National Weather Service and Me
Woman in the Middle | September 8, 2014We have been having weird weather yesterday and today. The remnants of a hurricane have moved in and we have been getting intermittent rain and wind. The rain is coming in in small weather cells, the kind that park over an area and can unleash some pretty heavy rain, but in a fairly small spot. Yesterday we were working at Mom in laws and the rain and wind were quite spectacular for a half an hour or so. I was quite pleased thinking that my house, just a mile or so away, was getting an equal soaking. But when we got home it just looked damp, not soaked. Same today when I was coming home from the DMV (another story) and had to drive through quite the storm less than a mile from my home, but that storm never quite made it to my neck of the woods. All I got was a little bit of rain.
Since my family and I live in a land of foothills and mountains, flash floods in these weather conditions are a very real and very dangerous possibility. The National Weather Service, bless their hearts, wants us to know about this danger. They do this by interrupting whatever we are watching on television and flashing the warning across the screen. They can even turn off Netflix or UTube and put you back on regular television so they can be sure you get the message.
When we got our new TiVo box it was much more sophisticated. I am not, when it comes to electronics, but I have managed, with the help of my family, to figure out how to get to UTube right from my television, What a revelation! What I am particularly enjoying right now are episodes of the TV show “Who do you think you are?” That show traces the genealogy of famous TV or movie stars. They have the same show in the United Kingdom and Australia. I happened upon an episode from the UK about Jeremy Irons yesterday. Because it was done without commercials, it is a full hour-long. I hope to someday finish it.
You see, it is a bit of a process to get onto the show I want to watch, but not so complicated or time-consuming that I am not willing to do it. If I pause it, and am lucky that no one else gets back to the TV before I do, I can just start right back into it again the next time I decide to take a TV break. But today has been a bear. I have been kicked off UTube five times so far. Each time I have to go back though the process of finding the show, and then fast forward until I find the spot where the latest flash flood warning was given.
Maybe I will go try again right now. It isn’t raining, at least at my house!
UPDATE: The thunderstorms in greater So Cal finally stopped and I got to finish watching all about Jeremy Irons ancestors. Yay!
Oh my gosh, what a pain in the butt!
I live that you said “bless their hearts”. You sound like true Southerner. Lol I can relate. We have had “severe thunderstorm warnings” here. They break right in with that annoying beep beep beep then use that more than annoying computer voice to tell us about a storm that is on the other side of the state! Bless their hearts. They are trying!
Well, my mother was from the south! I didn’t want to look like I was knocking the national weather service. They are giving us important info. But to keep being told over and over again that there might be a flash flood in an area 20 miles or more from here…. sigh….
For some reason, there is one show they always pre-empt. If the president gives an impromptu speech, it’s at this time. If there is a weather problem, it’s at this time slot. I can never figure it out but in our area 2 p.m. in the afternoon is a very dangerous time!
Back in the spring we were having some wacky storms. We kept getting flash flood warnings on the TV. One evening, a bunch of co-workers and I were out for happy hour. The place was packed. All of a sudden, everyone’s phone went off at the same time. Not just everyone in our group, everyone in the restaurant that had a phone with the volume turned on. If the person who decides which annoying sound to use had been there, he would have been very proud of his work.
That must have been pretty funny!