SE Texas ice expected. Watchout for a healthy stork crop this fall.

In the words of someone or another: “It’s a cold mammajamma.”

Actually, the last reading at the airport 15 miles south is 32 degrees F. Not so cold but the rain is coming down and expected to turn to freezing rain and sleet tonight. The National Weather Service calls for an coverage  tonight. Once again, for those who think otherwise, that means there is not an 80 percent chance that we will see freezing rain or sleet. I know the graphic shows ice and snow. That’s from the NWS. So sue me. Here is the formula for Probability of Precipitation (PoP):

“PoP = C x A where “C” = the confidence that precipitation will occur somewhere in the forecast area, and where “A” = the percent of the area that will receive measureable precipitation, if it occurs at all.”

As with all else dealing with math and science, it’s clear as mud.

The forecast in my immediate area calls for about 1/10 of an inch of ice accumulation. That doesn’t sound so bad until you figure there has to be a “fudge factor” somewhere in there meaning the amount of ice might be more or it might be less.

I don’t know how many significant ice storms I have seen. I remember two or three but I am sure I have been through more than that. The last significant one I remember was in January 1997 in Beaumont, Texas, where I now live although I should point out for some reason or other I moved for a seven-year period to Waco the next year before moving back to Beaumont. Why is that important? I don’t know. It isn’t. Or, it is.

A good account of that storm written by Mark David Roth is on the NWS Lake Charles, La., Web site. I have no idea if he is related to David Lee Roth. Maybe they have sisters who are both mothers. Roth, Mark David and not David Lee, talks about the genesis of the storm and how it took shape into the uncomfortable icer that it was. He even goes onto note one of the side effects of the 1997 storm, a baby boom:

“Admissions at local hospitals have been 150% normal during August, September, and October of 1997. One expectant mother was quoted by “The Lake Charles American Press” newspaper on October 11th as saying “everywhere I looked, there was a pregnant woman.”

Watch out down the road during the fall if this storm turns tonight turns out to be much. We could have us one of those “Stork Storms!” Or should I say, watch out in general and maybe we won’t.