Tag: weather

Are you sometimes confused by weather forecasts? I am.

“Sunny” and “cloudy” I comprehend, but “partly sunny,” “mostly sunny,” “partly cloudy,” and “mostly cloudy” leave me a bit unsure.

My hope was to clarify this, but the only conclusion I can reach is “No one knows for sure.”

The Reader’s Digest said “partly sunny” is the same as “mostly cloudy,” while “mostly sunny” equates to “partly cloudy,” as in:

sunny (or clear)
mostly sunny or partly cloudy
partly sunny or mostly cloudy
cloudy

But I couldn’t corroborate this. Another source says the middle ground is shared by “partly sunny,” which is the same as “partly cloudy,” with “mostly cloudy” residing on one side and “mostly sunny” on the other side. This results in:

sunny (or clear)
mostly sunny
partly sunny or partly cloudy
mostly cloudy
cloudy

And I found other explanations as well.

Of course, any forecast with “sunny” in it would only apply to daylight hours, while indications of cloudiness level is equally applicable for day or night.

Perhaps the real explanation is if weather forecasters can keep us confused, there’s less chance of us accusing them of being wrong.

Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD, is an author, blogger, and publisher with over 30 years of writing and publishing experience. Check out his book The Successful Author for insider tips and insights.

Summer is road construction season in Michigan. Locally, we have been enduring a construction project relating to our bridge over the nearby Interstate highway. Actually, it is not the bridge that is being worked on, but instead each end of it.

For years drivers have complained about the difficulty of exiting the highway at our small town and traffic tie-ups over the bridge as vehicles wait to make left-hand turns to get on the highway.

Requests for a four lane bridge was rejected, while a scaled down plea for a bridge with a center turning lane was also dismissed.  The eventual offer was to install a roundabout (a traffic circle) on each end of the bridge.  At a cost of 2.8 million, the design will theoretically increase the flow of traffic and decrease accidents.  While few were happy with this as a solution, the response from the powers that be was to take it or leave it.

The project began in earnest when the school year ended and was promised to be completed before school resumed in the fall.  But the project was behind schedule almost from the start and despite repeated assurances to the contrary, it was not completed by the time the kiddies returned to school.  At present we have one and a half turning circles completed and three of four highway ramps working. The new completion date is late September—contingent on weather and other delays.

So, we will need to endure delays and detours a bit longer.  At least the students now have an excuse for being late to school.

Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD, is an author, blogger, and publisher with over 30 years of writing and publishing experience. Check out his book The Successful Author for insider tips and insights.

The instructions on the fertilizer bag said that I did not need to water my lawn after it was applied, but that doing so would more quickly active the fertilizer. Well, I spread the fertilizer on Monday and by Friday hurricane Ike began watering my lawn—over 9 inches fell that weekend. Fertilizer and a veritable deluge makes a lawn grow—very fast.

I mowed my entire lawn last Monday (with the mower set on the highest setting). Tuesday I redid part of it and Wednesday, the rest (at the right height). Thursday I mowed Tuesday’s section again. I took Friday off and mowed the whole lawn again on Saturday—and it was long. That’s a lot of mowing in a span of six days. The sad thing is that I could be mowing again today. Mowing lawn, it seems, is my response to hurricane Ike.

In nearby Kalamazoo, there were still some downtown roads reported closed yesterday due to flooding. There are many accounts of flooded basements, with carpet being torn out and needing replacement. For those folks, Ike is demanding more of them.  However, aside from the local news, this is occurring in obscurity.

Unfortunately, even those directly affected where Ike hit landfall have been already forgotten. Since there is no one to blame and everyone is behaving with great civility, the media is on to more explosive things—namely politics and the mortgage crisis.

Maybe I’ll address those topics in the near future, but right now I’m more concerned with my minor lawn issue and wondering how the folks in Texas, who have far worse issues to face, are doing .

[The entry was planned for yesterday; in my next blog I’ll share why that didn’t happen — it’s a really good excuse.]

Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD, is an author, blogger, and publisher with over 30 years of writing and publishing experience. Check out his book The Successful Author for insider tips and insights.

By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD

In Michigan, a hurricane is a remote reality, something distantly removed from our sheltered existence far inland. Aside from safely viewing the devastation and horror via TV, the only other effect is some occasional remnant rain and wind.

Hurricane Ike, was an exception. It began raining Friday afternoon, increasing in intensity throughout that day and keeping up its assault the next day and into Sunday. The projected path was to our south, but with most of the rain occurring to the north, dumping on southern Michigan; the wind was minor. Altogether, we received 9.2 inches of rain. There was some localized flooding and a few roads are impassable.

The report from daughter Laura—in northern Indiana and directly in its path—was little rain, but high winds.

Not only did the amount of rain surprise me, but also the speed at which it arrived in Michigan. It was only about 12 hours after the eye of the storm hit the Texas coast that we began to receive its rain. Its course was also curious, first heading in a westerly direction across the ocean, turning north in Texas, and then veering off in a north-easterly direction.

Now the rain as stopped, the water is quickly flowing away, and excess moisture calmly seeping into the ground. As some people in parts of Texas have nothing left and need to face rebuilding their homes—not to mention their lives—my thoughts of Ike are already fading—and I am left with the trivial contemplation of when it will be dry enough to mow my lawn.

Twelve days ago, we had a record high of 63 degrees. This weekend it’s been frigid cold. Note the outside temp at 6:30 this morning: 5.9 degrees Fahrenheit!

It was even colder in Green Bay, where the Packers came up a bit short for the NFC Championship. Hopefully, Favre will be back for another try next year!

Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD, is an author, blogger, and publisher with over 30 years of writing and publishing experience. Check out his book The Successful Author for insider tips and insights.