Our situation officially remains “abnormally dry” according the the US Drought Monitor (http://www.drought.unl.edu/dm/monitor.html) but we’ve only had a little more than a half inch of rain in the last 3 1/2 weeks so I say enough is enough. The big pattern should shift to the east enough to allow for a front to get into the area and bring our best chance for rain in about 4 weeks. There are water restrictions in part of the area….parts of Shelby County. It seems to me they either need to increase the water supply or build a big pipe to the Ohio River if they are going to keep growing. The blame was put on increased water usage but I say its more likely an increase in people.
Hurricane season starts tomorrow. The first storm will be Barry because the National Hurricane Center already used up Andrea on what they called a “subtropical storm” a few weeks ago. The hurricane center is in a battle with Dr. William Gray, who started making predictions several years ago. While he’s still in business, the gov’t cut his funding and started putting out their own forecasts. He says its in retaliation for his pooh-poohing the man made Global Warming argument. There may or may not be validity but I suspect the big wigs at NOAA didn’t want him getting credit. After all, these are the same people who are going to change the National Hurricane Center to the NOAA Hurricane Center…or something like that. I’ve already noticed that NOAA is making its name more prominent in all press releases. Such narcissism.
Funny thing is…Gray is pretty specific…he says 17 named storms and 9 hurricanes. NOAA’s NHC says 13-17 named storms and 7-10 hurricanes. The government has a better chance of not being wrong. But if you think about it…17 represents a 30% increase over 13 and 10 is a 42% increase over 7. When I was in school, a margin of error that large left me with a big fat “F”.
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