Good afternoon:
The weather tomorrow (Tuesday) will be downright nasty -- extremely hot and dusty. Because winds in the lower atmosphere will blow from the northeast and/or east, conditions will be ideal for the heat to extend from coastal areas eastward to the hottest locations within the Dead Sea Basin.
The heat will be short-lived, though. The pressure system bringing our hot weather will move to our east and be replaced by a trough of cooler weather. In fact, moisture building in the lower atmosphere could bring some showers on Wednesday (Yom Zikoron) and Thursday (Yom Ha'Azmahut). Temperatures will not be of the beach variety, but parks might be enjoyable so long as one brings a windbreaker (and any sprinkles remain scattered about).
The cool weather should last into mid-Shabbat, and then hotter weather returns early next week, only to be replaced again by cooler weather towards the end of the week.
Otherwise, it's been a tough few days. First, my wife complained about the weather -- consistency is important in life she told me. And, the weather (by implication, meaning me) has been hardly consistent. Then, I dreamed I was visiting my home town ahead of a forecast snowstorm. In the end, the forecast was off, and it snowed just a bit, and no matter how hard I tried to photograph it, I just couldn't make it seem like a lot of snow.
Of course, I realize that we're about to head into a heatwave, but my biggest fear as a forecaster is not predicting how hot it will be, but predicting how much snow will fall. So, when my wife -- so to speak -- put me in my place, it led to a nighttime of weather related nightmares.
It's not just my professional life that causes me trouble, but speaking Hebrew is still not my forte. When we were married, she gave me 5 years to learn Hebrew, well, and she's still waiting. The other day she sent me to buy a toilet seat. In Hebrew, the name is a "Asla" -- אסלה). I don't have much of an ear -- so my wife tells me, and I always thought the word for toilet seat was "Azlan" (lazy person) -- עצלן). So, when I arrived at the store and asked for an Azlan, the clerk looked at me a bit strangely. First, he said they don't have any of those, and if I needed an Azlan I might find one in the park. I couldn't figure out why he said that so I asked if they had a "Sherutim" (a bathroom). I thought, I'll just show him. But, he was having none of that and his response was Azlanim generally don't give good service, so why bother. Finally, I convinced him to call home to ask my wife. From what I could tell, she said that while I might be Azlan, what we needed was an Asla.
The good news is that I was able to install such a device in our bathroom, and that it even closes by itself. So, I might -- at times -- be lazy, but I can still be useful.
Barry Lynn
