Weather It Is (Getting Hotter)

Good Afternoon:

After a few cooler and even rainier days, this coming week will become quite hot.

There's an old "adage" that I've adopted over the years: it's hot before Yom Ha'Hatzmahut (Independence Day) and then it gets cold on the day itself.  In fact, it's usually warm on Yom Ha'Zikoron (Remembrance Day), but the winds start to blow and temperatures fall as the ceremony switches from one day's remembrance to one day's celebration. This year should be no exception.

Westerly winds will give way to southerly winds and lower pressure, which will bring temperatures into the 30s on Wednesday, leaving them around 30 Celcius on Thursday.  However, Thursday will see a change over back to more spring-like temperatures and next week might even bring a more "winter-like" rain!

So, where's the exception? You might say that Independence Day is Thursday,  but Independence Day really occurs on Friday, which shows forecast temperatures in the low 20s in Jerusalem.  However, the celebration was moved up so as not to impinge on Shabbat preparations. So, in Israel, the  Hebrew calendar date seems to determine the weather rather than the calendar date.  As to why it cools off at this time: I think that there is an intermediate period when the Indian Monsoon (that brings our summer's dryness) is not quite established, opening the door for cooler weather from the north via Europe.

Keeping all these wind directions straight is not very easy.  This leads me to note that I finally figured out why men don't ask for directions.  During the holiday we did a bit of traveling here and about.  We needed to make a turn, swing around, and head into a parking lot.  Of course, we didn't know it was that simple when we started. So, I say to my wife: "which way?"  She starts to speak when suddenly the Waze-Woman (W-W) starts to argue with her.  They couldn't decide between left or right, and we missed our turn.  Then, W-W tells me to turn left into a street that's backed-up.  I was forced to do a u-turn in a place where I'm not sure that it's legal (but the police didn't mind) and we gave it another try -- which also didn't work out.  My wife threatened to turn off W-W and W-W told me this would be a mistake and that I should listen to her instead.  Fortunately, my daughter who is not a wife (yet) managed to extradite us from this situation and we arrived safely.

So, it's not that men don't ask directions ever, it's that they do not want to ask the occupant in the right front seat.  Of course, I should have known this because I used to sit in the back seat of our family car, offering my advice as well when things didn't seem to be working out between the two front seats -- and that was before W-W made things even more complicated (or worse, if you prefer).

Fortunately, when the wife says to take out the garbage, I know how to get there without directions.

For those who must observe Yom Ha'Zikoron in sorrow, I wish only future happiness.

Happy Yom Ha'Hatmahut!

Barry Lynn