Thursday, February 6, 2025

Warm with Low Rain Chances Through Monday, Then Heavier Rain Expected Next Week

FORECAST:

Friday (High 70, Low 55): Partly to mostly cloudy. Widely scattered showers and thunderstorms are possible. 

Saturday (High 76, Low 57): Mostly sunny and breezy during the day. Rain showers are likely at night. 

Sunday (High 60, Low 51): Gradually decreasing clouds. An isolated shower may linger in the morning. 

EXTENDED OUTLOOK:

Monday (High 58, Low 46): Partly cloudy with a 20% chance of showers. 

Tuesday (High 64, Low 47): Rain.

Wednesday (High 64, Low 48): Rain.

Thursday (High 60, Low 47): Mostly cloudy with a 50% chance of rain. 

PRONÓSTICO:

Viernes (Máxima 70, Mínima 55): Parcialmente a mayormente nublado. Posibles lluvias y tormentas eléctricas dispersas.

Sábado (Máxima 76, Mínima 57): Mayormente soleado y ventoso durante el día. Es probable que haya lluvias por la noche.

Domingo (Máxima 60, Mínima 51): Nubes que disminuyen gradualmente. Es posible que quede una lluvia aislada por la mañana.

PERSPECTIVA EXTENDIDA:

Lunes (Máxima 58, Mínima 46): Parcialmente nublado con un 20 % de probabilidad de lluvias.

Martes (Máxima 64, Mínima 47): Lluvia.

Miércoles (Máxima 64, Mínima 48): Lluvia.

Jueves (Máxima 60, Mínima 47): Mayormente nublado con un 50 % de probabilidad de lluvia.

NOTES:

The next SKYWARN class is 6 PM February 11th in Moulton. Online classes are also available. Severe Weather Awareness Day will be held in Nashville on February 22. 

This week is Severe Weather Awareness Week in Alabama, so you might want to refresh yourself on your safety plan. It wouldn't hurt to check the battery backup in your NOAA Weather Radio before we get into the month of March, which tends to be when severe weather potential starts to crank up around here. Or some years we get lucky and mainly just have rain in the Spring months. But other years it gets really nasty, especially March and April, sometimes lasts into May. 

The drought information statement for Huntsville seems to still be broken, so maybe it'd be better to check out the report in Nashville for Middle Tennessee. This rain next week will help us out in that department, places that still need a lot of rain. 

DISCUSSION:

We had a mostly overcast and breezy day in Cullman with a High of 73 and a Low of 61. For anyone who hasn't noticed, we call that "unseasonably warm."


We've actually got some showers and thunderstorms moving through mainly areas near and along the Tennessee/Kentucky border up there. Some very light rain is showing up in North Alabama and Southern Middle Tennessee, but some of that is probably virga, evaporating before it reaches the ground. I saw where the Storm Prediction Center was considering a Severe Thunderstorm Watch for parts of Middle Tennessee earlier. 



But today and yesterday, so far all the reports of severe weather (mainly damaging winds, but a couple reports of large hail too) occurred up in Kentucky or West Virginia, far away from home base here. 





This activity is focused along this front, which as we expected days ago, has more-or-less stalled out. For anybody not familiar with weather maps, that's why you see red and blue marks on the same side. That means a stationary front. They can be completely still, or they can be like this one, which has tended to move North and South very slowly the last few days. Well first it moved South, then back up North, and is now drifting Southward again. So here we are. 

Also notice those 500 millibar heights are showing zonal wind flow from West to East. That's why it's tough to get a weather system (like that front) to move through here at the moment, and we're staying in this almost tropical warmth in early February. 




Those showers and storms will gradually work down into Alabama tonight though as the front starts to drift South again. Showers will be more numerous than they were around here during the day today. 

By tomorrow the showers should be more scattered in nature again, and it's warm enough we could see enough instability for some thunderstorms. High should be near 70, Low near 55. 

Friday night it should move back northward as a warm front and then be stretched through Memphis on Saturday. So we should be mostly sunny around here on Saturday, a High in the mid-70's, Low in the mid-to-upper-50's. And with this front taking aim at us again, it will be a breezy day. Then rain showers will be likely Saturday night. 


