Mystery White House Tweet: Snow During January Heat Wave

The White House released this since-deleted Tweet Sunday night
announcing the first snowfall of the year. At the time it was 53
degrees in Washington DC after a day that brought a high of 70 degrees.

Record setting high temperatures were reported up and down the East Coast of the United Sunday (though not here in northern Vermont, that's for sure!)

Boston reported 74, degrees, which is the hottest tempeature on record for any January day there. Records keeping on this score started in Boston back in 1872.

Down in Washington DC it got up to 70 degrees on Sunday. After dark, temperatures slipped back to a stil-balmy 53 degrees.

At that point, when it was 53 degrees, the White House decided to release a tweet. It had a photo of what appeared to be snow falling around the White House, with a message, "First snow of the year!"

Obviously being Twitter, everybody piled on to that White House tweet.  They abandoned the beach, the outdoor barbecues or whatever to respond very unkindly. After all, it was the dumbest tweet anyone had seen in this young year of 2020.

"It's 52 degrees. It's snowing in DC to the same extent that Trump is innocent. These folks aren't even competent at lying," groused Neal Katyal, (@Neal_Katyal)  a Supreme Court attorney.

"It was 70 degrees in DC. WTF is wrong with these people. They literally lie about the dumbest things," Tweeted Josh Kail (@THATJoshKail).

To be fair, the response to the strange White House tweet was maybe, well, unfair.

 It did snow in Washington DC last Tuesday, so it's possible the White House meant to post its snow message then, but more important things, like the Iran crisis got in the way.  It was probably a draft Tweet that was accidently published.  The photo in the tweet was indeed taken this past January 7, when it was for sure snowing in Washington.  That January 7 snow was the first of the season in Washington.

However, the Trump administration has certainly had a, um, problematic, relationship with meteorology and the truth. He lied about the rain at his inauguration.  And then, we have the famous hurricane Sharpie incident.

You remember that. Last year, Trump mistakenly said that Alabama was one of the state's being threatened by Hurricane Dorian.  Rather than just correcting a simple mistake he made about Alabama and Dorian, Trump doubled down.

As Alabama meteorologists tried to calm the state's residents by assuring them Hurricane Dorian would miss that state, he insisted he was right. He even added some embellishments to a hurricane forecast map with a Sharpie in a sad attempt to make it look like Alabama was indeed threatened.

I think more people would have ignored the White House's "snow" on Sunday had the Trump administration, especially Trump himself, been a more honest person in general.

But that ain't ever going to happen, is it?

"It's Too Hot!" This Houston Toddler Is All Of Us This Summer

Do any of you feel like this kid in the video, below?

The Houston area kid doesn't like the hot weather. I think the boy speaks for all of us:

TV Meteorologist Has Had ENOUGH Of Cold Weather Whining

WXMI Meteorlogist Garry Frank in Grand Rapids Michigan pictured here
mid-rant as he complained on air about everybody complaining
about this cold, snowy, miserable spring. We feel for ya! 

Like practically everyone else, I've been whining about this wintry spring, one in which warm temperatures, greenery and pleasant sunshine seem like  a cruel joke that will never arrive.

As I write this late Sunday afternoon, it's a lovely 33 degrees with a mix of sleet, rain and freezing rain outside my St. Albans, Vermont house.

And you wonder why people are so frustrated with this month's weather?  

It's not just us in Vermont. As you might have noticed, huge tracts of the nation have had a cold, snowy, miserable April so far.

That includes Michigan, where WXMI Fox 17 meteorologist Garry Frank  in Grand Rapids last week had his fill of people complaining about his un-springlike weather forecasts this month.

He had an on-air rant, which went totally viral of course, because his frustration is our frustration. Yes, we're whining about our lack of spring, and we're sick of whining about it and sick of  hearing others whine about it.

Frank was also sick and tired of hearing his fellow news reporters at WXMI whining about it.

