The Kevin Sheehan Show - Lightning Myths and Truths

Episode Date: June 5, 2020

Kevin with more on Drew Brees to start before he got to the NBA's re-start plan. What's the NBA's plan for handling Covid 19? They really don't have one. Kevin explained. Then, Doug Kammerer/NBC 4's Meteorologist was a guest on the show. Doug talked about lightning strike truths and myths. Kevin of course talked snow storm favorites with Doug as well. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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Now here's Kevin. One guest today on the show, Doug Kammer from Channel 4 will be our guest. There was a huge thunderstorm that rolled through the area last night if you live in the area. And it got me to thinking about electrical storms and where you're safe and where you aren't safe during a lightning event. I think there are a lot of myths around that. Doug's going to help clear that up. But we'll also find out a little bit about Doug's career and how he landed at Channel 4 several years ago. as the replacement for the longtime legendary Bob Ryan at Channel 4.

One of the reasons I like Doug is Doug Roots for Big Snowstorms in the winter. So we'll talk to him about that as well. We're going to start with a couple of things. We spent a lot of time yesterday on Drew Breeze. There was a subsequent apology to the apology, and it was received well by some people, not so much by others. I do think that there is going to be a real interesting situation for the NFL when we get to football as it relates to the anthem. The position, of course, a few years ago was, you know, you stand for the anthem, we'll do a solidarity day, and that's basically it.

The irony of the whole anthem issue as it relates to actual logistics and the ability to sort of be exposed to either the kneelers or the non-nealers, is that most of the people who consume NFL football watch it on television. Well, with the exception of the Super Bowl, and maybe the championship games, I'm not exactly sure whether or not this is true for the championship games, you don't see the anthem part of the broadcast that's never televised. The people that see the anthem and see players either kneeling or not kneeling are in the stadium. And even then, most of the stadium, and most of the people in the stadium, excuse me, are not in their seats. You know, it happens pre-kickoff.

People are at the concession stands or they're still out in the parking lot rolling in. And it is, in terms of the overall audience that watches a specific football game, it is a tiny fraction that are actually exposed to the national anthem and anything that goes on with the anthem. With that said, the league is going to revisit this. That's my guess. The league is going to revisit several things related to the anthem. One, should they have it? First of all, when football resumes in the fall, if it does, with no fans, I'm assuming that there will be no reason to play the national anthem.

If you don't have people in the crowd, are they going to just play it for the players and the coaches and the essential people that are in the stadium. Now, maybe the players will demand that the anthem be played. And maybe the players as part of that will demand it so that they can kneel as part of their ongoing bring awareness to the message that Colin Kaepernick introduced several years ago. But really and truly, in a normal environment, they probably wouldn't be playing the anthem when games were. resume in September without fans in the stands. But pushing it down the road a little bit further,

when fans are back in the stands, even if it's socially distanced crowds and just a percentage, you know, 30% of the capacity is in the stadium watching the game, they are going to play the anthem. And the NFL is going to probably have to update the policy because I think there's going to be some pushback from players saying, we want to kneel, we want to kneel in and protest and bring awareness to the message that Colin Kaepernick started. And who knows, there may be new messages they want to bring awareness to. And in this environment, I don't know how it will play out. But while I don't necessarily believe that Colin Kaepernick will be back in the NFL,

necessarily, I do think the stand he took and the method in which he chose will be revisited by the league. League. It'll be interested to see how all of that plays out. Again, will they really have to address it initially with no spectators in the stadium? Perhaps not. All right, I want to get to the NBA. The NBA is going to start playing games again, and this is really the first official announcement that came yesterday that we are going to have live, meaningful, you know, North American professional sports games beginning at the end of July. Now, the NHL's got a plan and baseball's struggling here. We'll get to that here in a moment. But the NBA is the first to really format it, pick a date, pick a schedule, and here we go. Now, there are some issues with the return of the NBA at the

end of July that deal with COVID-19, which I will get to here momentarily. But for those that are unfamiliar with this, what the NBA decided to do is they decided to do, is they decided to take their top 22 teams. Their top 22 records, which ended up being nine teams in the East and 13 teams in the West. They're going to resume on July 31st. Games will be played every day, four to five games per day. They're going to play an eight-game regular season schedule that will be added on to the schedule that they've already played before it got suspended in early March. So the record that the Wizards had, as an example, when the league shut down in early March, which was 24 and 40. That's where they'll pick up. They will be 24 and 40 with eight games

