Columbus news - Storm of the Century. . NOT & Sybil Ludington

Well the big news I guess is that Superintendent of schools Bryan Davis is one of the two finalists out of 141 for becoming superintendent of Ferguson-Florissant Missouri.  Yea - THAT Ferguson.  That's about all I know at the moment. They will share their visions of a new Ferguson-Florissant in a public meeting  . . .soon.

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In other Columbus news we made the Television news  and local paper with Columbus approves transgender policy

Basically the school board was proactive and if I may quote Megan Sheridan

"The policy covers students transitioning from male to female (MTF) and female to male (FTM). Students that identify as MTF are not allowed to participate in girls’ sports unless they have had a minimum of a year of hormone suppression therapy. Students that identify as FTM cannot participate in girls’ sports once they start testosterone therapy."

Hmmmmmm - didn't have that when I was in grade school. But we didn't have computers either so.  

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Sybil Ludington - ever heard of her?  You really should know the name of a 16 year old who is yet another unsung hero of the American Revolution. I actually had chills when I heard her story.  She rode twice as far as Paul Revere and rode completely alone while Paul had companions.

She rode on horse back for more then 9 hours, alone from 9 at night to day break on a rugged and dangerous road in pitch dark at times defending herself from highway men. She was able to muster 400 militia to defend Danbury, Connecticut, where revolutionaries stored most of their weapons and gunpowder for the upcoming war.

The story is a rider had raced to the Ludington farm warning him of the coming attack.  Ludington needed to rouse up the surrounding farms and the rider could not continue do to exhaustion so Sybil said "I'll do it" even though she had just turned 16 days before (although 16 was not a child in those days).

Pretty exciting stuff.

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Weather - for one thing it WAS a bad blizzard with many places getting MORE snow then predicted but closing New York is getting so bad press.  Here is what happened.

As you know there are many models that predict the big storms, 21 I believe. The best model is called the Euro (European Center for Medium Range Weather Forecasting) and it has been kicking anything the American models can do.  It has been the super star in the last 15 years and it was predicting heavy snow in New York.  Even up to Monday morning it was saying 18 inches of snow for NYC and it was not wavering and by it being so consistent forecasters could not ignore it even though other models such as SREF which is the American model said - no, everything is going north.

So who do you believe, the model that predicted with uncanny accuracy the blizzard of 1996, which paralyzed the  Eastern Seaboard for the better part of a week and SREF missed it? Which predicted Hurricane Sandy? (SREF, swing and a miss) and a plethora of other storms.  The Euro had a great track record.

BUT NOOOOO!!   not this time. While SREF is saying  no no there is not enough moisture in the air - ain't going to happen, the super star is saying "I got this".  Even when the Canadian’s global model agrees, even when the United Kingdom’s model fall in line with America and even when the North American Mesocale changes it tune, we believe in SREF.

We all fell in line with the super star.   Lessons were learned.  

On a different note the next generation of weather satellites (GOES-R) will go in orbit next year which will really improve weather forecasting.  One new instrument that we do not have at the moment will be a Geostationary Lightning Tracker.  Also anticipated will be a MUCH more improved tornado warning lead time and reduce false alarms.

For more on GOES-R

http://youtu.be/dZVrPlhDitA

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