So he went on this rant, which is probably worth watching over and over again.

 

Average Snow Doesn't Faze Vermont, And Epic Snows Don't Faze Buffalo Bills Fans.

Buffalo Bills fans "enjoy" their hometown team
winning during heavy lake effect snow squalls last Sunday

In case you haven't noticed, if you've gone outdoors to do anything in the past week or so, there's a good chance you encountered either falling snow or snow on the ground. Tis the season, right?  

The snowfall in Vermont had wound down this afternoon, though as of 3:30 p.m., there is still some steady snow falling along the immediate western slopes of the Green Mountains, and flurries elsewhere.

As expected, the western slopes made up for the lack of snow yesterday with a decent thumping this morning, with eight or nine inches of total snow along the western slopes of the Greens, with higher amounts.

And those eight inch reports came while it was still snowing at midmorning.

A couple places picked up a fairly impressive storm total, though overall this Vermont snow was pretty run of the mill by our standards.

Killington did pick up 19 inches of snow, and Rochester, Vermont had just a hair under 17 inches of fresh powder. Pomfret came up with a little under 16 inches of new snow.

It's damn nippy out there with the northwest breeze, and wind chills are near or just below zero. Actual temperatures will flirt with zero tonight.

Still, if you're brave enough, go outside and see if you can view the Geminid Meteor Shower. There will likely be a LOT of shooting stars, assuming the sky clears up enough where you are to see them. It will be a frigid view, but perhaps worth it. The best chance for relatively clear skies tonight in Vermont are between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.

Bit tough to see the action amid Lake Erie
snow squalls during the NFL's Buffalo
Bills home game last Sunday.

The snow we got, and the cold we're getting, is pretty routine for a Vermont December. So, too, was a snow blitz during last Sunday's NFL Buffalo Bills home game as torrents of snow poured off of Lake Erie.

Last Sunday, fans of the NFL's Buffalo Bills really got into the snow.

Those heavy snow squalls blew in off Lake Erie and smothered the stadium in snow during Sunday's game.

According to the Buffalo Bills website, eight inches of snow fell during the game, between 12:30 and 4 p.m. About 20 snow blowers were deployed during the game so players and everyone else could see sidelines, yard markers and hashmaks on the field.

In the end, it seemed not too many people minded the snow, since Buffalo ultimately won the game in overtime.

Here's one video scene from the snowy NFL game:



And here are a bunch of Buffalo Bills fans totally unfazed by the heavy snow:

Wild, Funny Video Of People Fleeing Hail At A Fair In Canada

In this screen grab, fairgoers in Red Deer, Alberta us

Westerner Days in Red Deer, Alberta, Canada this past week was a rousing success, despite a glitch that forced the fair to close an hour early on Sunday, the Red Deer Advocate informs us. 

First it hailed like crazy, but that's OK. The storm passed and it turned sunny and warm for a few hours. Then it got windy and they had to close the fair down, the Advocate says. 

The best part of the disruptions, though, judging from the video you'll see below, was the hailstorm.

Gawd, you have to love Canadians' reaction to that country's sometimes volatile weather. First we had that now famous guy who mowed his lawn while a large tornado loomed behind him.

Then there was one of the videos I featured the other day, in which the guy calmly applied fungicide to his farm fields while another tornado loomed behind him.

And now we have Westerner Days in Red Deer, which pelted fairgoers with large hail, forcing them to flee into nearby pavillions.

I just love the reaction of the people fleeing. Some held folding chairs over their heads to fend off the hail. Then there's the woman pushing a little pink toy car through the hail, for reasons unknown. Another fleeing woman took care to hang on tight to the fair food she had just purchased. Wouldn't want it to go to waste.

The piece de resistance was the groups of people cooperating to hold tables over their heads as they strived to get out of the hail.

This video from the Weather Network is priceless.  Watch:

Man Mowing Lawn During Tornado Is Turning Into Weather Meme Of 2017

Theunis Wellels mows his lawn while
a large tornado spins in the background
last week in Three Hills, Alberta, Canada.

