No-Mageddan

My lovely wife banned me from talking about the weather.

Her words: "I do not want to hear any more about the weather." 

My preceding words: "What a beautiful, lovely day.  It reminds me of you, my love."

My actual preceding words: "#@$%@!-ers are closing the &@%@#^!-ing city down again because of a 1% chance of mist."  (or something like that.  I likely substituted the word "fuck" in the places with the funky symbols)

 
Upon reflection, my lovely spring-day-of-a-wife has a point.  I get a little, shall we say, agitated by Austin's fake ice days.

A short history.  Last year, the city had a bit of ice one day.  City leaders were slow to close things down.  A few cars crunched into a few other cars (and some objects that don't move).  A few kids were stranded at school (with adults, food, electricity, and all the other amenities that some might call "school").  City leaders got grief for being slow to react.

Fast forward, what, four days?  The next time temperatures were expected to go below freezing and there was a chance of drizzle somewhere in the lower 48 states, the city went into proactive lock-down mode.  Everything was cancelled a full 22 hours in advance.  No ice appeared. 

A week later - same thing.  "An abundance of caution" left us all at home with antsy children and nothing open, but no ice.  The third time was about two weeks after that.  This time, the news reporters drove around town filming. Not finding any actual ice, they trained their camera on the corner of the windshield that had a tiny bit of ice on it.  Somehow we survived the winter of 2014.

I was hoping that we put those days behind us in the enlightened 2015.  Sadly, no.  Temperatures hovered around freezing yesterday, and there was a (I am quoting weather guy Jim Spencer from the television) "slight chance of drizzle that could turn into as much as 1/100th of an inch of ice, but I don't think it will be a significant icing event."  Which of course means - close the fucking city down.  Which they did.

Jim was right.  It was only a slight chance (none), and it was not a "significant icing event."  My daughters' cake for their birthday two weeks ago was much more of an icing event. 

And while I am delighted with Jim's enthusiasm about his profession (that man loves weather more than anyone), his enhanced maps showing vast swaths of white, blue and purple are part of the problem.  He explains that the maps show the chance of light drizzle throughout the area, but the way they are presented make it look like we are dead center for a blizzard of 15 feet of ice and snow.

By now you probably are sympathizing with my wife, who says that I am the person who least appreciates a snow day.  That's not technically true.  I would love a snow day.  I'd even be fine with an ice day.  I am just really sick of overreactions to tiny threats (it goes beyond weather - look for part 2 later).  I do not endorse "chance of mist" days.

I run a medium-sized non-profit.  We have 30 employees and see about 60 clients a day.  A portion of our funding is from insurance and fees.  When we close, our revenue goes down.  I would be interested to see the economics of closing the entire City of Austin (revenue lost) to the cost of repairing 40 vehicles from their fender-benders (assuming no actual injuries).

 And do we need another reason for people outside of Texas to make fun of us? 

 "They closed the city for a small chance of drizzle? We have 20-foot snowdrifts from five consecutive blizzards and our kids still have to go to school." - Boston person mocking us.

"And what's with all the guns?" - Boston person continuing to mock us.

 "Oh yeah?  Well, Mitt Romney."  - our response.

Everyone stop freaking out about the ice-pocalypse that is not coming.  Shouldn't the news be making us freak out about ebola, the measles, or waves of Central American 8-year-olds flooding over the border to steal our jobs and take our guns?