It's A Winter Wonderland - NOT
For you who live in the D.C. area, the following story will be old news, but for those of you who don't share that joy, this is a special time of year in our region. I was driving along this morning and heard a weather report on the radio that there might be snow showers. Now, first of all, you have to understand how weather predictions work around here:
We have whole platoons of weathermen employed by all the local media. They totally dominate the airwaves and are lavishly supplied with satellites, ground stations and radar normally reserved for NORAD. At least one of our TV stations also employs an army of amateur observers - each carefully measuring any changes and deviations to the atmosphere, like a cadre of barometric commissars. Each of these weather teams vies for popularity and importance, mostly by hyping ANY possible change in the weather as if the earth were about to turn on its axis. Despite all of this, our local weather reporting is nearly worthless; its accuracy and track record would put a phrenologist to shame. As I leave each morning to go to work, I know that they cannot accurately tell me whether or not I'll need an umbrella by the time I'm returning home for the day. You might as well read the entrails of goats for results as good as a 12 hour weather report will do you around here. But there's more to merely predicting weather in D.C., and that brings me back to my morning drive.
The radio weatherman announced the one thing no native EVER want to hear - the possibility of snow! You outlanders have no idea what that means around here - the terror, the desperation, the madness. His exact words were, "There's a possibility of snow showers in the Western suburbs this evening." That's what he said. But whenever that happens, many Washingtonians only hear two words - DONNER PARTY, and act accordingly. Once a prediction like this is made, a variety of phenomena will occur. Residents will flock like angry locusts to every supermarket, drug store, and 7/11 in the region. The first priority will be to wipe out all stocks of toilet paper, milk and bread - this will be accomplished in minutes since the earliest arrivals will literally be grabbing hogsheads of milk and mountains of everything else. In 90 minutes all other goods, regardless of their value, will be gone too. An Ethiopian famine looks like a Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving painting compared to the shelves of a D.C. Safeway two hours after snow has been predicted. In fact, there are rumors that the Ethiopians once offered a food drive to help US out a couple of years ago. People were trading their children for week old loaves of Wonderbread, while more than one Georgetown matrons' jewelry collection was spent on a roll of Charmin. And this is before any snow has actually fallen!
If there IS precipitation at any point, than the situation assumes catastophic and surreal proportions. As soon as the first droplet of water lands on the first windshield, no matter where, ALL traffic will immediately slow down by 30 mph. Since all of our illegal immigrants insist on driving no more than 20mph but still adhere to the minus 30mph rule, this puts them in some sort of negative time/space fugue that's a cross between a Star Trek episode and a Stephen Hawkings nightmare. Despite this snail's pace, the accident rate will quadruple and soon every major artery into or out of town has become a parking lot of the damned. But that isn't the end of it - oh no, it gets worse. If those first few droplets multiply into actual snow, then we enter a stage of chaos that can only be described in the vaguesest of terms. You simply have to be here to truly understand it. First of all, the weathermen will be so shocked and amazed that their prediction was correct, it will explode any judgement or reserve they might have possessed and they'll start caterwauling about the coming apocalypse in terms rarely found outside of the Book of Revelations. Horrible predictions will be made, terrible visions will be revealed, some will speak in tongues while rolling on the ground. At least one radio meteorologist was rumored to have screamed about not wanting to view the coming "END TIMES" and shoved pencils into his eyes on the air while screaming about the return of the "Old Ones". This of course feeds into the panic already existing in the streets. More car accidents occur as people swerve into each other for no good reason. I suppose they're looking heavenward for the coming miracles and displays brayed about by the weathermen. Some just give up and ditch their cars in mid-drive. Within one hour of the first snowflake falling, this great metropolis is left with no food, no transportation, and a population whipped into a suicidal frenzy.
It should be pointed out that in my nearly 50 year lifetime here, there have only been about 3 snowstorms that have honestly kept people in their houses for three to five days. So the panicking becomes all the more weird. It may be as some say - that the District is full of alpha males and females, people who are used to buying or bullying their way into or out of anything. That won't work with snow, and so they panic, deflate and over-react. But for whatever reason, this phenomena will dominate our lives for the next four months. As I am typing this, I am safely ensconced at home - thank the heavens! For I just noticed a few drops of water have hit the window next to me. The collapse begins...