Have you seen the photo in this post yet?

You probably have, but that's OK.  

Last week, a large tornado passed through some open country near Three Hills, Alberta, Canada. As you can see in the photo, as the tornado raged in the background, a buy named Theunis Wessels calmly mowed his lawn.

His wife, Ceclia, snapped the photo, in between entreaties to get her husband to come into the house already.

Hey, you gotta get the lawn work done, right?

According to CBC, Wessels said the tornado was further away from him than it looks in the photo, and that it was moving away from him. "I was keeping an eye on it," he said.

The photo is funny, but still, in a brief serious note, what the guy did isn't safe, as you'd expect.

First, there's a slight chance the tornado could have changed directions, but Wessel is right, it appears by the slant of the tornado it was heading away from him.

But no doubt the tornado was produced by a supercell thunderstorm, which could have touched off another satellite tornado right near him, or suddenly started dropping large, dangerous hail on his head, or zapped him with lightning.

The lawn really could have waited. (Hell, I'm wimping out on mowing the lawn today because there's a steady light rain out there.)

Some people on social media imagined conversations before the photo was taken. Like this imaginary exchange:

Grandma: "Didn't I tell you to mow the lawn?"
Grandson: "But there's a tornado outside.
Grandma: "So is my switch."

This isn't the first time I've seen somebody do something crazy in extreme weather in the name of making the lawn look nice. In the video below, you'll see some oddball six years ago mowing the lawn amid golf ball sized hail.

Must have been painful.

Watch:

Fail Video Proves Weather Can Be A Really Challenge. And A Jokester

This dog is unnecessarily dog paddling through
not very deep floodwaters 

One of Fail Army's YouTube videos focuses one of their fail compiliations on the weather.

Yes, as the video that was dropped on March 1 attests, the weather can be at times difficult, to say the least.

Some of my favorites you'll see in the video below are the guy challenged severely by the sloping, slick ice driveway, the cat trying to claw its way out of a snow-blocked doorway, and the army of trash cans descending a hill during a flash flood.

I think my favorite, around 6:43 in, and you'll see more yourself, is the guy carrying the dog in his arms as he walks through ankle deep flood water.

When he walks, the dog, sensing the water three feet below him, does the dog paddle. When the guy stops walking, the dog stops "swimming." It's hysterical.

Here's the whole video:

This Guy's Car Is Going To Be Frozen In For Awhile (Or Maybe Not)

Here's why you should not park your car
next to a windy wave-tossed lake on a frigid night. 

An image that has gone totally viral demonstrates why you shouldn't park next to an unfrozen lake on a gusty, frigid evening.

The guy, Justin Yelen, 24,  parked next to Lake Erie while he and a few friends went into a nearby restaurant for drinks.

At the end of the night,  Yelen wisely decided he might have had a little too much to drink so friends gave him a ride home, and he'd retrieve the car the next day.

Good luck with that.

While wise not to drive that night, Yelen was unwise to park next to Lake Erie. Big waves broke over a nearby seawall and water repeatedly splashed onto the car and froze.

He now had an ice cube instead of a car.

It's unclear whether the car is damaged, (I bet if it is, it's not that bad) but he had to figure out how to get in.

Here's what I did when I was confronted with an iced-in vehicle that was admittably not nearly as bad as this situation.

My truck was parked in my driveway in December, 2013, while I was away visiting relatives in South Dakota.

Sort of an ice sculpture left behind after the frozen car
near Lake Erie was towed away.

While I was gone, nearly three inches of sleet and freezing rain accumulated on the truck and froze totally solidly amid temperatures that fell to near zero.

There were no thaws in the forecast, so I waited until just before noon on a sunny day, so at least I had that heat. I was able to get into the truck, and put on the heat and defrost full blast.

