Weather It Is (A Break And Then Rain)

Good Evening:

Our recent rains were quite heavy.  Here in Efrat, we recorded almost 50 mm of rain, and it occurred in about 12 hours of time.  Where I come from, this would be equivalent to about 20 inches of snow in half a day -- except where I live now it's usually too warm for snow.

On a side note: the amounts that occurred were about three times the amounts forecast -- so the weather can still surprise us.  There were very many heavy rain showers imbedded in the storm, which meant that the air was both more moist and colder than forecast.

The temperatures were on the chilly side today, but they will rebound tomorrow and stay at mild levels until Shabbat.

At that time, an even stronger storm is forecast to approach our area and heavy rain will probably occur over many areas. Temperatures should also fall to chilly levels, and remain there for a few days.

I just received historical weather data from The Israeli Atmospheric and Climatic Data Center (IACDC), funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology and set up at the Tel Aviv University.  I'd like to do two things: i) analyze the data for trends, and ii) determine what is normal weather on each particular day.  Too many times, we say: "boy, it's hot," or "this winter is much cooler than last," but we really don't know.  Our memories are actually quite faulty when it comes to remembering past events, and especially weather (as who really notices the weather anyway).

Analyzing the data for trends is not really anything new, although the results of such analysis are not readily available.  However, I rarely see any reference in publicly given forecasts relative to what is normal weather.  When I complete my analysis, I plan to add the results of this feature to my web site.

I thought of a few more jokes about restaurants that charge a lot for meal courses, but serve very little food.  The first was: they have elegant service, but relatively little to serve.  In regard to the next, I had noticed that my son had a very large bowl of soup.  However, it turns out that the birds-eye view of the soup bowl and the soup reminded one of the Dead-Sea.  The last: my plate was so large I had to stand to reach the food in the middle of it.

I won't be heading over to Avi Friedman's Comedy for Koby, but at least my wife laughed (and I suppose that's good).

Barry Lynn