Most of the rain should be over by Sunday, could see something isolated left over in the morning. And clouds may be slow to diminish throughout the day. Looks like a High near 60, Low near 50. This will start our pattern change, although it really takes until Tuesday before it kicks in. But the front should clear North Alabama on Sunday. 


Then on Monday the front will push further down toward the Gulf Coast. (I know President Trump signed an executive order renaming it "The Gulf of America", but a lot of the world is still going to call it "The Gulf of Mexico". I say pick your poison. The drinking water will tear you up more in Mexico, but I think the air is worse for folks with asthma to breathe in some of the bigger cities up here in America. And the women have more attractive skin down in Mexico without needing to go to a tanning bed. Then again, Marty Robbins did a song about getting shot down there because he fell in love with a Mexican girl. So like I say . . . pick your poison. I may just call it "The Guff" to keep things simple in the future. Saw somebody from Louisiana suggest that. Or I may continue to use it as a source of cheap comedy like you're reading here. I know most of my readers probably prefer "Gulf of America" as being more official and patriotic, but I haven't gotten any death threats for making fun of it . . . not yet anyway. I'd hope if I did get an irate reply, it'd be from somebody with more imagination, like those old Roy D. Mercer prank calls. "Hey boy, you call 'at thang the right name or I'm 'oan' come down 'ere and WHUP YORE ASS!" Or at least somebody calling me a Communist or Marxist or something. So far nothing. I'm guessing people that read this are smarter than Southerners usually get credit for by the rest of the world, and have more of a sense of humor.) 

And whoa, that was a tangent. So let's get back to the weather. We'll see a High in the upper 50's, Low in the mid-40's for Monday, rain chances staying minimal, about 20%, so 1-in-5 chance for any one spot getting a shower. 


Then on Tuesday, along comes a Low pressure system coming out of Texas, to breathe new life into our frontal boundary. Rain is likely, and it may be heavy at times. We'll see a High roughly in the mid-60's, Low roughly in the mid-40's. Could be looking at lower 60's and upper 40's for some of us. 


And notice by Wednesday the GFS model shows our upper-level pattern has shifted so that our winds aloft are no longer zonal from the West but are out of the Southwest. 


That's why this front is going to actually move some and dump some heavy rains. It'll be down close to that GUFF coast (as they might say in Louisiana, not sure if that's a Cajun pronunciation or what) Wednesday. And up here we'll have a day similar to Tuesday. Many of us are likely to see heavy rains from this front. 


And it looks like Thursday will be fairly similar, at least scattered showers hanging around, but probably more like a 50-60% chance in the cards. The High should only be near 60 though, slightly cooler than the past couple days. 

Do we dare to venture beyond seven days this time? 



The GFS shows rapid clearing next Friday. 


The ECMWF shows a more gradual clearing trend. 

So we might see isolated showers lingering early next Friday. Not sure if I'll put this up top in an official forecast, but down here, let's talk it out and have some fun up to 10 days since this forecast is pretty high-confidence in the overall pattern. Now the exact details of next week are not as certain, but the basic idea of Tuesday through Thursday, we get really soaked, that is high-confidence. 

Overall I'd vote for decreasing clouds Friday, High of 60 or so, Low near 40. 

Oh and by the way, that's Valentine's Day. How appropriate, sunshine coming back slowly. 




The two major global models show two different scenarios that could bring us rain again Saturday, or at least low rain chances. And this just looks like a mess to me. Probably not trying a 10-day-outlook this time unless Sunday's guidance is a little clearer. 



Which it isn't. 


Here's the European look. 

So I'm not doing a forecast beyond Thursday this time. Started to, but this setup does not justify it. 


We could easily see rainfall totals averaging 3-4 inches over the next seven days. If you live in a flood-prone area, might want to keep an eye on next Tuesday through Thursday, especially when driving. Remember: You never cross water that covers a roadway, because there's no way to tell how deep it is. Water rescues are dangerous for the people being rescued and for the people doing the rescuing if flooding does occur and people drive into it like that. 


