| Author | Message | ||
     Whodom |
Man, nothing makes you appreciate how inaccurate weather reporting is like riding a motorcycle. OK, I know they do a good job most of the time, provided you're talking 1 or 2 days ahead of time, but man, they really blew it April 1 for the southeast, or at least in South Carolina. My wife and I had planned a trip this weekend to visit our daughter who's in her freshman year at Clemson University, in the north-western part of the state where there are some nice motorcycle roads. My wife was driving down from NC where she'd been visiting her parents, so I'm thinking this is the perfect opportunity to ride my Buell S3 up and do a loop up into NC on the way home on Sunday (yesterday). I watched the weather all last week, and they're pretty consistent that we'll have rain on Friday, possibly some thunderstorms, Saturday cloudy and cool, Sunday (today) warm and sunny. OK, I'm thinking, I can handle rain with no problem, I've got adequate gear. I'll leave work early Friday, suit up, head up for Clemson, visit daughter on Saturday, head back Sunday via mountains on a nice sunny Sunday. Perfect. Well, by Thursday (March 31) they're predicting rain Thursday night and Friday morning, turning into thunderstorms Friday mid-day turning into SEVERE thunderstorms Friday afternoon. Crap! Rain is one thing, but I don't think I want to fool with riding in big-time wind/hail/lightning. Friday morning, still no rain (despite prediction) but radar looks BAD over in Georgia and it's headed this way. "Severe thunderstorms Friday afternoon and night". I checked local reports, weather.com, wunderground, you name it. All are reporting "severe thunderstorms" for Friday afternoon. "Well crap" I think to myself, "Sunday would sure be a great day to ride and I'll be ~20 miles away from great roads, but I ain't gonna risk that". So, at 1 PM Friday, I put the Buell up, put the cover on it, load my stuff in the pickup, and head up to Clemson. In ~240 miles traveling up there on Friday, I drive through LIGHT DRIZZLE for a total of maybe 20 miles south of Columbia, SC. No more rain, no thunder, no lightning, no wind, no dogs and cats sleeping together, nada. Saturday exactly as predicted- cloudy, cool and windy. Sunday exactly as predicted- sunny, warm, great riding weather. OK, I just had to rant to someone. How'd they manage to blow that forecast so big on Friday? Buell highlight of weekend- the UPS man dropped off my new NGK iridium plugs so I installed those yesterday afternoon, and found out my S3 still had the original (superseded) Champion 6R12 plugs in it. Marked improvement in starting and low speed smoothness. | ||
| Cataract2 |
Well, I've learned something. When they predict it's going to rain, it doesn't. When they say clear. It's going to rain. Here they said it would rain this weekend. It's been clear skies since Sat. | ||
| Wyckedflesh |
Its simple, they hadn't expected the storm to stall and blow itself out over Georgia. Just be thankful it went in your favor. I had the thrill not to long ago of having a "light rain in the afternoon" turn into "Severe winter storm conditions" that included 3 inches of fresh slush on the freeway coming down the backside of a mountain. Snowline was 5500 feet and I started my descent at 4250ft. | ||
| Got1nut |
I guess their doppler 10,000 is off some | ||
| Jlnance |
If you're really interested in why it's hard to predict the weather, read the book Chaos by James Glick. Not a bad read if you enjoy science for the layman type stuff. | ||
| Buelluk |
They were pretty much on the button for the tri-state area on Saturday and Sunday | ||
| Whodom |
Wycked- I figured it was something like that. They were showing 100% chance of rain for all the cities and towns along my route from ~11 AM until midnight, and it wasn't raining! I thought 100% meant "it's raining now". You're right about one thing- what happened is much better than the reverse would have been- getting 200 miles from home and being out in a series of BAD thunderstorms. Jlnance- I need to read the book sometime; I saw the special on "Nova" a few years back. IIRC the bottom line is that weather reporting will never be much better than it is now. | ||
| X1tx |
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| Along4theride |
I wish I had a job I only had to be right <50% of the time and still get paid  | ||
| Jlnance |
I wish I had a job I only had to be right <50% of the time and still get paid Have you considered stock broker?  | ||
| Road_thing |
I've got a job like that! Of course, I get paid a lot more when I'm right... rt |
