Random Number Generators
Wednesday, 11 February 2015 13:00![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dr_phil_physicsSince I'm not driving to Kzoo every day -- or even every day at all -- I haven't been beset by watching the gas prices every day. Hence the lack of reports here. However, it's still all insanity.
We had gotten down to $1.77.9/gal, and briefly even lower. Then prices settled in the mid-1.80s and low-1.90s. In the last two weeks prices suddenly jumped up to over two bucks. Mrs. Dr. Phil caught herself thinking OUTRAGEOUS -- then realizing how outrageous it truly was to be outraged by paying two bucks for a gallon of gas.
On Friday gas was $2.26.9/gal, and I filled with mid-grade at $2.41.9/gal (OUTRAGE, I say!). But...
Yesterday, Tuesday, I saw that the same gas station was "down" to $2.20.9/gal. Heading back out of town, I saw Admiral, which always likes to mess with people, had regular at $2.14.9/gal.
Today, Wednesday, seventeen hours later -- and the two main stations in town, Family Failure and Mobil, were at $2.38.9/gal and $2.39.9/gal respectively.
Similar odd happenings are happening with the temperature.
End of last week it got in the mid-30s and briefly got up to 41°F. Then it dropped to single digits over the weekend. And we're back up to mid-30s. With freezing drizzle and possible black ice on the previously dry and cleared roads.
As for Saturday night, every forecast keeps lowering the overnight low. A friend on Facebook said earlier in the week that one of the long range models pegged Grand Rapids at -22.1°F for a low. The Weather Channel app was predicting -4° to zero. Now it's down to -8°F for Allendale. Then over the next week the temps porpoise up and down, no two days looking like the other.
Ah, making light of Michigan's "if you don't like the weather, wait five minutes".
Meanwhile, John Schoffstall of my 2004 Clarion class wants to know exactly what terrible thing Boston had done. Because it's getting hit with snow storm after snow storm -- and not inconsequential ones at that. I don't think they'll be dug out from this one before the next one hits tomorrow. We're talking U.P. level snowfalls, except in a major metropolitan city.
I mean, you can bury Maine any time and mostly the world doesn't care. But Boston? I'm not sure the T was running yesterday.
It's felt as if we've missed everything here in West Michigan. And it's true that we've had long stretches without daily snows. But there's been enough since the start of the year, plus the November pre-winter blizzard, that all the West Michigan communities are still above their average snowfalls to date -- but less than last year's unrelenting pummeling.
WMU has had three snow days this academic year so far.
Meanwhile, the climate change deniers are shrilly declaiming that "it's cold in the Northeast!" and "Antarctic ice has grown!" Failing once again to understand that weather is not climate, that large scale variations and churning are necessary consequences, or how science works.
Dr. Phil
We had gotten down to $1.77.9/gal, and briefly even lower. Then prices settled in the mid-1.80s and low-1.90s. In the last two weeks prices suddenly jumped up to over two bucks. Mrs. Dr. Phil caught herself thinking OUTRAGEOUS -- then realizing how outrageous it truly was to be outraged by paying two bucks for a gallon of gas.
On Friday gas was $2.26.9/gal, and I filled with mid-grade at $2.41.9/gal (OUTRAGE, I say!). But...
Yesterday, Tuesday, I saw that the same gas station was "down" to $2.20.9/gal. Heading back out of town, I saw Admiral, which always likes to mess with people, had regular at $2.14.9/gal.
Today, Wednesday, seventeen hours later -- and the two main stations in town, Family Failure and Mobil, were at $2.38.9/gal and $2.39.9/gal respectively.
Similar odd happenings are happening with the temperature.
End of last week it got in the mid-30s and briefly got up to 41°F. Then it dropped to single digits over the weekend. And we're back up to mid-30s. With freezing drizzle and possible black ice on the previously dry and cleared roads.
As for Saturday night, every forecast keeps lowering the overnight low. A friend on Facebook said earlier in the week that one of the long range models pegged Grand Rapids at -22.1°F for a low. The Weather Channel app was predicting -4° to zero. Now it's down to -8°F for Allendale. Then over the next week the temps porpoise up and down, no two days looking like the other.
Ah, making light of Michigan's "if you don't like the weather, wait five minutes".
Meanwhile, John Schoffstall of my 2004 Clarion class wants to know exactly what terrible thing Boston had done. Because it's getting hit with snow storm after snow storm -- and not inconsequential ones at that. I don't think they'll be dug out from this one before the next one hits tomorrow. We're talking U.P. level snowfalls, except in a major metropolitan city.
I mean, you can bury Maine any time and mostly the world doesn't care. But Boston? I'm not sure the T was running yesterday.
It's felt as if we've missed everything here in West Michigan. And it's true that we've had long stretches without daily snows. But there's been enough since the start of the year, plus the November pre-winter blizzard, that all the West Michigan communities are still above their average snowfalls to date -- but less than last year's unrelenting pummeling.
WMU has had three snow days this academic year so far.
Meanwhile, the climate change deniers are shrilly declaiming that "it's cold in the Northeast!" and "Antarctic ice has grown!" Failing once again to understand that weather is not climate, that large scale variations and churning are necessary consequences, or how science works.
Dr. Phil
Posted on Dreamwidth Crossposted on LiveJournal