I was carefully not to chop or hack at the ice, because that would have damaged the paint, and possibly the windows and windshield.

The heat generated inside loosened the ice, and I was able to take the ice off chunk by chunk. Yes, a tremendous waste of gas, but it worked.

Apparently Yelen went for the big guns. Latest reports are a tow truck came and yanked the car out of the ice. Presumably, it will be towed to a heated garage, where the ice can melt.

Here's a report from television station WKBW about Yelen's situation:

TV Meteorologist In MInnesota Has Serious Hangups

Minneapolis television station Fox 9 meteorologist Steve Frazier was about to launch into his morning forecast when he started figeting.

His suit didn't feel right. 

Then he discovered the problem. He'd left the hanger on his jacket.  The anchors on the news desk were not impressed.

Watch the hilarity here:

Cat Finds New Brunswick Snow To Be Far Too Much Work

Rudiger the cat was feeling
a little trapped by blizzardy weather
recently in Moncton, New Brunswick

Hey New Englanders and denizens of southeastern Canada!

Does all this snow have you feeling hemmed in? Suffering from cabin fever? Maybe you're just feeling trapped by winter? Does the forecast of more snow have you collapsing into a heap of tears?

A cat in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada feels your pain.

It seems the resourceful residents of New Brunswick have been managing the mountains of snow creatively, if not always enthusiastically.

Yesterday, I showed you that locomotive blasting through the deep snow in Sydney, New Brunswick. That's one way to get through the drifts.

Today, we'll see the cat in Moncton feeling drifted in, then doing something about it.  Another way to get through the drifts, I guess.

A fun thing to watch:

This TV Meteorologist Should Have Forecast A Dog Day

King the American Bulldog crashes Ryan Phillips'
weather forecast recently on NBC 6 in South Florida

Ryan Phillips, a meteorologist at NBC 6 in South Florida was just trying to get through his segment recently when King, a one-year old American Bulldog, decided to make a splash.

King was going to be on the next feature on the news program, in which NBC 6 features dogs up for adoption.

King apparently figured if he went on at a different, early time during the news cast, he'd make more of a splash.

That way, I imagine the reasoning in King's mind, is people would be more likely to give him a home. Or maybe he just wanted the treat he could smell in Phillips' pocket.

So he burst onto the set as Phillips was trying to forecast an upcoming warming trend. I don't know if summer-like dog days came to the Miami area amid the predicted warmup, but Phillips certainly had his own dog day.

But Phillips handled it like a pro, and treated King like the sweetheart he seems to be.

When the dog bursts onto the set, Phillips gently tells King, "How are you buddy? It's not your turn yet. You have to wait one more segment. Okay, just let me do the weather. You're stoked. So are we."

With that, King was ushered off the set, with some difficulty, as Phillips continued on with his forecast.

No word yet on whether King has been adopted, but the video is charming enough.

Watch:

Weather Clickbait: How Major Media Get You To Read Their Weather Stories

Are scary weather headlines making you nervous?
Could be intentional, to make you click on web sites.  

Some people call it "clickbait." It's a way to encourage people to hit a link on your web site to drive up the number of views, and thus the perceived value of the web site to advertisers.

On one hand, you want to encourage people to read your stuff. That's why you're there, doing the weather dance on this Internet thingy here.

On the other hand, people get a little  way too strident with scary headlines meant to scare everyone about the weather, and to get those coveted clicks.

You got that as the nation was hit by an abrupt Arctic cold wave this week. Yeah, the cold snap was impressive, but it wasn't the worst ever. At least in most places. Just kind of a shock to the system after a relatively mild autumn.

But you gotta get those eyeballs reading. so you come up with the wildest headlines you can.

There seems to be some rules to this clickbait madness.

For one, you have to use the word "millions" as much as possible. I guess people are drawn to that word, and if you say "millions" will be affected, millions of people will latch on to your web site. Never mind that few of these millions will be all that affected by your weather drama.

Some examples.