left in the regular season. They had played 64 games, and so they had 18 left. They're going to play eight of those. When they start to play these games, they will be five and a half games behind Orlando for eighth place in the east. And this is the way it's going to work with respect to the postseason. Everybody's going to play an eight-game regular season. Everybody's going to pick up where they left off in terms of record and placement in the standings in each conference. When the eight games are completed, that's the end of the regular season, and the top seven teams will automatically advance as they would normally to the postseason seated based on their finish in the standings on a per-conference basis. There's not going to be

a mixture of the conferences. There's going to be an Eastern conference playoffs, a Western conference playoffs, and at the end of this eight-game regular season, the top seven in each conference are in, and then comes the question of who is the eighth-seated team? And what the league is doing here is they're saying that if you are an eighth place when this regular season ends after the eight additional games, and you have a four-game lead or more, you qualify, as the eighth-seeded team. But if your lead is less than four games, you will be required to

play a play-in tournament or a play-in series with the ninth-seeded team to determine the eighth spot. So again, if you finish an eighth and you've got a four-game lead or more over the ninth-place team, you're in. If your lead over the ninth-place team is less, than four games, you're going to play a two game, a potential two game series against that ninth place team. You'll play game one. If you win it, then you get the eighth spot as the eighth seeded team. If you lose that first game, there will be a second opportunity for the eighth seeded team to clinch the eighth seeded spot. But if they lose two in a row, they're out and the ninth seeded team or the ninth place team is in as the eight seed. Now, why do I get so detailed on this?

Because the wizards are currently in ninth place in the east. They are five and a half games behind Orlando. They're six games behind Brooklyn. Now, in an eight game finish to the regular season, the chances that they're going to actually end up in seventh place are near impossible, because they would actually have to overcome a six-game deficit. But the possible, but the possible ability to finish an eighth is very much in play because all they have to do being five and a half games back of Orlando is trim two games off of Orlando's lead so that Orlando finishes less than four games in front of the Wizards and that would prompt a two-game playoff, a potential two-game playoff for that eight spot. Now, again, many of you may be saying, who cares,

Well, I care. I'm a big NBA fan. I'm a big Wizards fan. I had John Wall on the show the other day, and we talked about this on the podcast. I'm surprised that there's no chance of him playing now, especially if he's 100% healthy. He said 110%. But this offseason, this four-month delay is the equivalent of an off-season. Everybody's going to be starting from the same position. It's going to be a position similar to an off-season. It's going to be a position similar to an off-season. season of four months and the opening of a regular season. It's only going to be eight games and we're going to get the playoffs at that point. But I'm looking forward to it. I am. I mean, I don't, look, if the Wizards don't make the playoffs, I'm not going to be crushed. I'm looking forward more to next year with John Wall's return. But it would be interesting if they got themselves into a seven-game series with the Bucks as the eight-seed. And I don't know what their schedule looks like yet. that hasn't been released, the eight games they're going to play. But clearly, they're going to play all Eastern Conference teams.

And in the east, they're nine teams. So my sense of it is, is the Wizards are going to play one game against each of the other eight teams. That would seem to make sense. They'll play the Bucks, Raptors, Celtics, Heat, Pacers, 76ers, Nets and Magic. Those are the eight teams in front of them. That would be an eight game schedule. And everybody else is going to do the same thing. They're going to play the other eight teams.

out west because there are 13 teams that qualified, the schedule will be a little bit different. Not everybody's going to play each other over that eight-game stretch. All right. The last thing as it relates to this subject, the NBA returning, is the NBA's plan for dealing with COVID-19. It's not much of a plan right now. The league is working with infectious disease specialists, public health experts, and government officials to establish a rigorous program to prevent and mitigate the risk related to COVID-19, including a regular testing protocol and stringent safety practices.

Well, that's kind of vague. There's nothing that's been agreed upon between league and players yet as it relates to things like testing protocol and safety measures. I would assume that they're going to get something in place as it relates to that. But then you get to the worst case situation. which is a player test positive or players test positive. And I've mentioned this before, and I feel like this is a given, if you're thinking about this logically.

