"Hailush:" New Form of Rain Identified in Seattle

There's an old hoax concerning Eskimos and their hundreds of words for snow. Like all good hoaxes it sounds right, especially to those who don't know much about the Inuit. But it still is wrong. It is a myth.

I am, however, undaunted by the failure of the Inuit. I am working on compiling hundreds of words for rain. All derived from careful and miserable observation here in Seattle.

My newest word is "Hailush." This is a fat blob of moisture that contains all the qualities of hail and slush at the moment it strikes you right between the eyes. Think of a "Hailush" storm as thousands of wet melting snowballs about a quarter of an inch in diameter pelting you without mercy. That's "Hailush" -- pronounced "hail - ooosh." (Rhymes with "WTF?!")

The closest relative to Hailush in literature is, of course, "Ooblek" from the Dr. Seuss classic "Bartholomew and the Oobleck."

Oobleck does share some of the properties of Hailush. As we learn in the sacred text of Dr. Seuss, Oobleck
"Won't look like rain.
Won't look like snow.
Won't look like sleet.
That's all we know."

Well, I'm here to tell you that Oobleck, once you drift its properties down close to freezing, looks and feels a lot like Hailush.

Now you might think Hailush, like Oobleck, is a myth. But I'm here to tell you that the only myth currently on display here in Seattle is the Myth of Global Warming. To wit:

March goes out like a lamb? 'Baaaa', humbug!

If six straight days of snow somewhere in the region sounds historical, you are right, but not because of the snow. The recent stretch of cold weather is setting some pretty hefty records.

The average high temperature over the last seven days of March was 46.0 degrees at Sea-Tac Airport. That breaks the previous record for March going out like a penguin of 47.1 degrees in 1967.

In fact, if you count the Downtown Seattle Federal Building, which kept records between 1891 and 1972, this was the third coldest last week of March in Seattle history, finishing behind the 43.6 degrees of 1936 and 45.9 degrees of 1917.

The average high temperature this time of year is 54.9 degrees.

Olympia also set a similar record, shivering along at an average high of 45.4 degrees the last week of March, shattering the old record of 48.0 set in 1999.

But it's not just cold down here. It's also historically cold in the upper levels of the atmosphere too.

Dr. Cliff Mass over at the UW Atmospheric Sciences Department says his research shows the temperature readings in the upper level of the atmosphere haven't been this cold for this long in 32 years -- for any month.

For Weather Geeks: The temperature at 500 millibar level (roughly 17,000 feet) have been at -36C for the past five days. The last time we had five days that cold in *any* month was 1976.

And yes, my little Gore-Aid drinkers, I recognize that one winter doth not make a trend. But until your "settled science" is a bit more settled, would you please stop sending your brainwashed children around to my door collecting signatures and donations to the frigtarded Sierra Club so that we can save the planet? There's been three in the past week.

The next one to ring the bell is going to get a pail full of Hailush!

Posted by Vanderleun at April 1, 2008 12:06 PM | TrackBack