Winter Weather Roulette

Update II, Sunday 10:15 A.M.: Two pictures taken two hours apart. Two hours. Does it even count when it goes from pic #1 to pic #2 in two hours? Time to threaten my wife again that we're moving to Buffalo. Or does it even snow in Buffalo in these days of (alleged) Global Warming?


Update, Sunday 7:52 A.M.: I was wrong! Yeah! Snow, even here in the Valley! Of course it was all part of my purely scientific Mother Nature reverse psychology strategy to make it snow, and it obviously worked and the snow is obviously the direct result of this strategy.

I am that powerful you know. And often powerfully wrong.


---------And here's what I was wrong about (anything but a rare occurrence), writing Saturday morning (temperature at the time roughly 55 degrees)------------


Here's where I wish we could wager on weather forecasts. The National Weather Service (NWS) has put ABQ in a "Winter Storm Watch", with 1-3 inches of snow later today and early tomorrow in the foothills. We snow-lovers in the Valley always see "foothills" and start cursing, but seriously...does anybody really think we're gonna get any snow today, foothills or Valley?

Wouldn't it be great if we could bet on this one...personally I smell NWS desperation, similar to the roulette addict down to their last $100 putting everything on 22 for a last roll before they shuffle out of the casino muttering to themselves and looking for a windswept refrigerator box to sleep in. This Mid-March weekend wind festival is the closest thing these meteorological pros have had to real weather in so long they're grasping for wind-blown straws.

And as a weather junkie myself I understand the desperation, understand it enough to smell it from miles away, and if some off-shore on-line gambling outfit would just put "Will Snow in Albuquerque Today and/or Tomorrow?" on the betting sheet, I would be at the pawn shop hocking everything from my MLB Satchel Paige statuette to my impressive, yet disorganized microbeer bottle collection in a heartbeat.

Instead, betting on the weather doesn't happen, and the closest we weather gamblers can come is seeing the "Breaking News" reports on the weekend local news tonight. Weekend local news is already a combination of fall-down funny and empathetic embarrassment, but I can hardly wait for the 11-minute "story" about the impending "storm", complete with the obligatory report from the side of I-40 in Tijeras Canyon where some barely legal reporter with kooky wind-carved hair breathlessly announces:

"I can see a snow flake, Bob!...I saw one just a minute ago. And wait, there's another one! Oh. No, that was a plastic bag. But I saw one, really. Just a minute ago. Now let's go to some interviews we conducted at the truck stop in Moriarty, where we stood waiting to accost truck drivers and ask them how tough it is to drive semis in this wind. And snow. Don't forget the snow. I've already seen a flake. Really."

Then we'll go back to the Goofy Weekend Weather Guy, who we haven't paid any attention to in three months because there has been absolutely "no weather", and this Guy will suddenly be the center of attention and give a Obie/Oscar/Emmy-level performance in which the viewer will almost be convinced that today's is a "perfect storm", combining the power of Katrina with the snowfall of an entire winter at the Mount Rainier reporting station.

Then nothing will happen. Except it will be windy. Irritatingly windy. All weekend.

Ya wanna bet?