FALSE ALARM

“The Pharisees also with the Sadducees came, and tempting desired him that he would shew them a sign from heaven.
He answered and said unto them, When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather: for the sky is red.
And in the morning, It will be foul weather to day: for the sky is red and lowering. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?” (Matthew 16:1-3)

Yes, it appears Jesus understood that saying, “Red sky at DAWNING, sailors take WARNING; Red sky at NIGHT, sailors delight!” long before that particular saying existed! I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned on this blog that I’m quite interested in weather. I’m actually surprised to realize I’ve not written about that.
I was NOT particularly good at math or science in school, so that pretty well ruled out me going into meteorology. Had I BEEN good at math and science, it’s possible I’d have gone in that direction. My maternal grandmother was quite the amateur weather forecaster. Often she was as good or better than Boston’s famous weatherman of the 1960s, Don Kent. I’m actually fascinated by phenomena such as tornadoes. I love those “storm chaser” shows on T.V.

This may sound weird, but my daughter Rachel and I kind of enjoy a good thunderstorm. I know. How can a thunderstorm be GOOD?! Well, I really don’t want any trees to fall down or any houses to be damaged. I certainly would not want to be struck by lightning or be inside a house that was struck by lightning. But there’s just something COOL about a thunderstorm. My son Jon also gets kind of excited by the sensation of the electrical power all around in a thunderstorm. We’re fortunate in the Boston area not to have TOO many hot and humid days. Well, we usually DO have at least twenty of them in any summer season, but that’s NOTHING compared to a place like Houston, Texas or even Washington, DC. Those cities probably have at least twice as many hot and humid days per year as Boston does (well, Houston probably has THREE times as many!). Even so, hot and humid days, such as we had today are really MISERABLE. Due to trying to save money, we haven’t put the air conditioners in our living room or bedroom this year. Boy was I SPOILED sleeping in COLD A/C over the past few summers! Now, it’s like napping in a sauna, and it’s really awful. There’s such a great feeling when a POWERFUL thunderstorm rips through, and then the temperature drops by at least 25 degrees and the dew point drops from 70 to 45!

For the past couple of days, the weather forecasters had been warning of very severe thunderstorms which would hit on Thursday afternoon. This morning, they were warning of 70 mile an hour wind gusts and hail the size of quarters. In fact such VERY severe storms hit parts of Pennsylvania. By 2 p.m. the local weather people were saying 70 M.P.H. wind gusts were very unlikely, but that we could still look forward to severe thunderstorms.

In Framingham, there was NO sign of thunderstorms or inclement weather until 4:45 p.m. At that time the sky to the north and west got dark, and you could hear thunder WAY off in the distance. There were a few drops of rain. That sort of blew over. Then around 5:30 it rained moderately for about 15 minutes and you could hear rumbles of thunder in the distance. There was not much wind. Well before 6 p.m. it was all over. Honestly, Rachel and I felt very let down! The air has been gradually cooling and the humidity decreasing over the past few hours. Perhaps some places in Massachusetts DID get severe weather, but we didn’t get anything of the kind.

This reminds me of how I feel in the winter when the forecasters on all the local T.V. stations are saying that that Framingham and MetroWest areas will have a minimum of 16 inches of snow overnight. Then you watch one channel, and the forecaster adds, “But I think there’s the potential for 20 inches!” And, you flip to a competing channel and that forecaster says, “Framingham could get the jackpot with 25 inches of snow!” Those are the nights that Mary Ann goes to bed happily thinking she’ll have no school due to a “snow day”. I go to bed planning to get up early and shovel. THEN I get up at 6 p.m. look outside and there’s not even an inch of snow on the ground and the sky is clear. Those are the mornings when you turn on the T.V. and hear, “Well, the computer models were WRONG. Central Mass. got 2 inches. The Boston area got a dusting to an inch, and that’s ALL WE’RE GOING TO SEE TODAY!” Part of me wants to celebrate because I hate shoveling snow, and part of me wants to kill all weather forecasters! (Mary Ann REALLY wants to kill them on those mornings because it’s turned out that her snow day was a “snow job”!)

Yes, today is the summer version of that! Forecasts of quarter-sized hail, intense winds, frequent downpours, and lots of vivid lightning; well, they just did not happen in Framingham, and yup, Rachel and I are disappointed!