CHATTER:

I noticed that Bill Maher interviewed Luke Bryan and Matt Gaetz lately. I'm going to try to listen to at least the Luke Bryan interview. That other dude seems so goofy that . . . I might check it out just out of morbid curiosity. Brad Paisley was awesome on that show, think it was a couple years ago. Now these are adult conversations, pretty much uncensored; Bill is usually high on marijuana or at least having a few drinks during these chats. But I think it's one of the few places to find an honest podcast anymore. William Shatner was another great guest on there. Even Haliey Welch was on there at some point. And I think she's got her own podcast now. (I'm not linking to it . . . the people who know, know.) Nearly all the guests argue with Maher, and I don't know if that's just because he's got strong opinions or what. I think he picks some good guests, and I've yet to see anybody get socked in the mouth, however heated the argument got. So it's sort of mature content, but it sure beats the old Jerry Springer stuff. Or reading Facebook. 

I walk a fine line sometimes wanting to keep this blog family-friendly but then thinking about the reality that an awful lot of kids are probably watching stuff like Family Guy. And if anything, if they were to saunter by this site and click on a link to a podcast like the one I mentioned above (Club Random), they might have some context for the vulgarity they're already used to hearing and/or seeing on a daily basis. And cultural standards are in a weird place. There's actually a company now called Pure Flix, like a really sanitized inspirational/religious alternative to Netflix. But then you've got Donald Trump telling Franklin Graham that he just can't totally give up swearing. And I personally hear more vulgar language these days from the (self-proclaimed) saints than I do the everyday sinners. So it's tough to know where to draw the line. 

It's like I heard John Horack say in a lecture one time, the world has become multi-polar. It's not like the days of the Johnny Carson show, where most everyone agreed on what was and wasn't publicly acceptable, in good or bad taste. Then again, the 1960's and 70's were pretty turbulent. And then things got really conservative in the 80's under Ronald Reagan. So maybe Johnny just knew how to be classy no matter what the world around him was like. If I'm capable of that, it's a trick I'm still in the process of learning. 

It's sort of like in real life, there are children in my extended family that I make a special effort not to swear around. Unfortunately it's probably the only time I make an effort not to have a potty mouth. (So I'm perhaps even worse than Trump . . . I don't even try.) My cats hear plenty of profanity. But I try to be on my best behavior when I'm around people's kids, especially if they're kinfolks. And then I'm wondering if that's a waste of time, considering how much cussin' and carryin' on they hear during an average ball game, especially if their parents' team is losing. I don't have easy answers to how to be classy these days or to any of the other more serious problems going on. But I will say that if we don't set better examples, we've got no right to complain if the upcoming generation continues to screw up the world just as much as we and the people before us have. And if they don't think a whole lot of us. 

Okay, that's my soapbox for today. 

Just for fun, I'll mention that the "weather lady" in our family, my great-grandmother, tried very hard to quit cursing when we were born, her great-grandkids. She did not totally succeed, but she did try. One time coming back from some field trip, I told one of my math teachers, pointing to where I lived, "Right there's where my Papaw cusses out the cars (at his garage), and down there's where my Granny cusses her refrigerator." I'd had a bit of caffeine that day when we went out to eat, I think. That's what I blamed it on when my Granny asked me, "What did you mean a' tellin' (name withheld) that I cussed my refrigerator?" Turns out my teacher found it really, really funny. And told a mutual friend of theirs how funny it was. 

And for a while, whenever that door handle would come off the refrigerator again, and she got mad, she'd tell me, "Now I'm not gonna' cuss at it. I'm just gonna' fuss at it." 

