Weather: Weighing Spouse's Good Deeds and Misdeeds as Cool, Wet Weather Moves In
Illustration (Image Credit: Wix)
Our nice weather will continue into Friday evening, but will take a precipitous turn for the worse. Of course, for those that like rain and chilly weather, and some hail thrown in, the weather will be perfectly fine. Considering that our last rain was rather brief, and it hadn't rained since late January, we should all welcome several days of wet weather. High pressure will give way to low pressure as we move into Friday evening. The strong winds ahead of the storm will bring some dust into our area, as well. Humidity levels should rise substantially Erev Shabbat/Friday evening and rain should arrive Friday night.
Because this storm is arriving from the west, it should bring plenty of moisture, which should occur as plenty of rain in two rounds: Friday night into Shabbat/Saturday afternoon, and Saturday night into Sunday afternoon, with periods of rain continuing into Monday. The winds should also blow strongly Saturday into Sunday, and unusually cold air aloft should bring thunderstorms with hail. Showers may persist on Tuesday with continued cool weather. Warmer weather will likely arrive at the end of next week.
Image credit: The Jerusalem Herald
Of course all of this rain will probably catch my wife by surprise. It seems that the weather never goes her way. For instance, the other day she complained that the forecast called for rain, but there were only a few showers while she wiled the time away at school. However, as soon as she headed out to do some "kid pick up," it rained steadily and heavily thereafter. Considering how hard it is for her, it really must be hard for wives who have "just" normal husbands who tell the weather by looking out the window. Of course, outside of my weather skills, I am pretty normal too. A few evenings ago, she asked me to add pasta to the soup. I added the pasta. There went the soup! Some husbands spend their non working hours turning up the stove when they should turn it down, forgetting to turn on the dishwasher or buying the wrong food from the supermarket (you should see how these men concentrate while shopping -- doctors, physicists -- it doesn't matter what they do) who, unlike women, can't break their concentration to speak with each other. I've even seen one surgeon staring at a package of rice as if he was doing brain surgery. However, I think I know the reason for the mishaps of these men. It all starts with what physicists call "zero-point" energy. Zero-point energy is the lowest possible energy state that a quantum field may have. Since at our basic level, we consist of atoms, etc, we're talking about real things here.
Most relevant to our discussion are the particles that appear out of empty space. Empty space (or a vacuum) is actually abuzz with virtual particles. These are pairs of particles that appear out of "nothing" and then quite quickly disappear. Moreover, these particles consist of both normal small particles that we are familiar with from scientific literature (or school classes) and anti-particles (e.g., an electron vs positron), or some might say normal matter and antimatter. [If you want to learn more, read the excellent book "How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog" by Chad Orzel.]
So, how does this relate to husbands? Basically husbands both do good deeds and misdeeds, and they usually come in pairs. In other words, their deeds are like virtual particles. If you look hard enough -- and wives do look hard -- you can see them, but then you'll see the other deed that cancels out the first. So, just when she wants to say good job, she must hold her tongue. I suppose that wives stay married because they have hope that one day our good deeds will outweigh our misdeeds. Of course, this may be the day that she calls the store and ask them to "beam" over the groceries and tells her husband to come home.
Dr. Lynn is a lecturer at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Earth Sciences Department. He is also CEO of Weather It Is, LTD, a company that specializes in reducing weather risk.
