The Biggest Story Of Your Day

As you might have guessed, it does include “an earring thermometer, rescued from a 1650 whaling ship.” Duh. A collection would be simply incomplete without it.

AccuWeather.com Founder Joel N. Myers Acquires World’s Largest Collection of Thermometers [AccuWeather]

Storm To Kill Us All

Flood watches (at Noah’s Ark levels) have been declared by whoever it is who reports those things; Philadelphia is set to receive a million billion inches of rain.

Philly is expected to be destroyed by the impending storms, which will last for 400 days and 400 nights.

Weather Discussion 3/7/08 [6 ABC]
Heavy rain could cause flooding [Inquirer]

Snowball Fight Leads To Shooting

While most Philadelphians spent the weekend indoors watching injuries befall our sports teams and movies they haven’t seen win awards, there still was some snow on the ground from Friday’s first real snowfall of the winter. And so smarter Philadelphians spent most of their time playing in the snow. (Me, I spent most of the weekend indoors sick. Duh.)

A few tow-headed residents even decided to throw snowballs at people, a tradition of young brats since snow was invented. Unfortunately, uh, somebody shot one of the teenagers throwing snowballs. Two sixteen year olds were having a snowball fight when one of their throws accidentally hit a neighbor in the face. And, then, the neighbor returned and shot one of ‘em in the head at point blank range.

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Finally, We Get Some Decent Snow

Hooray! It seemed like it was never going to happen, but finally we have a snowfall we can be proud of. It’s not really all that much snow, but since we haven’t had any measurable amount in a while everybody’s running to the ACME to buy up all the milk and bread.

We’re supposed to get about 1 to 3 inches, with a changeover to rain by late afternoon.

We could get ice, too, making this nighttime just ever so fun. Good thing there’s RPS tonight!

Float To Work Today On A Gust Of Wind

Philadelphia hasn’t gotten anything more than a couple inches of snow so far this winter, which means the triumphant return of John Bolaris to Philadelphia at Fox 29 and the usual over-the-top weather forecasts from the other stations haven’t really been much of a factor in the local news.

But fear not, sports fans! Although it’s 48 degrees out right now, we Philadelphians are facing up to 45 mph wind gusts this afternoon. According to Phillyweather.net, these kinds of weather systems — short systems of rain coupled with high winds, though that’s oversimplifying it — are called bowling ball lows and we usually don’t get them until later in the year.

We’re going to get another on Friday, but the temperatures will be too high to bring even freezing rain or sleet to anywhere but the usual “north and west of the city.” Best not to even try to bring your umbrella out with the high winds; just zip up that old Charlotte Hornets Starter jacket and brave the elements yourself.

Sunday’s supposed to be gorgeous.

Today’s weather: From mild to wild [Inquirer]
Bowling Season Is A Bit Early [Phillyweather.net]

God Warns Us Of Impending Bolaris Return

Most of the month of December was spent with bees buzzing by our ears. (Well, it would have been were bees not suddenly all dead.) It was warm, and it gave us something to complain about. “Where’s all the snow?” “Global warming!” and so forth.

Well now we have something new to complain about: It’s too cold! (It’s also an easy topic for first-thing-in-the-morning blog posts.) The temperature today is around 20 degrees and it feels like negative 100. And I already got my John Bolaris joke out of the way, so let’s just move on.

River Stymies Fake George Washington Again

Somebody on my Facebook posted the news video of the Washington’s crossing reenactors getting pushed downstream by the current. Washington must have been Superman in order to make it across; it seems like they never actually get to cross the river due to the weather.

I’m Dreaming Of A White Margaret Cho’s Birthday¹

Meteorologists are confident — so, you know, like .05% or so — Philadelphia will receive its first measurable snowfall sometime starting today, which means the hoodie you haven’t worn since mid-summer will finally get some work. (The snow we got over the weekend was just a trace.)

Phillyweather.net is once again rating the forecasters on how close they get to predicting the actual total. The local forecasters have called for anything from no accumulations (NBC 10) to three inches (Fox 29). Leave it to Fox to have the out there prediction. Is John Bolaris already in town?

Update: Or, ah, Sue Serio says that?

¹ Today, Dec. 5. Or as I like to call it, the Immaculate Conception.²

² I also forgot! Today is Repeal Day!

Snow Coming [Weather or Not]
Snowfall Challenge Event #2 Calls [Philadelphia Weather]

War Protesters Brave Weather

There were a bunch of anti-Iraq War protests over the weekend, because we’re still in Iraq even though everybody wants out except George Bush and Dick Cheney and The Bulletin.

Around here, there were protests in Center City and across the river in New Jersey, where protesters were just as courageous as U.S. soldiers:

Adverse weather doesn’t keep American troops in Iraq from completing their missions and it didn’t keep protesters here from rallying to bring them home.

Both missions have similar chances of death, too, I’m sure.

New Jerseyans join protest against war [Camden Courier-Post]

Autumn Leaves Of Green

The recent hot temperatures aren’t just keeping you in shorts until God-knows-when, probably sometime in mid-December. No, the hottest October on record — average temperature: 67 degrees — has also managed to screw up all the fall leaves changing color.

Leaves change color because cool fall nights destroy the chlorophyll which gives leaves a green color. Reds, yellows and the less fun browns can’t show up if there’s still a large amount of chlorophyll in the leaves, so that’s why the tree across the street from you still makes it look like we’re in the middle of summer.

The upside is an expected mild winter. Of course, that also means we all die of excessive heat next summer, or something like that.

Can’t find colorful foliage? Blame the record warmth [Inquirer]
[Image by JoJan, licensed via Creative Commons]