Daily Archives: November 9, 2014

Weather +Climate

And the North Wind Doth Blow (actually the Northwest Wind)

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Samain                                                                         Closing Moon

We’ve seen storms over-hyped before, but this one feels pretty solid. Take this assessment from Paul Huttner, author of MPR’s Updraft blog: “It’s tempting to wiggle and obfuscate in winter snows, but I’m paid to make a call. Right now 8″ to 16″ is my forecast snowfall range for the metro, with heaviest totals favoring the north metro.”

And here’s the Winter Storm Warning from NOAA:

“A POTENT STORM SYSTEM WILL BRING SIGNIFICANT SNOWFALL TO MUCH OF
CENTRAL MINNESOTA AND WEST CENTRAL WISCONSIN. OVER 6 INCHES OF
SNOW WILL FALL ALONG AND NORTH OF A LINE FROM CANBY TO GLENCOE TO
HASTINGS IN MN…INCLUDING THE TWIN CITIES METRO…THROUGH EAU
CLAIRE WI. THE HEAVIEST SNOW WILL FALL ALONG A LINE FROM MADISON
TO LITCHFIELD TO ANOKA IN MN THROUGH RICE LAKE WI…WHERE 12 TO 18
INCHES ARE POSSIBLE…ESPECIALLY IN WESTERN WI.” (emphasis mine)

And, finally, the National Weather Service graphic:

Snow predictions 11.9.2014.png-large

Colorado, Garden, Memories, The Move

Good-Bye Midwest

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Samain                                                                  Closing Moon

Laid down two year old straw in the orchard, covering up exposed landscape cloth and soil2010 10 04_0347 put in to repair holes dug by various dogs. Brought inside the garage all but two hive boxes, making the bee colony left for the showings less intimidating. Started taking up the silt fencing that protected the area we had scraped over to fill in even more dog holes. The snow coming should make digging a non-issue for the remainder of our time here.

These final outdoor chores, more than anything else we’re doing, say good-bye to the world of the Midwest, the agriculturally focused life that has been around both of us as we grew up. We participated in that life here in Andover growing vegetables, fruit and flowers. Growing anything in the very short growing season at 8,800 feet will require season lengthening strategies such as hoops for plastic tents and starting plants indoors.

Whatever we do, it will be on a much smaller scale than here. We’ll have all winter to plan it.

Politics

A Head Scratcher

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Samain                                                                                     Closing Moon

If you read my election day post (see below), you’ll know I tagged two major problems with democracy: the tyranny of the majority and volatility. This article from Slate by Jamelle Bouie  provides the best explanation I’ve seen for this volatility and it’s a head scratcher: The Disunited States of America.

It’s a head scratcher because it posits an identifiable demographic reason for our apparent swings from Democratic influence to Republican. In summary older, white voters who now vote Republican 57% to 43% show up both in the mid-term and Presidential election cycles. The younger, more diverse demographic only shows up in Presidential election years. This age-based divergence in participation is of long standing, but the partisan nature of both groups is not.

The effect of this phenomenon is to produce Republican gains in both Senate and House races in the mid-term elections, only to see this process reversed in Presidential election years. This means we will likely sway from a Republican controlled Senate to a Democratically controlled one, neither in a strong position, presided over by a Democratic President for some time to come.

The House is in firm Republican hands for now due largely to gerrymandering, a successful strategy called REDMAP. See this article from PBS: GOP Gerrymandering. The demographic influence identified by Bouie tends to reinforce this control.

Anyhow, if you’re interested further, read the article. It does not bode well for our democracy over the next decade or so at least.