1st Thanksgiving Had No Pilgrims and Was More Famine than Feast December 4, 2010

The Bird Was Safe On The First Thanksgiving

FDR Wanted Everyone to Cut the Turkey A Week Earlier Than Abe Proposed

On This Date in History:  Thanksgiving has come and gone and Black Friday is in the record books.  I”m not sure how the day after Thanksgiving has turned into such a big deal.  I suppose that its been coming for some time.  Previously, I had outlined the genesis of Thanksgiving and related how President Franklin Roosevelt had once tried to move Turkey Day to a week earlier in an attempt to add an extra week to the holiday shopping season.  Sorta a disguised depression era stimulus plan. It didn’t work and the experiment was scrapped after one year.  I’m not sure what is taught now, but when I was a kid, we were taught in school about how the Indians hooked up with the Pilgrims near Plymouth Rock to have a big feast in 1621.  Today, we sit around stuffing ourselves with Turkey (not the vegetarian Snow White) and watch football games with our eyes closed and belts loosened.   Trouble is, the Puritans on the Mayflower didn’t call themselves Pilgrims; they referred to themselves as “Saints” which seems a bit presumptuous considering not too many years down the road they were burning “witches” at the stake.  The other thing is that the real first Thanksgiving was on this date in 1620 and it was in Virginia.

1st Colonists in Jamestown

The first permanent English settlement in the New World was Jamestown in 1607 in the Virginia Colony and it wasn’t doing too well. The settlers didn’t know what they were doing and the winters were harsh…remember this was during the mini-ice age. Anyway, by the spring of 1610, the colonists were coming off a tough winter and only 60 of the original 409 were left. Sounds like a good time for prayers to me! And that’s what they did and when help arrived in the form of a ship with food and supplies from mother England, they gave thanks with a prayer service. I guess they weren’t a sentamental lot because they never did anything to commemorate the event.

Fast Not Feast On 1st Thanksgiving

Two other groups came to Virginia. They were supposed to arrive in Virginia but one(the Mayflower) ended up in Plymouth in 1620. The other (the Margaret) made it to Virginia on December 4, 1619 and their charter read “Wee ordaine that the day of our ships arrival…in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually keept holy as a day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God.” On December 4, 1620 they commemorated their first year in the colony, not with a feast, but instead they did the opposite and fasted as they prayed. Guess we got that part wrong too. The colonists who landed at what they called Berkeley Hundred didn’t get a chance to mark their second anniversary…some were all killed by Indians and the rest retreated to Jamestown. Maybe they were upset that they weren’t invited to the First Thanksgiving.

ETA Thinks You May Need a Snow Shovel

GFS Thinks It Will Just Be a Pretty Weekend

Weather Bottom Line:  We have another pretty good shot at some snow and this time it will probably be more substantial than what we got on Thanksgiving night.  The long wave pattern is such that there is a dominant and persistent trof in the Eastern half of the US.  The reason why its persistent is because there is a big fat high, or ridge, in the middle of the Atlantic.  There is also a big trof on the front side of that ridge.  That forms a pattern that looks like the greek letter Omega, which is why its called an Omega Block.  Typically,  the Omega pattern is one that puts the breaks on progressive change in the long wave pattern; hence the name Omega “block.”    So, England has been getting slammed with big time snow along with much of the rest of western Europe.  And on this side of the pond, there is the persistent trof with the storm track running from the northern plains throgh the Ohio Valley to the Carolina Mountains.  So, we have another strong shortwave zipping down the storm track through the area.  We have some moisture to work with too.  The heaviest snow will be to the left of the core of that shortwave or “upper low.”  It will be impossible to forecast exactly who gets the biggest snow until about 12 hours before its arrival.  The ETA advertises some 4-5 inches for our area.  The GFS has the track about 50 miles farther east or northeast and so it only has about 1-2 inches.  Take your pick.  My guess is that both will be true for the area, but not for everyone in the area with folks over toward Frankfort having a better chance of 4 inches than the people in Lanesville, Indiana.  After that, the cold air will spill in behind and it will remain chilly for the forseeable future until the Omega Block decides to move.

