WEATHER What are they smoking over at the weather stations?

All day they've had "flash flood warning" on my county weather report station right next to an image that says the chance of rain is 3%.

Where do they expect this flood water to come from TODAY? Our flood waters come from the water flowing down from the mountains. BUT... it has to be raining in the mountains before the rivers rise and the water to rush downhill. There is no rain in sight yet... most of the rivers are so dry the water might trickle slightly, but many have stagnate green pools of water every here and there. That's a long ways from flood stage!

Now tomorrow and the next few days it might happen, but today there isn't much of a chance. The local radio station is saying about 20 inches of rain in the next couple of days, but that won't give us flash floods today. Why aren't they giving people warnings to prepare for flooding within the next day or two, or even within the next few hours. Everyone is ignoring the warnings and laughing at the thought of flash floods when they can see it's hot and dry outside.

I know from past experience that we'll probably loose phone service and electricity when the rains come. I'm cooking up food ahead of time and freezing it in a freezer that is already stocked with bottles of ice to keep the food from spoiling. I filled the gas cans for the generator, in case it's needed to keep the freezer going. I also made sure the camping stove and oven are handy, ready to use. Double checked the propane tanks so I have fuel for the camp oven & stove. IF the locals knew the preps I've been making, they would laugh me out of the county. I hope they are right and I don't need the preps, but I'm ready if they are needed.

"...All day they've had "flash flood warning" on my county weather report station..."

Interesting. Our flash flood warnings usually have a time frame, often as much as 12 hrs in advance.

How's this for strange. My 3 day forecast at Weather Underground is-

Tuesday, Tropical Storm Gustav
Wednesday, Hurricane Gustav
Thursday, Hurricane Gustav

Unless they think the thing is going to re-intensify over land, this forecast is a little backwards....

I wished I knew how to save this to my computer so the forecast wouldn't refresh. I don't know how, so here's the link
http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=75904

lectrickitty said:

All day they've had "flash flood warning" on my county weather report station right next to an image that says the chance of rain is 3%.

Click to expand...

If I knew where you were, I could look up your current advisories and warnings and try to decipher them for you.

I can tell you that for about the last year the National Weather Service has had EXTREME problems with the way they code their products. That means very little to the general public, except for the fact that River Flood Warnings end up with a Flash Flood Warning headline on automated things like the crawls you see on TV as well as some websites.

The other HUGE problem they are having is that these codes also used to contain the experation time for the advisory or warning (product). But, the codes now contain the experation time of the statement. Not the product.

That means that you could see a a Tornado Watch that expires at 7:05pm according to an automated crawl or website and then hear your local weatherman say it expires at 11pm.

Various weather vendors are working fast and furious to keep up with these ridiculous and stupid changes the NWS has implemented. But until that happens, things will be confusing.

I'm going to stop here because I can already feel my bp rising. I could go on for hours about how much I hate the NWS's new way of issuing watches, warnings and advisories.

Amr:

You can right click on your mouse to save the webpage.
Choose save complete webpage so you keep the graphics.

We've had gentle rain off & on most of the day. I'm so glad to see it like this. Now I won't have to carry buckets of water out to the orchard! whoo hoo!