Category Archives: Weather

Are Republicans Really Anti-Science?

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In Mother Jones, Kevin Drum takes on Chris Mooney’s stance In The Republican Brain. The question both writers pose is “Who has been anti-science, and why?”

I know some people who are anti-science but they seem to come from all over the political spectrum. In fact, I know more liberals who support the false god of political science than conservatives who denounce the real thing. And that is the crux of the problem.

When Buster Door said to me, “You’re anti-science” he and his friends are mostly saying “You’re against what I oh-so-strongly believe.” They have no rigorous proof to back up either the claim or what they believe. NPR’s Ira Flatow who “barely grasped chemistry” is a good example of that.

“The science of climate change is fixed,” he says regularly on his weekly radio show, Science Friday. “Why can’t people just accept that [man causes it] and move on?”

I don’t think anyone would argue for a static climate. I don’t understand how anyone who has ever seen a 5-day weather forecast could argue that we know enough about climate to “fix the science” in Mr. Flatow’s favorite concrete.

Stephen Hawking wrote in A Brief History of Time, “A theory is a good theory if it satisfies two requirements: It must accurately describe a large class of observations on the basis of a model that contains only a few arbitrary elements, and it must make definite predictions about the results of future observations.

“Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis; you can never prove it. No matter how many times the results of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not contradict the theory. On the other hand, you can disprove a theory by finding even a single observation that disagrees with the predictions of the theory.”

The theory of anthropogenic climate change describes a smaller-and-smaller class of observations on the basis of a model that contains an increasing number of arbitrary elements. Many proponents ignore historically larger climate swings that do not fit the theory. Many proponents ignore solar influence that does not fit the theory. Many proponents ignore the inconvenient truth that new temperature data shows the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years which does not fit the theory.

Mr. Drum makes some good points but he overlooks the most obvious when he writes, “Doubt about climate change is obviously motivated by a dislike of the business regulation that would be necessary if we took climate change seriously…”

I just can’t see that.

I see that doubting anthropogenic climate change means we understand how science works.

And I see the political scientists of anthropogenic global weirding as worshipers of Ptolemy.

Pretty bright guy, our Ptolemy. His Harmonics defined music theory and the mathematics of music. His Geographia not only compiled world geography in the Roman Empire, but also used coordinates and established latitudes and longitudes. But he also believed the Earth was the center of the Universe. It took 1500 years before Copernicus could dispel that.

I know these pieces are always All About Me, but I also know I am not the center of the Universe.

If it takes us another 1500 years to understand that bankrupting ourselves on political science so we have nothing left to adapt to the looming colder or hotter lands and seas, we have indeed met the enemy.

He is us.

Winter Wonderland

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The squirrels think it may be a mild winter this year. The geese have been flying north this week. The National Weather Service says it may be a mild winter this year.

That must be why the National Weather Service announced yesterday that Winter Weather Awareness Week begins today in North Puffin.

Believe me. No one in North Puffin needs a reminder of winter weather.

Except research shows that about 70 percent of the ice and snow related fatalities occur in automobiles, and about 25 percent of all winter related fatalities are people caught off guard, out in the storm.

The best awareness plan, then, is not to drive; stay inside with your feet next to the wood stove.

Today, the National Weather Service will offer tips on ways to prepare for winter hazards.
I have a winter car kit in each vehicle, the wood stoves and generators have all passed their test run, and I obsess over the weather forecasts.

The harder part of living in the frozen north is the lack of a single planning checklist. That surprised me. In South Puffin, every television station, every radio station, every newspaper inundates us with Hurricane Preparedness guides.

Not here. I found the public information statement from the National Weather Service-Burlington at the Victoria Advocate. (At 165 years old, the Victoria Advocate, is Texas‘ second oldest newspaper. The Advocate can be found exactly where it has been for 62 of those years, on East Constitution Street in downtown Victoria, exactly 1,998 miles from North Puffin.)

A family emergency plan and an accompanying emergency kit is a good thing. This season is a good time to over warn and over-react: “Prepare for the worst. Pray for the best.” I distilled the best advices I could find into a Winter Preparedness Guide on my business site, harperco.net.

On Tuesday: What to do if stranded on the road during a storm.
Reality check. We are all far more likely to be stuck in a parking space than stuck in a snow drift off the Mountain Road. 90% of what you’ll find on the Winter Preparedness Guide will help even if you are in your own driveway. And the other 10%? Why not finish the test so the real test doesn’t finish you?

On Wednesday: Protect yourself from the wind and cold.
Take a look at how skiers, ski patrollers, and your highway guys dress. Take a lesson.

On Thursday: Winter flooding and ice jams across the North Country.
Almost freezing water on your floor? Flooding can come from broken pipes or a broken roof just as easily as it does from the lake or river near your house.

On Friday: Winter weather terminology. What exactly does “A winter storm warning is in effect” mean?
See my better plan below.

On Saturday: Review preparedness activities for winter.

Americans live in the most severe-weather prone country on Earth, so I have a better plan.



Blow Job

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Hurricane memories.

The weather has been remarkably good to me over the years so this reminiscence isn’t the Biggest Baddest Harper Hall of Fame. Instead, I got to thinking about the hurricanes I’ve experienced personally.

The first tropical cyclone I remember was named Hazel, the deadliest storm of the 50s. That Category 4 storm came ashore on the North Carolina-South Carolina border and made a beeline for Canada. 95 people died in the U.S. She killed about 1,000 people in Haiti.