The leagues have to have an understanding that they're going to attempt to play games, even when players test positive. You can't return to the NBA season on July 31st if one positive test, like Rudy Gober's back in early March, is going to shut the league down. Now, here's what they say about positive tests. A player who tests positive is expected to be removed for a period of isolation while games continue. Okay, so they're not going to shut the league down.

One player tests positive. They pull them out. They quarantine that player for whatever the CDC says is the proper amount of time when we get there. and everybody else continues to play. However, it is not yet clear, based on the NBA's, you know, broad guidelines at this point for their return. It's not yet clear how a wider outbreak among a team or teams or a death

would impact the league's thinking. They don't have a plan for that. And maybe they shouldn't have a plan for that. Maybe it would be premature. to come up with a plan for that because by the time we get to the end of July or August and the possibility of a significant outbreak or a significant illness, the understanding of this disease is going to be furthered. And the guidelines on how to handle it may be different.

We've seen that going back to March. They change all the time. The understanding, the data continues to change, the understanding of this disease continues to change. So I think it's probably smart that they don't come out with an exact plan and they deal with it if and when it happens. But clearly you would think, right, for any of these leagues, that they're thinking right now is if one player tests positive, we quarantine that player, we're good to go. If a few players test positive, we're going to continue to go because these are young, healthy, professional athletes. and the chance of death as we know it now is slim and none.

The chance of serious illness is very remote. So our plan is to continue to play then. There may be even a plan that says if we have multiple positive tests, those players are going to continue to play. Because if we were to quarantine five players on a team, six players on a team that tested positive, well, we're putting that team out of it. but if somebody gets seriously ill or dies,

well, I don't know that the league can do anything other than shut down at that point if players had been exposed to that player, unless they clearly find that that player had some sort of underlying illness that contributed. It's a very murky, dynamic situation. All of these leagues in coming up with their, guidelines to handle this are at a major disadvantage right now because by the time they get to playing actual games and being together in close quarters, we're going to know more about the disease.

The understanding of COVID-19 and how to handle it is going to change. But certainly the possibility exists for all of these leagues that play will resume and then be forced to shut down again. I think we all understand that that there's a decent chance. I don't know if it's decent chance, that there is a chance that we could get all excited about games and then something could happen that could shut it down. We'll see. I'm looking forward to it. I'm not so jinned up over it because we've been without sports. I think football is the most important thing for me in terms of return to sports. By the way, baseball continues to really get further away, it would seem, from a return, and this is going to be problematic for them, man. You know, baseball basically,

the players are standing firm on their 114 game, you know, no salary cut proposal. That came from the union executive director Tony Clark yesterday. They're not budging off of that. They are, and the owners have basically said the more games we play, the more money we lose. So the owners have said, we're not, we're sticking with our latest proposal, and neither one of them seem willing to move off of where they are right now. Baseball would really be doing themselves a disservice to not make the best attempt to get back out there. even if it ends up being for not. People are going to remember this, and people have already gotten to the point

where they realize that they can live without these sports. I think people really during this last couple of months understand that, you know what, it's not as important in my life as I thought it was. Not everybody feels that way, but enough people feel that way. And if they get burned by baseball, baseball could suffer long-term consequences because of it. All right, quick word about Roman, and then we will get to Doug Kammer, who will be our

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S-H-E-E-H-A-N, and you'll get a free online visit and free two-day shipping. That's get-Roman.com promo code Sheen for a free online visit and free two-day shipping. All right, we're welcoming in Doug Cameron from Channel 4, a weather guy straight from my heart because he roots for snowstorms like I do, which is why I watch you religiously.

And I really, I do want to talk to you about that and talk to you about your career. And I know you're a local guy and how you got to Channel 4. But the reason that I picked up the phone and called you was I was on radio this morning. And, you know, I saw that two people got struck by lightning. There was, you know, that storm that came through last night. And I started to try to explain to my producer on. the air, you know, what the myths were around lightning strike, like where you were safe and where you weren't safe. And I realized, I don't have a clue. Like, you know, I've heard that, you know,