The headline at NBC news Monday morning as a cold wave arrived was "Hello Winter! Millions Brace For Snow Ahead Of Arctic Blast."

At CBS news Monday morning, the weather wasn't the lead story like it was over at NBC, but they had it on their home page: "Eye Opener: Millions of Americans In Path of Massive Arctic Blast."

CBS loves "millions." In July, they informed us that "Severe Weather Affects Millions In Northeast."

At the Weather Channel, they use "millions" a lot, like on this October 14 headline about some bad thunderstorms and a tornado threat: "Severe Weather Outbreak: Millions Threatened, Damage Reported."

The worst weather use of the word "millions," as pointed out by The Vane, was a Tweet sent out by NBC News in June: "Severe Storms, Destructive Winds and a Gustnado Threaten Millions Today."

Considering that one gustnado, which is a small swirl of wind within a strong wind gust at the beginning of a thunderstorm, is a weak thing that at worst would cause minor damage in a neighborhood, could hardly threaten millions.

I guess they were trying to promote another weather buzz word, so those are so popular. That's why every cold wave involves a "polar vortex." More on that in a minute.

Last Saturday, AccuWeather hit a trifecta of clickbait terms, including the word "millions"  with its cold weather forecast story: "Polar Vortex To Blast 200 Million People With Arctic Air."

AccuWeather, in addition to using "million" also used the word "blast," which always works in clickbait style headlines, and "Polar Vortex" which since last winter has been THE go to word to describe a cold wave that would drive clicks to your web site.

A Google search this morning for "polar vortex" got me more than 13 million links. Hey, millions! "Millions to Read About Polar Vortex When Doing a Google Search" is my clickbait headline of the day.

For the record, the Polar Vortex is a big swirl of low pressure up in the Arctic. It's always there, as far as anyone can tell it's always been there, it moves around a lot, and it waxes and wanes in strength.

Sometimes the Polar Vortex gets closer than usual to the United States, or a piece of it breaks off and actually enters the United States. This happens occasionally in some winters, and that's what happened last January when the nation had a severe, but not unprecedented cold wave.

However, everybody seized on the term Polar Vortex as if it were the ultimate villain from a cheap monster movie, because the media discovered the term is clickbait.

Now, every time it gets slightly cool in any part of the country, we learn the POLAR VORTEX IS INVADING AGAIN!!!!! AAAYYYYEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Actually, despite the headlines. You aren't going to die. But maybe you should take a jacket with you if you go out.

A lot of the media has learned to seize on normal meteorological terms and bring them to the public. There's really nothing wrong with that. If people are interested in learning about meteorology, then they should learn about it. It's all good.

Unless the misuse the word and confuses the public. We get that sometimes with a cool, clickbaiting term derecho. It is a neat word to say:  "deh-REY-cho."

It sounds like the romantic lead in a 1950s western set in West Texas. Kind of like the Cisco Kid.

No doubt, derechos are nasty.  They're big, huge fast moving, long lasting lines of severe thunderstorms.  NOAA's Storm Prediction Center defines a derecho precisely as a "swath of wind damage extending for more than 240 miles, including wind gusts of at least 58 along most of its length, and several, well-separated 75 mph or greater gusts."

They can be as bad as tornadoes, so it's time to batten down the hatches when a derecho is forecast to hit you.

The problem is, some weather forecasters started calling fairly localized, marginally severe storms derechos. So if somebody gets hit by this so-so storm, and they heard it was a derecho, they'll note the storm didn't turn out to be all THAT bad.

Then, if a derecho approaches the next time, people might not take shelter as readily.

Yes, mis-using weather terms as clickbait can actually kill people.

Naming storms and weather events is clickbait, too. The Weather Channel has famously noted that, as they give monikers to winter storms.

The snowstorm that hit the Upper Midwest this week was named "Astro" by the Weather Channel.

