ahh...texas

Some of you may already know how I feel about the great state of Texas. I do believe that I have blogged about it before. It's not that I have anything against Texas or Texans. I have friends who live here, some great colleagues who are Texans through and through, even a relative or three who would bleed longhorn blood. The state is pretty pleasant, and except for one awful bout with a 120+ heat wave, not a bad place to spend time. It's just that...it's not me. I don't feel so bad about this fact given that there has been a book written about this exact subject!

But...as you probably guessed by now, here I am. There was a lidar symposium and I really needed to come and give a talk. San Antonio is a nice city, cool river walk, etc. Such a nice place the AMERICAN METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY decided to have it's giant annual meeting here because, I quote, "We’re here because we know good weather when we see it in the data: San Antonio’s average January high is a comfy 62°F. But San Antonio climatology is not just good, it’s nearly perfect. The city is one of those well-behaved locations in which the first and last frost (averages: 1 December and 25 February) are almost a perfect fit with the standard climatological winter." So why is it that the weather forecast looks like this:
Yes, that is SNOW on Tuesday. SNOW! It hasn't even snowed at home yet! Maybe it's not just me who has bad weather luck. Maybe it's anybody who studies the weather.

So, the conference started today and I took the lidar short course, which was pretty interesting. When I could pay attention that is. I was rather distracted by the carpet in the convention center:

yes, it is a giant (~8 foot tall) Spanish dancer. Flying skirts and all. All over the carpet!

Ahhh....Texas.