Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs?
Warning! Warning! Alert! Alert! Weather watch! All day Tuesday. What on earth was in the forecast? Was it an F10 tornado wide enough to sweep a three-state area? Or maybe monster glaciers were bearing down on the great lakes at a great rate of speed? Or, uh, meatball showers, maybe? No such luck. Frost and freeze warning. C’mon, you guys! It’s almost October and this is *Michigan* fer kee-reist sake! We *expect* frosty mornings at this time of year and we are ready for ’em. Save your breath and your panicking for the *real* stuff.
As it turned out, the temperature only went down to about 40 or so. Ho hum. I’ve experienced colder mornings than that on the Shores of Gitchee Gumee in July. But then I was over in the Westgate Kroger parking lot this morning and I heard just about the most bizarre weather forecast ever: funnel clouds in west Michigan. I couldn’t figure it out. Why the heck weren’t they just calling it a tornado watch? But the high temperature was gonna be in the 50s and that didn’t even seem like tornado weather. Turned out what they were predicting was water spouts over Lake Michigan. That was at about 9:30 this morning. Two hours later, one o’ them thar water spouts allegedly hit land and turned into a tornado. Allegedly. I wasn’t there, so I don’t know. I doubt it was anywhere near an F10.
It was a clear, crisp fall morning on the Planet. It’s raining here at Houghton Lake. All of that is just fine but I think it would’ve been much more interesting to be on the Lake Michigan shore this morning.
And btw: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, by Judi Barrett, is a *great* book. I think I’ve read it about a billion times. Read it or be square!
September 29th, 2006 at 8:22 pm
OMG! The absolute *classic* kids’ book!!! We’ve read it ourselves about 3.7 billion times (j/k!).
Funny how that book can influence one’s thoughts…everytime I hear some weather announcer say “…cloudy with a chance of…” I always fill in with “MEATBALLS”!!
September 29th, 2006 at 9:28 pm
OMG MY FAVORITE BOOK EVER!!! I liked the giant pancakes of DOOM.
And RE the funnel clouds — the only reason I can think of that they didn’t issue a tornado watch was that the storms were not anywhere near strong enough to drop any tornadoes today, but because of upper level disturbances and high humidity, columns of cold upper air were forming funnels under some of the storms, and they didn’t want to mention the word ‘tornado’ because it makes some people freak.
When I originally read “COLD AIR FUNNEL CLOUDS” on the special weather statement of the NWS Grand Rapids site, I was like, “WTF, mate?” at first, but I guess it makes sense. : P
September 29th, 2006 at 9:54 pm
Down in ol’ Mexico, they’re into world play and sly sexual connotations (and probably have been for a millennium and more), so you can imagine that when I went down there to do research and some caring person took me aside to educate me and give me a list of words to avoid, and one of them was “albondigas” (meatb___s), which is more than you probably ever wanted to know about the earthy country culture of our neighbor to the south….
Does it mean anything that the first and only time I went to the beach south of Cozumel, there were five water spouts (including three dancing together) front and center from our balcony within 24 hrs of our arrival?
September 30th, 2006 at 3:29 pm
We’re here at lake Gitchee Gumee, and here is the weather report: 3 pm conditions – temp 49, cloudy, lots of Meatball showers, overnight low 40, lake calm – expect NW 10-20 this afternoon and overnight . We built a cozy fire in the Franklin which was kept active all night (have to). Leaves a turning – pretty out.