the mellow tigger's musings

For several days, the weather prognosticators were warning everyone of the tornado-prone storm that was coming on Monday. I've never seen anything like this news phenomenon here. Sure, meteorologists predict storms that are days ahead, and they warn of tornadoes even a few hours early, but this was panic in a time frame that I've never seen before.

Reddit was flooded with social media posts. People kept asking how to prepare and where to go, like they were expecting pandemonium. My favorites were The Simpsons, the Dominator 3 storm chaser vehicle (for good reason apparently), the long storm anxiety suggestion list, someone panicked from all of the talk, to someone condemning the hysteria, the Vikings football reference (with this map showing the Twin Cities in the center of the projected severe storm), and a great map of the storm splitting in half and avoiding Minneapolis entirely (supposedly because of our hilarious storm shield).

My threat-meter is calibrated differently. I charged my phone. That's all I did to prepare. There were so many other social media posts warning us about this Monday storm. The post that I'll actually show you you, though, is this one, below. That social media post links to this summary (Weather.gov) of the 2011 May 22 tornado spree.

I don't know when this overhead image was originally taken, but this one was modified by me to show you approximately where I live. The light green path is the path of the tornado over a decade ago. My house is located at the white dot near the top, at the very edge of the tornado path. I live in the Jordan neighborhood of north Minneapolis. My home is now disaster-proof, in that imaginary statistics of The World According To Garp scene where Robin Williams' character buys a "pre-disastered home" after it is struck by an airplane. :)

I posted about my experience of that tornado after it happened, when I lived in a nearby city, after hearing the stereotypical "train" noise of the nearby tornado. Two days later, I posted a map of the approximate tornado path, based on my observations of the destruction left behind. I see that furr_a_bruin posted a reply in that one, RIP.

Good news! The automated system to pay my property taxes seems to be working. I set it up earlier this year, but the due date was around the time I set it up, so I just paid immediately instead. This time, the due date was October 15. The charge/processing date is basically the same as the due date, so either it works successfully or you are subject to late penalties. Not a very good system.

But I finally thought to check it. The online system says my next due amount is March of next year, so I'm in good shape, governmentally.

While I was checking my property taxes, there were sirens. I saw 2 cop cars speed down the street in front of my house. I went out front to see where they were stopping (sirens stopped nearby). While I debated trying to walk to the end of the block to see what was going on, 2 cop cars were going down my alley too, while more sirens were approaching from elsewhere.

I'm still limping around, so I didn't see anything by the time I made it to my alley to look around. I have no idea what's going on.

Usually, official emails have one of those "Click here if you're having trouble viewing this email" links, which takes you to their hosted webpage instead. My "Energy Action Day" alerts for Xcel Energy customers, however, does not have such a link, so I can't share the announcement properly here.

It recommends that I "increase your thermostat by 2 - 4 degrees for 3 - 4 hours during: September 12 4pm – 8pm". They don't explain that they want to charge more for electricity during peak times. I don't know if they actually are yet, but I remember Minnesotans generally being shocked by their utility bills in recent winters when Texas power grid failures jacked up prices even here in Minnesota with no warning. Somehow, we had to pay for their grid failure.

It's noon, so I just turned off my window a/c unit in the bathroom upstairs. I'll see how high the temperature gets in my house during this unusually warm September day in Minneapolis. Here on ground floor, the central air/heater control says it's 25C/77F. I'll go get my air monitor from the basement and transfer it upstairs. We'll see how hot and how fast it gets in my bedroom. I'm sure it'll be less dramatic than before I had the windows replaced, but it would be nice to have actual numbers. I'll create a table and update it today.

It didn't get to 31C/88F today as I saw it forecast earlier this week. That's nice. It's also obvious to me (even though I don't have hard data from earlier years) that the new insulation with the new windows helps keep upstairs from heating up as fast as it did in times past. That's very nice.