Sunday, May 13, 2007
The Passion of Weather
Andrew Freedman @ 10:15 AM
I just returned from seeing "Hot Fuzz," a brilliant homage to buddy cop movies. It simultaneously skewers and glorifies classic films of the genre such as "Point Break" and "Bad Boys II," and goes where you know it needs to go but sort of hope it won't. And then it goes further.What does a witty British import have to do with the weather?
Some things.
Jason Samenow's Forecast
Today: Mostly sunny, breezy. Highs 65-70.Tonight: Clear. Lows 38-44 (suburbs-city)
Tomorrow: Mostly sunny. Highs 70-75.
A detailed week ahead forecast will appear tomorrow.
In the movie, Simon Pegg plays Nicholas Angel, a dedicated, by the (note)book police sergeant. The kind of cop that you dread will pull you over, because you know that he'll make you feel like you're four-years-old for merely encroaching on a crosswalk when stopping at a stop sign.
Actually, strike that, most cops make you feel like you're four-years-old when they catch you doing something wrong, however minor. If you don't believe me, try accidentally driving the wrong way along the outer fringe of the Pentagon parking
lot at midnight on a Saturday. That was not fun. But it was completely by accident. I was trying to get back into the misguided concrete maze of Crystal City, but all roads seemed to end in the Pentagon parking lot.
Anyway, Fuzz's Angel is the type of person who always knew what he wanted to do, except for a small period of time as a toddler when he wanted to be something fanciful.
Those of us in the meteorological profession in some capacity, be it blogging here at Capitalweather or forecasting on air at The Weather Channel, share that lifelong determination that borders on an affliction.
For example, those who are not saddled with this passion typically don't just wake up one day at age 16 and say, "I think that today I'll watch radar loops all day instead of going to the beach and staring at women in bikinis. Maybe I'll find a girlfriend this way." Nor do they stay up all night during a nor'easter to chart the creeping inland progress of the dreaded coastal front.
Like being a police officer, Olympic javelin tosser (is it tosser? thrower? spearer?) or a game show host, meteorology is one of those careers that grips you early and doesn't let go. You either embrace it and succeed, or fight it at your peril. The hero in films always suffers for being who they are, and that's true in life as well.
I was made fun of in elementary and high school for being a dork. However, looking back on it, I really was a dork. Yet I've graduated to an age when it's cool to be passionate about something.
Weather geeks should feel proud of the way the weather makes them who they are. Watch radar loops all day if you want to. That's what they're there for, right?
Speaking of which, has anyone seen the Doppler velocity image from the devastating Greensburg tornado last week? I've been periodically staring at it for days. Here's a link . Here's the WunderBlog entry that sheds some light on the puzzling and tragic track the monster EF-5 tornado took.
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