I'm surprised when the storm was forecast, the headlines on all the web sites wasn't "Ruh-Roh, Reorge," something Astro the dog on the Jetsons would say when something bad was about to happen. 

The trouble is, how do you define when to name a winter storm? With tropical storms and hurricanes, it's easy. If it's a warm core storm that originated in the tropics and has sustained winds of at least 39 mph, you give the tropical storm or hurricane a name.

It's easy to keep track of them that way.

But a winter storm isn't as confined, or as easily definable as a tropical storm or hurricane.

A snow flurry that deposits a quarter inch of snow on the Florida Panhandle might qualify as a scary winter storm there. Here in Great White North of Vermont, if we get a quarter inch of snow, the entire state yawns in abject boredom.

Finally, can we please, PLEASE, stop giving the suffix "apocalypse" or some form of that word.

Every snowstorm is a "snowocalypse"  Every heavy rainstorm is a floodocalypse. Every nasty windstorm is a galocalypse, or something.

What's next?  if the forecast calls for a sunny, pleasant day, will that be the sunocalypse?

As I write this, there's a light rain shower going on outside, the wind is gusting to 20 mph and the temperature is starting to drop as a cold front arrives. Nothing horrific out there.

But I need clickbait. How's this for the an alarming headline I could use to describe today's weather:

"Millions Threatened By Weather Blogger Being Blasted By Vermont  Rainshowertemperaturedropocalypse He Named Bob That Feels Like A Derecho In His Imagination!!"

Yeah, that needs work.

Television Station Carries "Weather Porn" Way Too Far

A Memphis television station sent out
this unfortunate Tweet this morning.  

In this blog, I often give you what I refer to as "weather porn."  

My definition of weather porn is safe-for-work videos, images, photos and other media of dramatic storms and extreme weather.

Weather geeks like me get a little thrill out of seeing snippets of these major weather events, hence the term "weather porn."

It's all good, clean fun.

However, according to Jim Romensko, a media watcher and blogger, television station WREG in Memphis issued the following Tweet: "Use our interactive radar to track the rain and storms. pornhub.com/users/rockbone."

Pornhub, for the uninitiated, is just what it implies. You can get all things porn there. Definitely NOT safe for work. It'll get you fired.

Rockbone is probably the name of a porn film, but as you can imagine, I'm not going to investigate Pornhub and Rockbone any further.  And no, I'm not going to provide a hyperlink to it. Find it yourself if you need that sort of thing.

Needless to say, WREG deleted the Tweet pretty quickly, and issued an apology. They then issued this Tweet: "Have you changed your passwords recently? Take it from us. Do it now. Also, resist public WiFi. For real."

So WREG is saying they got hacked, and that's why there was a link to Pornhub. Maybe that's true, but judging from their Twitter feed, people aren't buying it.

I do love the snarky headlines and comments about this.  Romensko referred to a "hot and sticky forecast." Another commenter said if they were predicting 12 inches, that would get interesting.

My theory is somebody got confused between "stormy," as in the weather, and "Stormie," as in a porn star.

For you perverts discerning movie viewers out there, WREG's weather radar does not go to a porn site. It goes to actual weather. As in scattered showers. When I checked late this morning, the images showed showers and storms north and east of Memphis, but nothing resembling "Stormie" the porn star.

As for this blog, continue to check back here for more weather porn. But I'm warning you: You'll probably get a video of a twister, as in a tornado, and not something twisted, like some extreme sexual porn video.

Just sayin'.

Sorry, Conspiracy Theorists, But "Chemtrails" Are Not A Thing

I'm totally on with Vane, the weather page on the snarky Web site Gawker, which has been totally going off on all those people who think that chemtrails exist and the government is trying to kill us with them.

Or something.

At the risk of having a bunch of conspiracy theorists with pitchforks or spray bottles of vinegar (more on that later) come at me because they think I'm part of the conspiracy, I'm going to yell at the chemtrail believers too.

