Up, Up, Down, Down…

2013-02-01 21:01:45.000 – Ryan Knapp,  Weather Observer/Meteorologist

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Growing up, every car I rode in had a crank on the door that was used to roll the window up or down. However, as I got older, friends started to get cars with power windows, where, with the flick of a switch or button, the window went up or down. As a kid, I was fascinated with this and when I rode in a vehicle equipped with this feature for the first time, I would ‘experiment’. I would push the button down, and the window would go down, and with a push of the switch on the opposite side, the window would go up. When you first experience something like this, you treat it like black magic, tapping the button both ways and seeing the reaction; down a bit, up a bit, up a tiny bit more, up the whole way, down half way, down a bit more, down the whole way, up…until the driver yells out to knock it off or locks the system on you. Admit it, we’ve all done it at some point in our life, or still have friends/kids that still do this to this day; tapping the button to see the cars black magic make the window go up or down.

I use this analogy because that is how the weather has been feeling like this winter; like Mother Nature is carpooling with Old Man Winter, and he is playing around with the ‘power weather’ feature in her car for the first time. I picture Old Man Winter in the passenger seat, tapping the power weather button both ways to see the reaction (of temperatures); down a bit, up a bit, up a tiny bit more, up all the way (setting record highs), down half way, down a bit more, down the whole way, up the whole way again…testing the patience of Mother Nature, but more importantly, testing the patience of everyone experiencing the swings caused by Old Man Winter’s…’experimenting’. And here we sit, waiting for Mother Nature to finally snap and lock the controls on him or tell him to stop messing with our weather.

I mean all of this in good fun; as a meteorologist, I know this isn’t what is driving our weather. But it is fun to imagine once in a while. In all seriousness though, I do hope the weather settles down to at least normal for a bit. It would make my job a bit easier and would make packing for a week at a time a whole lot easier. It’s taking up too much space in my bag each week to bring up spring clothing along with my deep winter clothing. So, fingers crossed that February normalizes a bit. And although February just started, so far things are looking up…or down, depending on what aspect of winter you are examining (temperature, precipitation, snowfall, etc). But I know the accuracy of long term models drops off dramatically, so let’s not get ahead of ourselves, or myself, just yet. We’ll just have to take it one day at a time like always. So, stay tuned…

Ryan Knapp,  Weather Observer/Meteorologist