El Nino

[sandsys]

According to AccuWeather this may be the year to head to Mission, Texas, for the winter:

 

http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/how-will-el-nino-affect-us-weather-winter-forecast/52974535

[KodiakJack]

The article suggests that the winter weather pattern will be similar to 1997-1998. Anyone in Arizona during that time frame? If so I for one would love to hear any weather recollections you might recall for that period and, where your were in AZ.

 

Later,

J

[Barbaraok]

NOAA forecasts suggests more storms moving straight across from west to east, which means more rain for southern Texas as well as Florida.

[2gypsies]

Here's the weather history for Tucson, AZ in 1998:

 

https://weatherspark.com/history/31809/1998/Tucson-Arizona-United-States

[markandkim]

of course, if you believe that they know what they're talking about.

[mocroc]

Our stick & motar is located in So AZ. Thus far we have had a wetter than normal monsoon season. We had enough rain to remove us from drought status. Of course when we have higher than normal rain it is far less than normal rainfall in most of the USA. This winter will be wetter than normal but our moisture comes in single storms leaving many many sunny dry days. If you dry camp / boondock, just don't in a wash / dry stream bed.

 

rocmoc n AZ/Mexico

[R. Walter]

In northern NM at higher altitudes (Lindrith, NM) we have had much wetter weather since June than I've ever seen before. This past Monday we got 10 inches of snow. Sante Fe ski area which is about 60 miles east had 29 inches.

[Barbaraok]

of course, if you believe that they know what they're talking about.

 

I don't know why you would suggest that all of those people, who work very hard, would just make things up? Would you like to go back to the days when people had no warning of what was to come, except by the color of the sky?

[chirakawa]

 

I don't know why you would suggest that all of those people, who work very hard, would just make things up? Would you like to go back to the days when people had no warning of what was to come, except by the color of the sky?

 

How easily we have forgotten the trusted Almanac.

[Pat & Pete]

The sky gives good warning , sometimes days in advance .

Animals are also pretty good indicators , if we pay attention .

 

Just a couple examples ...

 

I do like being able to view radar images . That generally tells the story .

[sandsys]

I do like being able to view radar images . That generally tells the story .

Yes, we watch radar images when storms are predicted for our area to see what that path looks like as it approaches us. Most storms go either north or south of us so we only take shelter when we see it pointed right at us. That's about once every ten years, I think. (We now live about 1/2 mile from the house we sold to hit the road in 2008.)

 

Linda Sand

[markandkim]

I don't know why you would suggest that all of those people, who work very hard, would just make things up? Would you like to go back to the days when people had no warning of what was to come, except by the color of the sky?

Predicting weather beyond 5 days is not possible. Can you prove differently? An example?

[chirakawa]

Predicting weather beyond 5 days is not possible. Can you prove differently? An example?

 

Predicting weather five years in advance is possible. Being accurate is something else.

 

Seriously, the weather people are very reliable predicting a week to 10 days when a front will pass through my part of the country and what kind of weather it will bring, temperatures, wind speeds, and precipitation. I disagree with your assertion.

[Barbaraok]

We've been using 10 day forecasts to plan on for the past couple of years. Last few weeks with El Niño storms coming through they have been right on, maybe 1-2 degrees off on the night time lows.

[RV_]

Tell us the weather sources used that fail to be good, then we can tell you which ones are accurate ten days out as well as any can be, and usually surprisingly accurate. I just watch for percentages of rain from ten days ago to change up or down as we get closer. The weather App in Windows 8 on is very good and is already loaded on your Windows computers. I love the live radar maps as the weather guys during a storm do not show them as well in motion as I get from Windows weather app. Hourly as well as seven day default, and historical charts etc.

 

I can find out more with my Windows computer than ever before, both weather and news. Same with smart phones. MY Windows phones are easy because they work very much like my computers, especially the tablets.

 

