Yes, I know that is a strange title but it was intended that way. You will not see it often because it will contain a lot of offbeat stuff that does not pertain to current weather. (and I will avoid posting it in busy weather times)
Instead (and I pow-wowed with James before doing this) I want to use it to tell some interesting (I think)stories in the past when weather work was nothing like today and loaded with obstacles. I always loved to write and one day I inserted a sentence only 10 words long that got me in hot water all the way to the top person in the US Weather Bureau in Washington. Plus a complete story about a trip to Rogers Pass Mont., after they recorded 69 below zero.
Here is a couple of weather items to make this more legitimate…written in three-dot fashion. Coldest this morning in the USA, 18…yes a hard freeze…at Shirley Basin, Wyo.,..hottest yesterday 107, Borrego, Calif.,..the Big Apple cooked a lot of the time this summer but their high/low last 24 hours only 67/63!
SPEAKING OF THREE-DOT STUFF. This email this morning from a gentleman named Ed who is a regular reader of our material: “Now that I’m an old man of 80 I particularly enjoy seeing references to things and people from the past. Your reference to Zipp Newman brought back memories of the 30s and 40s when he was sports editor of The News – and he titled his daily column “Dusting ‘Em Off”. It took me years to understand that it meant “……Them Off”. I went to many a Barons’ baseball game at Rickwood, and he could always be seen in the press box atop the grandstand behind home plate, at Rickwood Field.”
A NICE VISIT: Great to have lunch in downtown Trussville recently with Max Moore, a professional pilot as good as they come. He was the long time Director of Aviation for Sonat, Inc., At the Airport, we would see him often getting a weather briefing. We rehashed some old stories from the late 50s and 60s. He remembers how the weather term “severe clear” was born. Even today, you hear us bounce it around occasionally although it is not (and never was) an authorized weather term! Will explain that fully one day. Max is now retired and living in Pullman, Washington, in the cool Pacific Northwest (most of the time it is cool!)
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