CHEMTRAILS DON'T EXIST, YOU MORONS!!!

I'd better explain what this conspiracy theory is first: You know those thin white clouds or streaks you see forming behind a jet airplane as it passes overhead? Those are contrails. The hot exhaust from the jet engines hits the cold air and causes condensation. What you're seeing is a trail of ice crystals behind the jet.

These condensation trails can last from a few seconds to several hours after the jet goes by, depending upon atmospheric conditions.

We've seen these contrails up in the sky ever since there were jets.

Chemtrail enthusiasts say the you can tell many, most or all contrails are actually their beloved chemtrails, because they spread out or linger in the sky for hours, or merge with existing high clouds.

Since there can be any number of wind patterns up there where the jets fly, the wind can do all kinds of things to the condensations trails, bend them, make them much wider, intertangle several condensation trails-- you name it.

Still, a bunch of yahoos think these contrails are actually chemtrails.

According to RationalWiki, chemtrail conspiracists aren't totally sure what nefarious plot is behind the phenomenon, but top theories are it's for sterilization for genocide or population control, administration of drugs for mind control, to stop human evolution, to combat climate change.

One of the more interesting theorites is that chemtrails are designed to give Monsanto a global monopoly on genetically modified food by poisoning the environment so nothing but their seeds will grow.

Um, doesn't Monsanto already have almost a monopoly on genetically modified seeds? So why would they need so-called chemtrails.

Well, that's besides the point.

We could dismiss chemtrail enthusiasts as a bunch of tinfoil hat wackos, but too many people who should know better take this seriously for some reason.

 An Arizona State senator recently held a hearing on chemtrails in Lake Havasu City and the local paper took the foolishness seriously. 

In their article, the Havasu News actually did person on the street interviews about the subject and got responses like this:

"Jennifer Cramer of Havasu said she's noticed the "chemtrails" in town for about two years. "Every time they do chemtrailing there is some dramatic change in the weather. I noticed it this weekend and then it got very windy.....I'm not a scientist and I don't know what's in the (chemtrails) I think we have a right to know instead of worry (sic) about it every day."

Let me clue you in,  Jennifer, so you can stop worrying.  Contrails are most noticeable and tend to last longest, and spread out more when there are other high thin clouds starting to move in.

Those high thin clouds are often the first sign of an approaching storm. That's why it got windy, Jennifer. A normal, run of the mill, non conspiracy, meterological storm was probably coming your way.

So chill.

Oh, and about the vinegar: Some conspiracy theorists say you can neutralize the effects of chemtrails by spray vinegar into the air. That has led to some hilariously pathetic YouTube videos of people with plant misters spraying vinegar into the air.

There's one of those videos at the bottom of this post for entertainment.  In it, a woman is spraying vinegar into the air with a plant mister, and is convinced she is making the "chemtrails" disappear. (The contrails disappear on their own, you moron!)

The best line in the video is when you hear her teenage son say, resigned: "We are NOT your average family."

Meanwhile, I'm sure I, and Vane/Gawker writer Dennis Mersereau would get plenty of flak and vinegar from the conspiracists. But that's part of the job, I guess.

Now, go have some vinegar with that video I promised:

British Potholes Making It Harder To Catch Drunk Drivers

There's another hazard to add to the litany of woes caused by the potholes and frost heaves that I wrote about the other day.   

Are people swerving around these like drunken drivers?  

In Britain, where a winter of flooding had caused a lot of road damage, the BBC reports that the potholes make it harder to catch drunk drivers.

Sober drivers are weaving and swerving around the holes in the road, the BBC reports. 

They look like drunken drivers.

According to the BBC, quoting an inspector named Richard Mallett:

"Yes, the conditions of the road are a concern because there is a likelihood of it causing crashes, but people need to take some responsibility when they're behind the wheel.....Anecdotally, it makes it more difficult for us to spot the drunk drivers as everyone is weaving about around the potholes.