We have whole platoons of weathermen employed by all the local media. They totally dominate the airwaves and are lavishly supplied with satellites, ground stations and radar normally reserved for NORAD. At least one of our TV stations also employs an army of amateur observers - each carefully measuring any changes and deviations to the atmosphere, like a cadre of barometric commissars. Each of these weather teams vies for popularity and importance, mostly by hyping ANY possible change in the weather as if the earth were about to turn on its axis. Despite all of this, our local weather reporting is nearly worthless; its accuracy and track record would put a phrenologist to shame. As I leave each morning to go to work, I know that they cannot accurately tell me whether or not I'll need an umbrella by the time I'm returning home for the day. You might as well read the entrails of goats for results as good as a 12 hour weather report will do you around here. But there's more to merely predicting weather in D.C., and that brings me back to my morning drive.
The radio weatherman announced the one thing no native EVER want to hear - the possibility of snow! You outlanders have no idea what that means around here - the terror, the desperation, the madness. His exact words were, "There's a possibility of snow showers in the Western suburbs this evening." That's what he said. But whenever that happens, many Washingtonians only hear two words - DONNER PARTY, and act accordingly. Once a prediction like this is made, a variety of phenomena will occur. Residents will flock like angry locusts to every supermarket, drug store, and 7/11 in the region. The first priority will be to wipe out all stocks of toilet paper, milk and bread - this will be accomplished in minutes since the earliest arrivals will literally be grabbing hogsheads of milk and mountains of everything else. In 90 minutes all other goods, regardless of their value, will be gone too. An Ethiopian famine looks like a Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving painting compared to the shelves of a D.C. Safeway two hours after snow has been predicted. In fact, there are rumors that the Ethiopians once offered a food drive to help US out a couple of years ago. People were trading their children for week old loaves of Wonderbread, while more than one Georgetown matrons' jewelry collection was spent on a roll of Charmin. And this is before any snow has actually fallen!
If there IS precipitation at any point, than the situation assumes catastophic and surreal proportions. As soon as the first droplet of water lands on the first windshield, no matter where, ALL traffic will immediately slow down by 30 mph. Since all of our illegal immigrants insist on driving no more than 20mph but still adhere to the minus 30mph rule, this puts them in some sort of negative time/space fugue that's a cross between a Star Trek episode and a Stephen Hawkings nightmare. Despite this snail's pace, the accident rate will quadruple and soon every major artery into or out of town has become a parking lot of the damned. But that isn't the end of it - oh no, it gets worse. If those first few droplets multiply into actual snow, then we enter a stage of chaos that can only be described in the vaguesest of terms. You simply have to be here to truly understand it. First of all, the weathermen will be so shocked and amazed that their prediction was correct, it will explode any judgement or reserve they might have possessed and they'll start caterwauling about the coming apocalypse in terms rarely found outside of the Book of Revelations. Horrible predictions will be made, terrible visions will be revealed, some will speak in tongues while rolling on the ground. At least one radio meteorologist was rumored to have screamed about not wanting to view the coming "END TIMES" and shoved pencils into his eyes on the air while screaming about the return of the "Old Ones". This of course feeds into the panic already existing in the streets. More car accidents occur as people swerve into each other for no good reason. I suppose they're looking heavenward for the coming miracles and displays brayed about by the weathermen. Some just give up and ditch their cars in mid-drive. Within one hour of the first snowflake falling, this great metropolis is left with no food, no transportation, and a population whipped into a suicidal frenzy.
It should be pointed out that in my nearly 50 year lifetime here, there have only been about 3 snowstorms that have honestly kept people in their houses for three to five days. So the panicking becomes all the more weird. It may be as some say - that the District is full of alpha males and females, people who are used to buying or bullying their way into or out of anything. That won't work with snow, and so they panic, deflate and over-react. But for whatever reason, this phenomena will dominate our lives for the next four months. As I am typing this, I am safely ensconced at home - thank the heavens! For I just noticed a few drops of water have hit the window next to me. The collapse begins...
posted by mendip at
3:44 PM
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