She would not approve of some of the language I have come to use when appliances malfunction on me. Sometimes I make her sound like a Sunday school teacher. And she really was a good lady, no joke, just "ornery" as they called it in her day. She had no use for "gutter talk", the way men talk at a garage or in the barber shop when no women are around. (Or actually the way a lot of women talk too, even some feisty media personalities like Megyn Kelly or Meghan McCain . . . or Sharon Osbourne.) But she could warm the air up with some pretty choice words within her limits when the refrigerator or the dryer was messing up. One time my brother walked in on her cussing the dryer, and she got really embarrassed. Eh anyway, I'm glad the younglings in my family tree that I mentioned above will slap me for saying words like "dadgum" and "crap". We took those words for granted when I was a kid. I actually got made fun of for being uptight about some of them because I looked them up in the dictionary and wasn't sure they were so innocent after all. I'm not sure why these kids' standards are so strict, but at least they do have standards. 

One of my great-aunts always said of my Granny's slip-ups, "I can't stand to hear a woman cuss." And to show her the respect due her, she did always tell me it was a bad habit, even if she did it. She told us the same thing about smoking; she had emphysema, a disease that also took its toll on one of my favorite crazy artists, David Lynch, who passed away recently. She didn't quit smoking for her own health though; it was because our doctor told us that it was causing one of my brothers to keep getting bronchitis. And that was it for her. So if there's a point to all my rambling, we are all interconnected, whether born in America, Mexico, on some random boat floating its way around the GUFF, in the back of a Greyhound Bus rollin' down Highway 41, or wherever. Having said that, one vice I definitely share with David Lynch is that I'll never give up milkshakes, even if Robert Kennedy Jr. does his great health revolution and it's considered a terrible influence on the youth and everything . . . I will continue to slurp those things until my dying day. So bite me. 

Sunday, February 2, 2025

A Couple Sunny, Warm Days/Then Unsettled Pattern Later In Week

FORECAST:

Monday (High 71, Low 42): Sunny. Warm.

Tuesday (High 73, Low 50): Mostly sunny. Warm.

Wednesday (High 75, Low 56): Partly cloudy with widely scattered showers and thunderstorms possible throughout the day. Rain showers will become more numerous at night. 

EXTENDED OUTLOOK:

Thursday (High 74, Low 62): Thunderstorms likely - a few could be strong. 

Friday (High 69, Low 54): Partly to mostly sunny with a 20% chance of showers. 

Saturday (High 73, Low 53): Partly cloudy with a 30% chance of showers/a thunderstorm.

Sunday (High 70, Low 55): Partly to mostly cloudy with a 40% chance of showers/a thunderstorm.

PRONÓSTICO:

Lunes (Máxima 71, Mínima 42): Soleado. Cálido.

Martes (Máxima 73, Mínima 50): Mayormente soleado. Cálido.

Miércoles (Máxima 75, Mínima 56): Parcialmente nublado con lluvias muy dispersas y tormentas eléctricas posibles durante el día. Las lluvias serán más numerosas por la noche.

PERSPECTIVA EXTENDIDA:

Jueves (Máxima 74, Mínima 62): Tormentas eléctricas probables, algunas podrían ser fuertes.

Viernes (Máxima 69, Mínima 54): Parcialmente a mayormente soleado con un 20 % de probabilidad de lluvias.

Sábado (Máxima 73, Mínima 53): Parcialmente nublado con un 30 % de probabilidad de lluvias/tormentas eléctricas.

Domingo (Máxima 70, Mínima 55): Parcialmente a mayormente nublado con un 40 % de probabilidad de lluvias/tormentas eléctricas.

NOTES:

The next physical SKYWARN class is tomorrow evening at 6 PM in Fayetteville, Tennessee. Severe Weather Awareness Day will be February 22, Saturday in Nashville. And there are online storm spotter classes for people who can't make it to these in-person events. All of them are free, but you do have to register for the SWAD or the online SKYWARN classes. 

This week is Severe Weather Awareness Week for Alabama. The spring season will be here before you know it. 

And for some reason, the last drought information statement for the Huntsville area that's showing up is from January 10. So there's the link if you want to wait on the glitch to get fixed. 

And major thanks to Coyote J. Calhoun tonight for reminding everyone that we can live without buying eggs at the grocery store. If they're expensive, hey, don't buy them, let chickens have their children . . . save the chickens . . . anybody who eats an egg is a Communist! Har har har. Except he's using dated language. The accusation now is Marxist, so don't be a Marxist, leave the chickens alone. And have no worries about the bird flu. Lord knows there's enough other sickness going around lately. 