Here in Vermont and in the rest of the northern parts of the United States, frost heaves and potholes are everywhere after a long, tough winter. So there's plenty of bumps and holes to swerve around as we're driving out there.

Still, I don't think weaving around the potholes would be a good excuse to tell an officer if you're driving drunk. They could just whip out the Breathalyzer to determine what's going on.

Besides, if weaving around potholes is unsafe for sober drivers, imagine a drunken driver trying to pull that off.

Stay safe out there, people.

 because there is a likelihood of it causing crashes, but people need to take some responsibility when they're behind the wheel.

"Anecdotally, it makes it more difficult for us to spot the drunk drivers as everyone is weaving about around the potholes."

Long Winter Makes People Silly: Swimming In The Duluth Snow

Yes, it's been a long, hard winter, especially in the upper Midwest.

OK, so maybe this wasn't the best idea.  

And it's not done yet! More cold weather, and in some places, snow, is due in the next couple of days.

Up in frigid Duluth, Minnesota recently, two young guys, obviously suffering from cabin fever, put on their speedos for a swim. (They look like they might be competitive swimmers)

With what appears to be a couple feet of fresh powder on the ground, the pair decided to try seeing if swimming in the snow works, since all the water is apparently frozen over in Duluth.

The experiment didn't go that well, but it's fun to watch. So watch:

New York City: Snowboarding Mecca?

As I mentioned in this morning's post, New York City has had a LOT of snow this winter. (It snowed there again this morning)

NYC turns into a snowboarding Mecca this winter.  

The Big Apple has had at least as much snow as Burlington, Vermont, which is traditionally more of a winter wonderland than most places in the nation.

So it is, as the video below demonstrates, that New York City has turned into a wonderful snowboarding mecca, at least to the people in the video.

I'm sure the NYPD wasn't too thrilled with this, but it is a lot of fun. Watch:

Winter Of Discontent (Ctd): Giant Snowball Smacks Oregon College Dorm

About a week ago, there was up to a foot of snow in the Portland, Oregon area.

In this photo from Reed Magazine
a giant snowball that had rolled down a
hill smashed into a dormitory,
damaging a wall.  

Some students at Reed College in the area decided to make a giant snowball in the quad, just for fun.

Then they had the bright idea to roll the thing down a hill. Two math majors gave the giant icy orb a shove.  Down the hill it went.

But our math majors maybe need to study their calculations more. The huge snowball, weighing up to 900 pounds, plowed into a dorm building, bowing in the wall, according to Reed Magazine, published at Reed College.

The two students who shoved the snowball down the hill immediately reported the mishap to campus security and said they felt totally awful about causing the damage, which will amount into the thousands of dollars.

Since the students didn't cause the damage on purpose and reported the problem as soon as it happened, they won't get in trouble, says Reed Magazine.

Ah, the dangers of winter.

Glad to note nobody was strong enough to pick up the snowball and hurl it at someone. That would have hurt!

For Those Of You Sick Of Winter: A Hilarious Forecast

Some people are rejoicing in the snow that has slammed the eastern United States. Skiers and riders and beyond ecstatic.

Sick of winter? The video in this post
might lighten your mood. Or infuriate you.  

Others aren't so enthusiastic. To many, winter is a pain in the butt. The cold hurts, the roads are lousy, the shoveling is backbreaking, the gloomy weather sends people off into the deep end.

The sick of winter subset might like the parody of those Weather Channel local forecasts, you know the ones with the soft jazz in the background, and the blue screen giving you the updated forecast for your area.

Hat tip to reader Margo Howland for alerting us to the following hilarity: (Some swear words on screen, so maybe NSFW)

Did The Ice Or The Dog Just Take Down That Tree

Countless trees across the Southeastern United States have been collapsing under the weight of that epic ice storm.

In this video, was it the ice who collapsed the ornamental tree, or was it the thunderous barking from the dogs? Or both.

Note: No animals were injured in the making of this video