hello 2012!
It's a dark January evening that feels like November (I'm not sure why but it definitely does) and I'm sitting in my office trying to force a 5000word document which is missing all the major points I'm trying to make into a 4000word document that is passable as a first draft for a paper, using only tea and my brain. However, it is 2012, and I have lagged too long on the fringes of the blogosphere, so it's time to jump in and get something up here regularly!
The title (other than being a line from a Katie Tunstall song from 2005ish) is a little melodramatic, but refers to the fact that this year so far has brought a broken boiler (at my termtime house; my parents boiler broke between Christmas and New Year!), my boyfriend's car breaking down on the M40 (not with me in it) and quite a lot of rainfall (I was going to say 'significant' rainfall but I've got the scientists' bug and can't say significant without cringing unless I mean it in a statistical sense.)
On the plus side, nice organised rainbands such as the one caused by yesterday's squall line over much of England provide quite a lot of excitement in a meteorology department; whereas most offices over the country would probably be content with 'blimey, it's wet out there, **** ** ******** ** *** I left the washing out/window open', a meteorologist's response, depending on their region of expertise and seniority, is most likely to be one or more of the following
1) Blimey, it's wet out there. Why did I not know that was going to happen? *swats up on causes so as not to look stupid*
2) blimey, it's wet out there. stuff my work, I'm checking the radar. *types in metoffice website, or something a bit more highbrow* wow, what a nice organised band of rainfall. *tweets, facebooks and blogs about rainfall, only to discover other meteorologists have already done so*
3) blimey, it's wet out there, I wonder what everyone else thinks about it *proceed to coffee room to gaze at rain and discuss causes*
4) blimey, it's wet out there. I can't believe we did that field campaign on extreme rainfall events last year when it didn't rain once over the UK for an ENTIRE MONTH.
5) blimey, it's wet out there. grab some instruments, we've some observations to take!
We is SO COOL.
One final note: I have mostly proceeded past 1 now, but I don't get to do field campaigns so I hop between 2 and 3. Occasionally, when I'm feeling especially frivolous, I pretend to not be a meteorologist at all but rather to be a small child, and I run outside in the rain and hope no senior professors are looking out of their windows at the time, because I might never gain a reputation as a sensible person if they saw me.
Do you ACTUALLY gather over coffee to discuss rain?!
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