And I guess I'll keep doing the Spanish versions of forecasts sometimes just because I like being contrary. It's not fashionable these days to say much more than, "Go back whur ye' came from!"

DISCUSSION:





It was a sunny day in the Tennessee Valley, breezy at times, and pretty warm for this time of year. We had a High of 68 in Cullman and a Low of 37. Jasper had a High of 70 and Low of 32, right down at the freezing mark this morning. Haleyville saw a High of 68 and Low of 39. 

Peeking up to our neighbors just to the North, Huntsville had a High of 67 and Low of 40. And Nashville had a High of 68, Low of 38. There were a few more fair-weather clouds up that way. 



This pattern with high pressure in place and zonal (westerly) upper-level wind flow will continue tomorrow, and we'll see another sunny day with less breeziness, just light Southwest winds at the surface. High should be about 70, Low tonight about 40 or so. 



Tuesday looks much the same, maybe more fair-weather clouds returning to the sky as we get more Southwest wind flow at the surface and even at the mid/lower levels of the atmosphere, winds out of the West/Southwest. Which brings us some Gulf moisture - some would say from the Gulf of America, but the thing is, if we start calling it that, then we can't follow George Strait's old advice to blame it on Mexico, and we'll have to start taking credit for all the hurricanes that come from there again. I find it kind of strange that the people who are so keen on the renaming of this body of water also want to blame everything on Mexico, beyond what George Strait probably ever meant in that old song. So if we totally ditch "Gulf of Mexico", just stop and think about it, now all the hurricanes are our fault again. Because it's our Gulf up this way, not Mexico's anymore. 

Anyway, seems like this page had some interesting stuff about the history of the name. Was looking at it the other day. 

After last hurricane season, I think if I was the one in charge of renaming it, I would have named it something far less flattering. 

Anyway, no hurricanes this time of year, of course, and it's really not bringing us trouble on Tuesday, just a little warmer air, a little more moisture. We'll see a High in the lower 70's, about 70-73, a Low near 50. 



We have a cold front coming in Wednesday, but it looks weak and like it will stall out just to our North, bringing more rain to Middle and Northern Tennessee up through parts of the Ohio Valley and Midwest. While a low pressure system is moving out of the Plains and up through that general region. 

So our rain chances down this way look on the lower end, about 20-30%, might pick up some at night, the coverage of rain, but during the day, a High in the mid-70's after a Low in the mid-50's. 



Then on Thursday as the front continues to move through the region, rain showers will be likely at times during the day, could also see some thunderstorms, with a High in the lower 70's and a Low of about 60 or so. 



And any time it's this warm in January and you've got storms coming in, have to watch for a few stronger storms, to be on the safe side. For now, the overall severe thunderstorm risk is looking low - not zero, but marginal. 

And the Storm Prediction Center hasn't outlined any areas for a 15% risk of anything organized like that for Thursday yet, because there's not enough evidence to. Worth keeping an eye on, especially if you live in a mobile home or are in another situation where you'd need to leave for better shelter if the weather did get ugly. We don't really get a season around here that is totally safe from such things, but our main season is in March, April, and May. 



Looks like that front will stall in Central Alabama and try to slowly move back Northward, but it just isn't looking too strong. Friday we'll see a High in about the upper 60's, Low in lower 50's, and we can cut the rain chance down to minimal in North Alabama, about 20%. 



Will bring the rain chance back to 30% for Saturday as the front makes it back across the Tennessee border probably. 



Looks like that front will still be playing footsie with our region on Sunday. 


Have a look at it on a more standard weather map instead of raw model guidance. 

Oh by the way, on Saturday with that North of us as a warm front, our Highs should get into the 70's again. On Sunday, we might not quite make it to 70, Low might be more toward the mid-50's due to more moisture, and since the front is back in motion, makes sense to raise rain chance back to 40-50% range. 

So the extended looks kind of unsettled. It's an unusual setup for January, but after that Siberian cold we had for a while . . . oh wait, and it's not even January anymore! What am I talking about? See, these seasons can move along faster than you notice sometimes. 