Typhoon Parma Strikes Philippines; 1st Thanksgiving; 1st Iraq Independence Day October 3, 2009

Typhoon Parma Forecast Track 12Z 10.03.09

For an Update on Typhoon Parma and Typhoon Melor CLICK HERE

Typhoon Parma Satellite Image 1130Z 10.03.09

Typhoon Parma made landfall on the northeast coast of the the Philippines on Saturday.  Typhoon Parma’s struck   the Cagayan Province  with the worst typhoon conditions in a decade, some officials said.  Government officials were thankful that the storm wobbled a bit before landfall, although the damage is still extensive and there has been loss of life.  While some reports say that Manila was spared, other reports say that Manila had heavy rain on Friday and Saturday and officials were not sure about additional flooding in and around the capital.   I suspect that both reports are true.  Manila was spared from the full impact but the backside of the storm’s flow is off the South China Sea which would bring bands of heavy rain from the west or northwest.  And, it is probably true that local officials have no idea of the rain on the waterlogged areas around the capital will result in new flooding. 

Typhoon Parma had maximum winds of near 175 kph (about 110 mph) at landfall which was sufficient to wreak havoc in the Cagayan provincial capital of Tuguegarao where reports of extensive wind damage have come in as well as flooding.  The initial reports of three dead will likely be expanded.

Typhoon Melor Forecast Track

The official forecast track of Parma (Joint Typhoon Warning Center Discussion) has some of the elements that I discussed in the previous post as the storm neared the coast.  Parma will continue to bring rain to the northern part of the island as its forward momentum will slow down.  However, the current thinking is that the storm moves along the track first forecast several days ago,which is more northward toward Taiwan.   After doing so for a short time, the storm then moves a bit southeast and then loops back northeast.  This movement southeast/northeast movement would be in response to Typhoon Melor (JTWC Discussion) moving by to the east as it makes its way toward Japan.  The forecast track has been very difficult for quite some time and the Taiwan government is taking no chances as that island nation is  issuing warnings and evacuating some areas as a precaution, which is probably a pretty good idea.

On This Date In History: We’ve all enjoyed Thanksgiving Dinner and we all probably learned in grade school that the first Thanksgiving involved the Pilgirms and the native Indians of North America. But, the real first official Thanksgiving Holiday was proclaimed on this date in 1863 by President Lincoln, calling for an annual day of national Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November. The president used the opportunity to thank the Union Army for the reversal of fortune in the Union effort by the victory at Gettysburg. President Washington had declared a “national day of thanksgiving and prayer” in 1789, but it didn’t become an annual event. In fact, Thomas Jefferson thought that such national events of demonstration towards a deity was not appropriate. Other presidents agreed until President Lincoln’s decree. President Franklin Roosevelt tried what I call a political move in 1939 when he moved the holiday to the third Thursday. However, I suppose its plausible to argue that Lincoln’s initial declaration was rooted in politics. Anyway, FDR was hoping to extend the Christmas shopping season. I guess he thought that by moving Thanksgiving he could pull the wool over American’s eyes and use the psychology of calling a different day Thanksgiving to get them to spend more money. Anyway, Congress had enough of the foolishness and in 1941 put the national holiday back to where President Lincoln put it in the first place.

King Faisal 1st of Iraq crowned by Brits in 1932

On This Date in 1932

Iraq gained independence. The region had been ruled by the Ottoman Empire, which dissolved at the conclusion of World War I. Britain occupied the area and was given a League of Nations mandate to govern the region in 1920. They set up a monarchy and granted independence in 1932. That government maintained strong military and economic ties with Britain and that resulted in numerous protests. In 1941, a pro-Axis (Germany, Italy, Japan) movement took hold and the UK intervened causing the Iraqi government to agree to back the good guys in the war. The monarchy got over thrown in 1958 and for the next 20 years, Iraq was ruled by a series of civilian and military governments until Saddam Hussein became dictator in 1979….a position he held until 2003. Saddam has since left to try to rule another world. However, from its 20th century history, its easy to see why there are skeptics that a democracy can flourish in the region. But, the global political situation is not as it was nor is the politics of the region so one cannot use history as a prescription for the future.

Weather Bottom Line:  Great weekend in store.  Highs in upper 60′s and lows in the 40′s. Rain chances return on Monday into Tuesday as the evolution of another system unfolds.