there was acid falling from the sky. People were going about 15 mph and were swerving between lanes. It took me 45 minutes to drive home and I didn't even stop to pick up any "friends." (It usually takes me 15-20).

People, if we don't know how to handle ourselves behind the wheel, don't get behind the wheel. Stay at home and weep over how miserable your lives have become, because they are.

The sad thing is the slowest cars on the road where those stupid SUVS. Why do we buy these vehicles that are made for bad weather and tricky terrains, if we do not know how to drive them. You might as well be driving a bicycle in the snow.

Al Gore is an A*@hole

Alright it is October 6 in Wisconsin and it is 85 degrees outside, and is supposed to be even hotter tomorrow. What gives man? Have we ever heard of the season of Fall? Its gonna go from summer to winter overnight. Sunday its gonna be almost 90, and I bet on Monday its snowing. I blame Al Gore, why not? I also blame EdGrimley and his Al Gore pandering blog niceweatherinmilwaukee.blogspot.com.

Also, did you see that Indians and Yankees game last night. What was with all those bugs? I know Cleveland is the armpit of America, but that was ridiculous.