Samuel's Blog

US Trip long-range weather forecasts

As my US trip gets closer and I’m trying to plan some more of the finer details of the trip, the weather forecast is of some interest to me as I may need to plan around snow, ice, or other inclement weather. As such, AccuWeather‘s 45 day forecast is of some interest to me. As it is such a long-range forecast, I don’t expect it to be perfect, but if it can be somewhat accurate with general weather trends then it could be a useful planning tool. I’ve been keeping an eye on it for a while and haven’t seen any huge movements in the forecasts so I’m willing to give it some credence.

To that end, each week (probably on Mondays as of next week) I plan to post the current forecast, both to see how it changes over time, and compare it to the actual conditions on the day. For my convenience, I will be posting the forecasts using Celsius temperatures.

February 11. Los Angeles, San Francisco. (I will be flying in to L.A. and then flying on to San Francisco). It looks like there might be a bit of light rain, but nothing to worry about.
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After arriving in San Francisco I’ll be driving to Petaluma and staying there for a few days. It looks like some good weather.

On the 14th I depart Petaluma and drive to Las Vegas. I should pass through or near these places. The weather looks OK.
Coalinga

Bakersfield

Barstow

My time in Las Vegas looks like it should be pretty nice, and similar to Canberra in Autumn

On the 21st I fly from Vegas to Kansas City via Phoenix. The forecast for that is all good.
Phoenix

My time in Kansas City looks good too. Positively balmy in fact.

But when I drive to Fort Dodge, look how quickly the temperature drops.
Des Moines

Fort Dodge looks like it might be a little wet, but still OK.

The drive to South Bend is looking like a slow one. It’s already likely to take all day, but might take a little longer than I expected.
Cedar Rapids

My other main route option bypasses Cedar Rapids and takes me near Rockford, but the forecast is roughly the same.
Rockford

No matter the route, I have to go through or near Gary.
Gary

South Bend is looking as cold as I would expect, but without the snow I was hoping to see.

On one of the weekdays I plan on going to Hillsdale. I see a chance of snow on the Thursday.

The drive to the Washington D.C. area looks very hospitable.
Toledo

Cleveland

Pittsburgh

Hagerstown

AccuWeather’s 45 day forecast does not yet stretch all the way through my Washington D.C. area visit, but the bit it can see looks nice.

So far it looks like the weather will be nice to me and not be as cold as I had expected, but I have to admit the trip from Fort Dodge to South Bend has me a tad concerned, but if the early-morning ice is minimal then it should be fine.

Samuel

January 22nd, 2014 at 07:33am

It’s difficult to write with liquorice while skydiving

I had a rather odd dream yesterday that I decided to go skydiving before work. Skydiving in this instance could be done from a private airstrip in Fyshwick, but because I was a bit short on time I decided to park in Woden and walk to Fyshwick (how this is quick in any way is beyond me) as the wind was blowing in that direction and if I was to start a skydive over Fyshwick I would land in Woden.

After parking I came across a mobile phone on the ground. Upon examination it turned out to be the phone which was stolen from me in 2009 and I decided to take it to the police station for forensic examination, but due to time constraints decided to do so after my skydive.

Due to a quirk in dream geography, I merely had to walk through a park to get to Fyshwick. Before long I was airborne but the whole process of returning to land was taking too long. Due to the wind rushing past I could not vocally advise people that I needed to return to land faster, so I reached in to my pocket and got out some liquorice sticks and started to spell out “I have to go to work”, but the wind prevented any of the liquorice from staying still. One of the supervisors of the skydiving misunderstood my message and put me parachute in reverse, which caused me to start ascending. Before I knew it, I was over Hobart (which looked suspiciously like Mount Ainslie with buildings on it) which was OK as I knew of a shortcut tunnel in Hobart which would get me back to Canberra with a five minute stroll…the only problem was that I couldn’t figure out how to land and continued to ascend.

The dream ended there, so I’m not sure if I ever did manage to land or get to work. The way things were going though, I wouldn’t be surprised if I ended up flying all the way around the world before getting to work.

Samuel

2 comments January 22nd, 2014 at 06:22am