Barb,

The anti science and anti intellectualism is the norm down here. There are lots of insecure folks who have a sour grapes attitude towards knowledge they never were willing or able to pursue, assuming they are of average intelligence. Mark and Kim I am not talking about you or anyone here by that. I have a FIL who is in his mid 80s who bragged to my kids three decades ago that he never read a book all the way through since High School. We had to have a meeting with him about that denigrating scholastics and racism around my kids when they were 3 and 5. We simply told him that we were not raising them that way. I told him to can the racist terms or we would have to keep them away. It really was that bad. He was trying to teach/condition them with his prejudgment and fear of people they haven't met yet to see if they fall in the 20% or the 80% great folks. He did 20 years in the Air Force and used the phrase common sense and "Book lernin'," usually with a disparaging attitude towards anyone who was educated beyond his HS level. His premise fell apart with me, as I have both the book lernin' and still am a weapons professional, good hunter, fisherman, can overhaul my yard tractors and tools, and can weld and build things from frames to buildings with wood. And can do in depth analysis on the causes of the Yugoslavian break up and hatreds dating from the establishment of the Kingdom of Croatia in the tenth century, to load bearing wall structures and the math to determine the materials to meet and exceed code. And run my tractor. Then I committed the thing that really got to him, which I did not find out until I'd been retired ten years or so. He said in an angry moment that I thought I was a big shot because I retired at a higher enlisted rank? Whaaat??? I love him but since that day, preferred the absence of his company. I don't feel any responsibility to try to enlighten him, nor patronize him which is a lack of respect in the long run. We are cordial on holidays. He has early onset Alzheimer's so we are busy taking care of his things like banking bills etc. Guess who is the only family he trusted to be his executor and hold general and specific powers of attorney for him? (Hint, it wasn't the son who had common sense, and is struggling because he never learned how to run computers and is too old to do the labor he used to. My FIL was actually a genius in his own right. I learned a lot from him. But his insecurities about himself, and his inner demons, caused him to seek out and befriend insecure people with the same fears and hatreds he had. They would not last long.

 

I used to try to fit in down here by omitting "big words" from conversations. Then I realized that "common sense" was his word for things he can do that he believes a college educated person can't. He never realized that just because they chose to pay for things they could do if they wanted to, does not mean they can't. That would be as silly as thinking just because a person had no education and no training, they could just pick up a wrench and fix anything.

 

I had people later when they got to know me better that they thought I was looking up "big words" every night to impress them. I told them to just ask if I used a word they were not familiar with and I'd use another and explain the word. I also told them that I speak to everyone as equals. If I censored my language because I felt superior to everyone then I would be looking down on them as inferior. I just speak and write in my "voice." If that tweaks anyone then that is entirely their problem. I stopped trying to "please" folks who project in my 20s and just spoke plainly with them and asked them not to make things up never said or done by me or them. Barb, today , many folks cannot distinguish between facts and opinions. And many folks will stick to a lie when the truth would serve as well or better. Defending it to the point of domestic terrorism in more cases every year.

 

He would be the first to admit that. See. his view of the world is that all education beyond his own makes weak people with no common sense does not extend down any further. Were that premise true, a newborn baby would be able to overhaul any engine once he could hold a wrench. Kind of knocks that premise down.

 

But I learned long ago that we are all ignorant just on different subjects. Ignorance can be fixed. Willful ignorance is stupid. You can't teach stupid.

 

I have hanging on my wall this, my iteration of a definition by Anon., usually erroneously attributed to Einstein: "The difference between intelligence and stupidity? Intelligence has limits."

 

"In view of the fact that God limited the intelligence of man, it seems unfair that He did not also limit his stupidity."

Konrad Adenauer

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/k/konrad_adenauer.html#XGVYtFzuvBIVTdFO.99

[RV_]

Back to the topic:

 

Kodiak Jack,

We mistakenly left for our first major trip fulltiming along the Southern route hitting all the SKP parks along the way.

Here is an excerpt from our newsletter from the road for June/July 1998:

 

"Next, we went to The KOFA Escapee Park in Yuma AZ. We arrived at two PM and the temperature was 115 in the shade!! Our A/C unit had only cooled the coach down to 96 after an hour and we decided to leave until dark and get the dog and us into the truck A/C before he or us had a heat stroke."

 

The whole newsletter and the others for that year are here: http://home.earthlink.net/~derekgore/rvroadiervfulltimingwhatisitreallylike/id16.html

[Barbaraok]

To folks just coming along, I had pondered on why I see so many comments disparaging science in so many of the RV forums (not just Escapees) and later decided that would probably get me a lot of hate PMs and email, so edited it out - but obviously not before RV had it. Thanks Derek for the cogent thoughts on the matter.

[Vladimir]

2010 was a El Nino year and looking back at my blog....it was wet in Arizona and California.

 

http://usbackroads.blogspot.com/2010/03/puerto-penasco-mexico.html

 

It was wet!! I will be in Arizona in January....so it will be interesting how this winter pans ot.

[RV_]

Thanks Barb, glad you explained as I would have not been back to know. Hate mail? For commenting on the anti science views today? They have always been there as you can see in my post. I have yet to get any hate mail here. Gotten some hateful posts a few times when someone decided to say I thought something I didn't, but never hate emails despite mine being in the open. I don't worry about that but am a nice guy and don't go instigating that with others. There's quite a difference in disputing content and showing why, and attacking the person. But some folks don't see the distinction.

 

But on topic, it was hot and dry when we went there. On the way back either that year or the next it was snowing at Benson early in the year and cooooold.

[Lou Schneider]

Quartzsite's low was 30 degrees last night. I had an interesting conversation with the attendant at a mostly empty tool vendor in town - he and his brother had come down from WA state for their first Arizona winter and pretty much were hired on the spot to take care of the store. They were staying in a tent on BLM land and wondering if the weather was going to get much colder.