Weather It Is (Things, and Possibly (now likely) White Flakes)

Good Evening:

(A quick update: looking at the 6 GMT output, the probability of snow for Friday afternoon has risen since our last update,  and is leaning towards an accumulation in the higher elevations of the centre).

We're moving towards the end of the week, and I wanted to bring to your attention something unique about our little country. First, it's good to know that the EU Ambassador Lars Faaborg-Anderse believes that "Israel is a society in which the rule of law is deeply enshrined, a country in which human rights are cherished..."(J. Post, 12/3/14).  In fact, the suggestion (or accusation) that Israel is an Apartheid state is laughable (but the bigger the lie, the easier to swallow).  Actually, Israel is a country with many different climates (13 I heard), and probably even more different types of cultures and religions (or religious variations).

In many cases, there are plenty of mixed marriages (further stirring the amazing pot that is Israeli society), and I believe I have one.  You see, Sephardim (at least on my wife's side) have quite different social mores than Ashkenazim (at least on my side).  Since that fateful marriage day, I've learned that "thank you" means "no thank you" (and, yes, vice versa). I learned that one never gets up to escort a guest from the house. Since, I am uncomfortable with this, I often find myself with one half of my "Tuscik" on the chair and the other half off, or one foot at the door and one foot under the table.  I am not sure if this is just peculiar to us, but my wife prefers to say what she is going to do, rather than telling me what to do (even though, she is really asking me to do it).

Being a country of multiple climes, we often find our weather patterns a mixture of different weather types.  For the last week I've been writing about a possible snow at Purim time. Actually, I've also been writing about how snow at Purim time is actually very unusual (even though my wife still insists that it is not -- so perhaps I'm wrong).  We actually know with good certainty that it is going to rain and that it will get colder, but we also know that our window of opportunity for snow is just 12 hours sometime later on Friday or Friday night.  At this time, temperatures at 500 mb might fall as low as -27 C, indicating that the atmosphere will be quite cold enough for good snow from 700 mb upwards).

We also know that the vertical profile of moisture and temperature will be a mixture of relatively milder, sea-air near the surface and colder (more polar air) filtering down from above.  Exactly how this all works out will determine if we'll have a small accumulation of snow on Friday or Friday night.   Personally, I'd like enough snow to take a quick ski across Efrat!

I hope to be able to say tomorrow with greater certainty.

Sincerely,

Barry Lynn