The East Coast Is Going To Get Hammered With Global Warming -- American Airlines Pilot; It Looks Like The Storm Hits Today

One of the "nice" things about spending time in various locations in the Dallas-Ft Worth metroplex area is the "news" I hear from American airline pilots, active and retired. Right now I am hearing that the winter storm that will hit the northeast this week will be a doozy.

It is confirmed in the media. From MyWayNews:

A winter storm system that hit parts of Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas swept toward the densely populated East Coast on Tuesday, threatening to disrupt the plans of travelers ahead of the long Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

The large system has already struck parts of Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas, but with temperatures creeping above freezing the outcome was less dramatic than forecasters had feared as it crossed the nation's midsection. The storm sprung out of the West and has been blamed for at least 11 deaths, half of them in Texas. It limped across Arkansas with a smattering of snow, sleet and freezing rain that didn't meet expectations. [Here in Dallas, the "storm" went almost unnoticed.]

And:

Some of the country's busiest airports - New York, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Boston and Charlotte, N.C. - could see big delays at one of the peak travel times of the year.

This holiday will likely see the most air travelers since 2007, according to Airlines for America, the industry's trade and lobbying group, with the busiest day being Sunday, an estimated 2.56 million passengers. Wednesday is expected to be the second-busiest with 2.42 million passengers.

And, finally,

Forecasters were predicting 5 to 8 inches of snow in Buffalo, more in the northern Adirondacks, and a winter storm watch was posted for central New York state with heavy rain expected in parts of the Hudson Valley.

In the nation's capital, federal agencies opened Tuesday though the National Weather Service issued a winter weather advisory for the northern and western suburbs of Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, amid forecasts of a light mix of snow, sleet and freezing rain that could be topped off by heavy rain. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management, which sets leave policies for 300,000 federal workers in Washington, said that while government was open Tuesday, employees could take unscheduled leave or unscheduled telework.

Back here in Dallas, the predicted "storm" was a dud. It hardly got to freezing; no snow, no sleet, hardly any rain. 

By the way, that note above that Sunday was the busiest day for the American airlines is very, very interesting. This is the first school district we have been part of in 40 years, as far as I can recall, that takes off for the entire week. The students have school on some of the other "holidays," including Veterans' Day and that gives them the entire Thanksgiving week off. Having said that, the Veterans Day memorial and activities were the best I've seen at any school, and in any community, perhaps ever, but certainly in a long, long time. One does not have to have a "day off" to honor veterans "correctly."

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A Note to the Granddaughters

I have just started reading my heavily annotated copy of Wuthering Heights. This makes about the fifth time that I have read it, and each time I learn something new. Previously I had noted the word "Lascar" in Charlotte's preface to the third edition, nor had I seen the word "Afreet." I updated the wiki entry on "Ifrit" which had no reference to Wuthering Heights. It does now.

In Catherine Brontë's preface to the 1850 edition of Wuthering Heights, she suggests that Heathcliff was a "child neither of Lascar nor gipsy, but a man's shape animated by demon life -- a Ghoul -- and Afreet."

With the shenanigans going on in Iran, the timing could not be more appropriate. What a lark!