Rainfall totals are tricky in a setup like this, but best estimate from the Weather Prediction Center is up to about a quarter-inch for most of North Alabama, more like a half-inch near the AL/TN state line, and then you have to go up into Middle Tennessee to see many amounts up to a full inch or greater. 

Not convinced we have any organized severe weather on Thursday, but in case we were to get an isolated stronger storm somewhere, remember the basic idea: Get into a small interior room on the lowest floor of a sturdy house or other strong building, try not to be caught in a mobile home or something else that's vulnerable to winds, like a house sitting up on blocks. 


CHATTER:

Well, the news certainly hasn't been boring lately. I could express condolences about that airline crash, but it turned ultra-political even faster than I remember the Sandy Hook shooting turning that way in 2012. Which says it all for me. Sad stuff. 

I saw where Jewel, the great folk singer who used to be tough as nails, made a ridiculous apology because she serenaded Robert Kennedy Jr. as part of her support for his ideas on health care reform; she does a lot of work for mental health these days. 

One musician who didn't apologize for even the most heinous things he was accused of over the past four years, staying quiet in public but insisting on his innocence in court filings, Marilyn Manson was cleared of any criminal charges by the cops out in LA. Maybe they thought he brought the fires by some kind of hoodoo, but something tells me, if they investigated him for four years and didn't find anything charge-worthy, it was probably about as full of hot air as the whole saga Johnny Depp went through. And I can't remember how long it's been since they both did that thing with Alice Cooper called the Hollywood Vampires, but that was really cool. I think they're all three sober now, know Alice has been for a long time, but I don't keep up with all the celebrity gossip usually. I just like it better when people get off the sauce than when they end up dying from it. 

And I was going to share a tweet here where Damien Echols said he was close to getting the DNA evidence examined to finally clear his name, but it looks like it has been deleted before I got a chance to share it. I have a real bee in my bonnet these days in favor of people who have been falsely accused of anything. Seems like it's one of those paranoid times of history where everybody wants to point the finger and blame other folks. I think that's going to continue to get worse, but where I've got a voice, I've got a right to say, hey, I don't care for it. 

I saw where some people said Neil Gaiman was "going DARVO" in his attempt to defend himself against #metoo allegations. 

For anyone not aware, that's one of those annoying modern acronyms. It stands for Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender. 

And I would challenge anyone on the planet to show me where Neil did that in his statement I linked to above. He did deny that he abused anyone, but if he attacked anyone with those words, it was himself, admitting that he had been selfish and regretted it. And when you admit to having made mistakes, that pretty much negates the idea of reversing the victim and offender. He sounded blindsided to me, like he said some of it wasn't even true, and then the things that were true were being portrayed way differently than he remembered them. Even when he went back and read the messages back and forth . . . which was what caused him to reflect that he'd been selfish and too lost in his own head to think about other people's feelings sometimes. No apologies are good enough anymore, the mob keeps crying for blood. The only way I find his statement wrong is if he's lying. I've seen this ridiculous circus play out with several famous people now, and I'm just tired of it. People are cancelling shows based on his work and trying to act all self-righteous, and I hate it. Maybe in four or five years, people will realize rushing to judgement was a mistake here too. Even if it turns out he's guilty of some of the horrid stuff, which he says he didn't do, I still think he deserves a fair trial before being punished like this. And by the way, I only started reading his stuff right before the pandemic hit. He's a good writer. If anything, the way he's being condemned before being tried makes me want to support his writing more. Cancel culture has had its day, and I'm to the point I reject it with a whole heart. 

