Well, here we are on another Monday. Hard to believe it is the 8th of December. The 7th was my brother's birthday - HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Bro!! Friday night, the children of Germany got a visit from St. Nicholas, and we got a visit from Santa. It was really wonderful, and both Saturday and Sunday, we got some snow, to boot, although none of it stuck. But it was just lovely with Christmas music playing, children playing with their new toys, and snow falling out the window. It's how I always imagined Christmas should be. Now, if we only had our families nearby to share it.
My question of the day on Friday stems from my trying to watch the weather forecasts here. I have noticed on more than one occasion, that there is a name involved when they talk about the low pressure systems coming in. Now, I am not unfamiliar with the practice of naming storms, given that we are in hurricane territory, but I had not heard of naming storms that are not hurricanes. But apparently, they do name the lows here, to help people keep up with which system is affecting them. It is not uncommon to have one gale blow in just as another has passed. So that people aren't wondering why the news is saying that a gale is blowing in, when indeed it has already blown through, they name the storms, so that folks can know there are actually two systems coming in.
Storms are named based on their reaching a certain criteria of barometric pressure within the low. The name will stay with the storm regardless of how strong or weak it will become. Barometric pressure is measured in millibars. For those of you in older grades, do you know how barometers work and their different methods of measuring atmospheric pressure? If not, do a little research. Below is a chart for the classifications of storms here:
Cyclone 940 mb
Storm 941-960 mb
Gale 961-980 mb
Depression 981-1013 mb
Names have been given to storms here since 1954. The naming season seems to run from January to December, but I have seen some info that says it starts on October 1st. Names are not just for the low pressure systems, either. They also give names to the highs. Last year's season had male names for the highs and female names for the lows. This year, it will switch, and the year after it will switch back. Names are now given by the general public and have been since 2002. There is a system of "adopting" a vortex where one can choose a name for the list. This allows for a greater variation in names and encourages the public to be more involved. Fees of 199 Euros that are charged for adopting a vortex go to the Students Observation Service at the Free University at Berlin, where the naming practice originates for naming the storms. People from all over the world can adopt a weather system. As of today, we have low pressures Rosel and Sabrina, and high pressure Paolini that are affecting weather here in Central Europe. On the list to complete 2008, there are 20 more names for low pressure systems. I hope we get to use a lot of them so that we can increase our chances for another deep snow. :-)
The words for today are low pressure system - die Tiefdruckgebiete ( teef drook gay bee teh where the oo of drook is like oo in book), high pressure system - der Hochdruckeinfluss (hoech drook ine flooss where again the oo is the sound in book and the oech is a long o followed by that cat sound) and weather - das Wetter (vetter).
The question for the day today is "How much does it cost to go to college in Germany?"
Auf Wiedersehen,
Frau Spitzer
