One thing that's kinda cool in the world of meteorology right now is the cold front that is barrelling across the United States. It's already dumped snow in Seattle (really?), Oklahoma City (REALLY?!), and two feet in Denver. When the front, which as you surely know (or would know had you ever shown up to my class!) is a boundary between two air masses, and being named after the more powerful one. This cold front represents a rather abrupt boundary between unseasonably warm weather from the maritime tropical airmass, and the more seasonable but much chillier continental polar.

Anyway, when this front was passing through Missouri, St. Louis (on the east side of the eastward moving cold front, and hence in the warmer maritime tropical airmass) was sitting around 70 degrees. On the western side of the state in Kansas City, west of the passing front and firmly in the grips of the colder continental polar, the temperature had dropped to 25 degrees. That's some freaky shit, right there.

Then again, a temperature gradiant, or a change in temperature over space, is also a pressure gradiant. Typically, cold air is of a higher pressure than warm air, meaning that wind (moving air) blows from cold air to warm. With that abrupt of a temperature gradiant, I am surprised that Missouri was not blown off of the map today. Jefferson City apparently experienced a gust of 54 mph.

Not bad!

They're saying that this front is heading this way tomorrow. Thus far, they're not expecting as extreme of a temperature drop. I'm assuming this is because of our proximity to the still-a-little-warm Lake Erie. Last I checked, they're not expecting temperatures much below freezing, and little (if any) snow accumulation. That's disappointing.

December 1 (well, in about 40 minutes) and no snow yet this year in Northeastern Ohio. And Northern Georgia (yes, fucking Georgia!) got snow the other day.

Tonight, I gave a preliminary proposal of my dissertation research in qualitative methods class, and Jim (my potential co-advisor) really liked it. He's planning to load me up with books for this topic. That's good that he's jumping on board. Other that working on that presentation constantly for the past 48 hours, very little has gone on in our life. That happens when we don't see each other at all on Thursdays. At least Amy recorded The Office and Scrubs for me so we could watch those together... I hate Thursdays because of our little time together.

After this post, it will be time to practice my new obsession, which is late night sessions of SimCity 4 for Mac. I just downloaded it and got it to (finally) work this week. Let me tell you, that game is pretty damn close to heroin for a geographer. The closest equivalent experience is opening Google Earth when I'm bored and losing six hours. SimCity may yet devour my soul, and likely my dissertation...

Tomorrow, I don't have to go in, and that sounds fine. I will be at home, working on some things I need to get done like an exam for my class Saturday and lectures for them. I will also be putting together their cumulative take-home final, which may well be like 200 questions multiple choice (all from their old tests) and an essay. I mean, shit, they'll have a week to do it. I also will finally choose a World Regional Geography book for next semester and perhaps work on a syllabus. If things go well, I will also finally finish my paper for my old masters thesis.

If things don't go well, SimCity will again devour my soul, I'm sure.

Gross. I have the hiccups and I don't want to get up and go downstairs for water. It's not fair!

And with that piece of mundanity, post number 400 has drawn to a close.