In her northerly march, Hazel blew across Virginia, and West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and New Jersey, and New York with 100 mph winds and severe flooding. 113 mph, the highest wind speed ever recorded in New York City, was recorded in Battery Park.

Trees down. Power out.

I lived with my parents and grandfather in Chester County, in the southeastern corner of Pennsylvania when Hazel hit. We lost a 75′ larch, one of the few deciduous conifers, and the electricity was out for more than a week.

The Shakespeares and their two standard poodles lived across the road from us. For whatever reason, their power came back on a day or so after the storm passed through although ours remained out. My dad and grandfather strung a few hundred feet of the extension cords they used for the hedge trimmer up through the Norway maple and across the road to the neighbor’s bedroom window. We had just enough wire to reach and it kept the fridge and the well pump and a couple of lights going. My mom cooked on the coal stove which also heated our water. We had neither television nor Internoodle in 1954, so our power requirements were fairly low.

I played in and around the fallen larch for a few days but a nest of hornets chased me out long before Henry Sickler (he was both our postmaster and chief of police in those days) came with a chain saw to clean it up. I was very disappointed that we had to remove that tree.

Hurricanes are thought to be unusual in Pennsylvania. From the Gale of 1878, the 1903 Vagabond hurricane, to Hurricane Ike, there have been about 11 in 135 years. I don’t remember Hurricanes Connie and Diane the very next year after Hazel.

More storms hit Florida than any other U.S. state and only eighteen hurricane seasons passed without a named storm hitting us since 1851. I wasn’t in Florida until the 1980s so I’ll ignore the storms from 1498 (that one destroyed a Spanish fleet) through 1933. The 1935 Labor Day Hurricane brought a 15 to 20 foot storm surge to Lower Matecumbe and Long Key. That storm killed 1,000 people. The pressure of 892 mbar (26.35 inches of mercury) is the third lowest ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere; it is the only one to make landfall with a pressure below 900. The winds were estimated 185 mph at landfall. It was the first of three Category 5 hurricanes in the United States (the others were Camille in 1969 and Andrew in 1992).

My folks were in the Florida Keys for Floyd which did little damage. Georges ravaged the lower Keys. Charley moved mostly to the west us and downed trees and power lines. Andrew spared the Keys.

2005’s Katrina struck just a glancing blow in the Keys with power lines down and flooding; I was out of state then but I was back in town as Wilma spun up out in the Gulf. I ran from Wilma, settling north of Tampa for a week. She just about got me again up there as she crossed and recrossed Florida. Wilma’s wind damage totaled $20.6 billion in Florida overall but was relatively light in the Keys. Flooding was real story for us; the north side of the Overseas Highway looked like New Orleans after Katrina.

Irene turned away from the Keys.

Many Category 3 or greater hurricanes hit New England in the years between 1100 and about 1450. Up here, the meteorologists have been atwitter because New England hurricanes are now are thought to be so uncommon. Still, there were five in the 19th Century and eight in the 20th including the famed Long Island Express of 1938. I was here for Gloria, Bob, Bertha, Floyd (none of which made it to Vermont as hurricanes) and now Irene whose spectacular satellite imagery encouraged us to expect the worst.

A neighbor wondered on Friday, “Are Vermonters over reacting to Irene or are we really going to take a lickin’?”

IF the storm track had held true (it did), we over-reacted, at least here in Vermont’s Champlain Valley. Here’s the worry, though. If the storm had picked up some more heat between NC and Long Island (likely), wobbled 50 miles west (could have been), and stayed a Category 1 (who knows), instead of making a beeline up the Connecticut River Valley, we would have been under a genuine hurricane. I run from hurricanes.

A real hurricane would devastate Vermont. Our buildings and infrastructure are mostly quite old and made to handle ice storms, not the winds and deluge and pressure changes a hurricane brings. (The sudden pressure drop can literally explode a mobile home and a branch or piece of lumber flung at 80 or 90 mph can go through the wall of a house.)

I predicted North Puffin would get a gully washer with 40-50 mph gusts — in other words, a big rainstorm of the kind we’re used to.

Didn’t stop us from cancelling the concert Sunday, though.

The Champlain Valley Fair cancelled all activities for Sunday.

We were right to over warn and over-react.
“Prepare for the worst. Pray for the best.”

I was at a local hardware store on Saturday afternoon. Disasters are very good for business at both ends — preparedness supplies before and repair items after the fact.

I had no trouble driving in or out of town Sunday morning. It rained moderately hard all day up here on top of the hill but the wind became just audible about 2:30, probably blowing about 15-20 mph. It picked up a bit up later in the afternoon probably 20-25 with some 30-35 gusts. Good day for sailing a Hobie cat although by evening we had 3-foot waves and 40-45 mph gusts on our beach. The rain fell about straight down instead of straight sideways most of the day but as the western High started rushing in, thousands of trees sacrificed a thick layer of Fall warmth to carpet the roads and lawns.

The generator ran fine when I warmed it up last month. Didn’t need it. Swanton Village Power & Light has (I think) the best “up time” in New England so we never worried about losing electricity for long.

Irene may become the most costly hurricane in U.S. history. At least 41 people died over all and about a million New Yorkers are without power this morning. Two people were killed, 250 roads laid waste, 100 bridges sacked, and 12 towns cut off in Vermont, but here in North Puffin we’re just wringing out the sponges.

After Hazel, Canada converted the swamped residential areas in Ontario’s floodplains to parkland to avoid future death and destruction. After Katrina, the United States rebuilt the New Orleans levees.

By the way, today is the 6th anniversary of Katrina’s landfall. It appears Katya is ready to spin up tomorrow.