"Addicted to Radar!"

One of my favorite all-time quotes came a few years back. Amelia & I were watching what was supposed to be a major league baseball game. The sky was shown to be blue on tv but the grounds crew came out and put the tarps on the infield. 15 minutes later, with everyone wondering "huh?" they took the tarps off. Next inning they did the same thing. This happened three times before the tv crew did a little investigation. It turns out that the umpires had heard there was a threat of a severe thunder-storm before the game and had designated someone to watch the radar. Apparently, the person watching radar got a little twitchy and tipped off the umpires several times, hence the delay. It never did rain. The quote came after the third delay "Jeepers, these guys are addicted to radar!"

Well, Amelia laughed her ass off at me and I had no choice but to eat it.
I am addicted to radar and she knows it. If there's one thing I do, be it at home in Alberta or when in New Zealand, I watch the weather forecasts, stream flow reports, and yes, the radar loops to see what's going on where. Be it New Zealand or home, I can tell you exactly what the streams look like without going out. After 20 years of relying on the internet, I guess I've gotten pretty good at this stuff. There again, when on the road in New Zealand without internet, I rely on the computer model long term forecast which is 95% accurate 4 or 5 days out. And when the internet goes down at home, it's as much about playing a hunch as it is relying on fact. So far this week, when I was without internet due to Shaw's fire, my hunches were pretty good.

Why mention this now? Well, all day I had planned on heading out west tonight. But, as has happened almost all year, another sytem has moved north out of Montana into central Alberta. Sure enough, the cells started to pop up as forecast all along the foothills. Where I was headed was on the cusp of the early formation and I hedged my bets and stayed home.
As it turned out, the radar image at left turned out to be a 15mm per hour rain for a few hours and nothing turns off a reliable hatch like rapidly changing water/weather/temp conditions.

If anyone out there has a t-shirt that reads "Addicted to RADAR" please send it to me and I'll proudly wear it! Ah well, just another day in the world of being me, I suppose. We all have our vices. At least mine's cheap and innocent enough.  :)