Tighten the chin strap on your helmet. Tug gently on your shoulder pads to make sure they’re good and snug. Growl, slowly and deeply. From down inside you. Like a bear. Or someone choking on a cough drop. Slide down into a three-point-stance. Make sure your feet have good traction. Dig in. Take a deep breath. Focus.
Then … pull up some hurricane forecast models and make yourself crazy!
It’s hurricane season, baby. Hut, hut, HUT!!!
We’re now in the height of hurricane season. My wife mentioned this the other day. How she read we are officially at the peak. That time of year when the Tropics become their most active, erratically launching wave after wave of spinning storms like a drunk in a shooting gallery.
And me? I spend my entire existence staring at animated forecast models and mumbling, “We’re doomed … and drowned … and all in between!”
Some might call it an addiction, but I like to think of it more as a hobby. I’ve always wanted a hobby. Especially one that ruins my blood pressure.
It must have been nice, once upon a time, when so much weather information wasn’t readily available. No one knew anything about the storms brewing in the Atlantic, the Gulf or the Caribbean. They just tuned in when the weatherman on TV started waving in a panicked, circular motion, then bought some tins of sardines, drank a lot of warm beer and complained about how the weatherman’s arm movements looked nothing like actual hurricanes. It was a simpler time.
But now, thanks to satellites, advanced radar, a vast understanding of how tropical weather systems work and those incredible computer forecasting models, we common folk can see days, and sometimes even weeks, into the future. We don’t need the weatherman to help us glimpse what’s coming down the pipe.
Someone thought, “Why horde all this information? We can put it out there. That way total neurotic boobs who fancy themselves amateur meteorologists can spend all night and day poring over it and come to incredibly wrong conclusions. Won’t that be fun?”
Now we can be Just like the actual meteorologists, only minus even a rudimentary understanding of weather (“Heat is the thing that rises, or is that mercury?”) We can look at the very same satellites and radars and forecast models, and see things we don’t entirely understand … but are certain it spells doom!
How do I know this? Because, silly, this area over here looks more red, and we all know that “red” is angry. Plus, these little lines here look like arrows, and arrows are how an invading force launches a preemptive attack! Just like a hurricane. See? I’m an amateur meteorological … uh … guy.
I wake up each morning and head to the computer to check my favorite hurricane sites. I study satellite loops, forecasts and vorticity maps. It should be noted that I mistook “vorticity” maps for “virility” maps, which caused some real panic. I thought a good part of the tropical Atlantic had suddenly gone sterile.
I peruse it all, make my own calculations – “The answer is ‘4!’ But … I don’t know what the means!” – and I read National Hurricane Center discussions about impending weather, nodding along as if I know what they’re talking about. Then, I parse all of this into my own forecasts: “Yep! That little cross breeze coming off of Africa will certainly carve Florida in half. And I know this because there are some arrow thingies over there!”
But I DON’T know this. I THINK I know this. But in fact, I don’t really know anything. I’m just a neurotic boob with access to regularly updated forecast models.
That doesn’t stop me, though. The adrenaline gets running through me, and I start to get excited. Like a storm might come here. As much as I hate to admit it, I start to want one to come. I start to remember how cool, and even fun, it is to go through a hurricane. The trees all swaying. The rain lashing the windows. I mean, when else do you get to sleep on the sofa with the power out and a machete clutched to your chest? Got to have one if you’re going to fight off marauding bandits trying to loot your house. Or eat cold clam chowder straight from the can? Or wake each morning to the sound of generators and chain saws working around you? Wait a minute …
I remind myself of something: Actually, there is nothing cool, or even fun, about going through a hurricane. The trees swaying and rain lashing the windows is terrifying. When the power is out, it’s hot and miserable. You wouldn’t know how to fight off bandits, and you will probably chop off one of your fingers with the machete. The can of clam chowder expired 6 year ago, and is now harder than concrete. The sounds of generators and chain saws induces insanity that early in the morning, especially when you don’t have coffee.
And for goodness sake, don’t forget, the last time you went through a hurricane: A cedar tree parked itself on the backside of your house.
No, hurricanes are bad. Don’t want hurricanes! Hurricanes must go away. Must make sure they don’t come here. Must look at more charts. Study more models. Tighten up the chin strap and pull down on the shoulder pads. It’s the peak of the season, and it’s time to get ready. Sharpen up the machete and learn how that weatherman used to spin his arms, just like the vortex of one of those sterile hurricanes.