Well, it’s that time of year again. Summer is upon us. Most of the tourists have either been arrested (note the tats!) or left to go drive poorly somewhere else (Yes, I’m looking at you, ubiquitous Ontario Minivan). It’s getting stupid hot again, rednecks are lighting large swaths of the state on fire, the termites are waking up from their winter slumber to remind you that the structural integrity of your house is probably something you should really look into this year, and oh, right, and the full team super elite ninja weather coverage machines are revving up.

Get ready, people. Weather is on the horizon, and well, it’s doing shit. Shit that may or not be normal. Shit that may or may not be cause for complete and utter terror . . . or joy, or uh, mild alarm. Well, you know, shit is happening. We may not know what it is, but stay on your toes, goddammit. In fact, the Splog is recommending that you maintain a state of non-specific and total anxiety until further notice.

Here’s a little something from this fascinating exercise in clickbait to set the mood:

Start of Rainy Season?

. . .

So could these showers be the start of rainy season?

Could be.

The rainy season typically begins between mid-May to mid-June. But there have been exceptions.

There’s twenty-five seconds of my life I’ll never get back. I actually wrote something like that yesterday, it goes like this:

Can light exercise be fatal?

You could probably find someone, somewhere who thinks so. I mean, my neighbor Jeff once knew a dude who had a heart attack doing Jazzercise . . . or maybe he didn’t. Not sure, really.

Ok, now that we’re all primed for that sort of thing, today was the day that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association busted out a press release summarizing the stats in turn busted out by the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center, all of which was condensed in a Times post entitled “NOAA calls for active 2008 hurricane season“. You still with me here? Good.

Ignoring for the moment that the clunky idiomatic usage makes it sound like yes, indeed, NOAA is demanding more fucking hurricanes this year, what does this article tell us? It tells us this:

NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center is calling for a near or above normal 2008 hurricane season, according to predictions released today.

The outlook calls for considerable activity, with a 60- to 70-percent chance of 12 to 16 named storms, including six to nine hurricanes and two to five major hurricanes.

An average season has 11 named storms, including six hurricanes, two of which reach major states.

What does that mean? I have no fucking idea. Now, mind you, this isn’t the fault of the Times. This is nearly verbatim from the NOAA site, which itself is nearly verbatim from the NWS site.

According to the NWS, there’s a 65% chance of an above normal season, a 25% chance of a near normal season. This means that there’s a 90% chance of an above or near normal season. But wait, there’s still a 10% chance of a below normal season.

Wait, what? Shouldn’t “below normal” be the polar opposite of “above normal.” Nope. Check the definitions. Starting from below normal, it goes: below normal, near normal, above normal. Seriously. Chance of simple normalcy? Zero. I’m no statistician. I’m just a simple caveman who doesn’t understand your modern histograms and beta coefficients, but you’d think it might just go: below normal, normal, above normal, and then, if you really need one higher than that, I propose “Kanye West.”

Yeah, I are confused. As always, of course, the bottom line is, be prepared. As a reminder, this will be slightly less easy this year as due to budget cuts, the tax-free - get yourself some granola and duct tape - holiday is not happening this year. I know, right? Usually the first thing I do in an understimulated economy is cut programs that encourage people to shop.