It hits a personal note with me because there was a suicide in my family a few months ago, last summer, and this guy's parents had a nasty divorce. For years I bought the narrative that the father was just a monster based on one wrong thing he did in a moment of extreme anger. But then I learned from reliable sources in the family that the mother had done things that were just as bad to the man who is now her ex-husband, and done them on more of a regular basis, long before the incident they got divorced because of. And this guy who killed himself before he turned 18 or started his last year of high school was supposed to return to his mother's house from his father's house that weekend. At least that's the best I've been able to piece it together. (I've grown very distant from that part of the family, and they didn't respond when I tried to reconnect after this happened.) So I have no use for this modern trend of pretending that women are saints who always tell the truth, and men are always the villains who just use and misuse women. There is a limit to that where common sense has to come back into play. I wish life was more simple and black-and-white sometimes, but that's not how things really are. And few things are a harsher dose of reality than getting a call that someone you remember as a sweet, bright kid has blown himself to oblivion. I don't know exactly what happened there, but I can imagine. I dealt with enough of that same basic thing when I was his age. For what it's worth, I wrote a poem for him. Which I've only let a couple other people see, besides a publisher . . . who will probably reject it. 

Anyway, as an old schoolteacher I loved would say, on to more pleasant things. 

I started to make this the only featured item I was willing to "chatter" about this time . . . 

Kelly Clarkson did an incredible rendition of Billie Eilish's song "Birds of a Feather". And even if you're not a fan of either singer, trust me, give this one a chance. For that matter, catch "Kellyoke" any time you can. What she can do with her voice amazes me nearly every time I catch one of those videos. I tend to forget she doesn't play an instrument because her voice steals the show from whatever band is backing her. Besides, both of these women seem to practice feminism in its positive sense. Unless I hear of one of them clobbering a boyfriend with a frying pan, I'll keep that opinion. And even then, I'll wonder if he had it coming. Some guys really do. It can go either way . . . 

If anybody was as depressed as I was by Billy Ray Cyrus's ultra-lame version of "Achy Breaky" (wait, that's sort of redundant . . . nah, I do like some of his music . . . but how that song was ever a phenomenon still baffles me), I offer an antidote from his daughter Miley, who did an impeccable version of "Doll Parts" by Courtney Love/Kurt Cobain quite some time back. I need some good music tonight. And curious readers get to share some of it here underneath the weather forecast stuff. 

Today I let the Stormy cat get some sunshine and fresh air for a good two or three hours probably, to sort of make up for the time she had to stay in a lot when it was so cold and I was really sick and stuff. She attracted the attention of the lady who donated her to me last year, who still can't believe she's the same cat. Says she looks happier and fatter, but that she means the fatter part in a good way. She let her former mom pet her and didn't try to bite anymore. 

That drew the attention of a couple kids from the neighborhood who were visiting their dad for the weekend, a friend of mine who soon showed up too with his uncle. And we mainly shot the bull and watched the kids try to do stunts on their bikes. Well, one of them had a scooter. Stormy never did quite warm up to them, kept running back inside or at least hiding behind me. I managed to get Salem to come out, and he even let one girl pet him (he's the black cat I got after a bad storm a couple years ago . . . Stormy is the tabby female) before he got freaked out by the other kids making loud noises and ran back inside. It kind of cracks me up seeing cats that are afraid of kids . . . reminds me of that old cartoon with that Elmyra character who wanted to pick up all the bunnies and hug and squeeze them to little bits. And they would run when they saw her coming. I almost never had control of the TV when I was a kid anyway, and I haven't seen that in forever. Lately I've been watching Twin Peaks again on the one streaming service I'm willing to put down money for at the moment. David Lynch was the man. And that show was unique. I bet it was thrilling to see in real time as the episodes came out. I sort of envy the people who saw it that way, but then . . . I'm not immune to this era of binge-watching. It's one of the few shows that's worth doing that with. 

And I guess that's enough chatter. Except that I do worry about Salem hardly ever wanting to go out anymore. Maybe I've been a bad influence on him that way, staying in when I can and just sort of letting the rest of the world continue to go to hell in its own way. And if I can make one contribution to this era of ever-increasing paranoia, he really might have a deal with HAARP to help them control the weather. But if he does . . . uh . . . that's classified. 

Warm with Low Rain Chances Through Monday, Then Heavier Rain Expected Next Week

FORECAST: Friday (High 70, Low 55): Partly to mostly cloudy. Widely scattered showers and thunderstorms are possible.  Saturday (High 76, Lo...