in your house, you can be struck by lightning if you're in a shower and, you know, that in your car, you're grounded by your tires. But I don't necessarily know if any of that is true. First of all, by the way, before we get to this, how are you doing? It's crazy times we're living in, aren't they? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, crazy times for sure. And, you know, yesterday was our first day of really severe weather. I mean, I've been working from home now for close to three months. And yesterday was the first day that I was brought back into the studio as a result of the chance of severe weather. I mean, we have not had much of a severe weather season. And yesterday was our really our first time dealing with that. And, yeah, I think, you know, that may be a sign of things moving forward here. Yeah, what was it like? I mean, I was watching you guys, you know, I see Doreen at home and everybody's working from home. What was that like? Yeah. It's, you know, it's good and bad. There's a lot of good things about it. I've gotten used to it now. I really, I do enjoy working from home. I mean, the fact that you're able to relax a little bit more. But at the same time, getting to work yesterday was amazing for me because, you know, I've no longer dealing with my wife and kids. You know, somebody always needs something from you when you're at home with your family. You know, they always need something. You know, honey, can you do this? Or, dad, I need this.

Or can you help me with math? So getting out of the house yesterday was actually a little bit more relaxation and just being able to focus on what I do. And in that case, it's the weather. But for the most part, I enjoy it. Yeah, I think a lot of people feel that way about getting back to it. You know, I've been sitting here for the last several months doing my radio show in the morning, doing my podcast afterwards, in a studio that's all mine outside of my house and close to my house.

and I have felt so fortunate from that standpoint, because I've been able to walk in with nobody in here. You know, they connect me with the main studio, and it's easy. And, you know, when I'm done, Doug, I just sort of hang around here, so I don't have to go home. You know, it's like... Exactly.

But anyway, so... Well, and that's the funny thing. You know, you mentioned that, you know, I've been gone, like I said, almost three months. And when you go on vacation, you go for a week, and you come back to work, that's the last place you want to be. You go on vacation, that's the last place.

place you want to do is come back to work. This was completely different. I came in yesterday, and it was a completely different scenario because I've been gone for so long. So I was excited to get back to work. I was excited to get back into it. I was excited to be out near all of my technology and graphics and, you know, near the radar and, you know, all my different computer screens. I mean, yesterday, you know, forecasting severe weather yesterday was so much fun because I had all the tools at my disable. I think everybody can relate to that. All right. So tell me about Give me all of the things about electrical storms and how you protect yourself from a lightning strike. We all know that it's one of the longest shots out there.

And we all know intuitively you're not to be on a golf course holding a seven iron during an electrical storm. But what about all the other stuff, like in your home or in your car? Yeah, I mean, the very first thing is, I mean, we always say this, and this is something National Weather Service has said for a long time. I mean, when thunder roars, get indoors. You know, there's a reason why they come up with these lines. You know, when Thunder Wars get indoors, turn around, don't drown. You know, they come up with those so that people can remember those.

And the biggest thing about when Thunder Wars get indoors, if you hear Thunder, you are close enough to be struck by lightning, close enough to the Thunderstorm to be struck by lightning. So you want to get inside. You want to get under something. Now, I say under something, under a structure. You don't want to be, if you're in the middle of a, you know, for example, golf. You know, you're in the middle of a golf course. The first thing you do, you don't want to go and get under a tree.

You know, you want to get under an awning. You want to go to the place that, you know, whether it's the clubhouse or whether it's the bathrooms at hole number eight. You want to get under something that is not a tree. You want to get under some form of a structure. Because, again, when you're out there, a tree is going to be the most likely thing to be struck in a wide open field or on a golf course. Because that tree is extending to the sky.

And that's really exactly what it's doing. So when a lightning bolt is coming down, that leader stroke is coming down from the cloud. As it gets closer to the cloud, I'm sorry, closer to the ground, the ground actually sends up a positive stroke out of the ground, and it goes to the highest point, so it'll go up a tree, and when those two things meet, that's when you get your lightning stream. So that's why lightning is so dangerous when you're in an open field

because you have so many trees around you. So you never want to get under a tree. If you are out in an open field, the best thing to do is get low to the ground. And by low to the ground, you actually want to crouch. You want to have the least contact with the ground possible. So you're crouching. You're on the balls of your toes. Your heels are up, and you're on the balls of your toes in a crouched position.

So you're low, and you also have the least amount of your body touching the ground. So that's a big thing, too, in an open field. But, again, biggest thing, get indoors. So are you completely safe indoors? No, absolutely not I mean we had a lightning Lightning strike that caught a house on fire I believe it was in either West Virginia

or Virginia yesterday where a lightning strike and kept the house on fire and that's definitely the case I mean you heard it you know when we were all younger you didn't want to be on the phone because you had the cord attached

Of course now we don't have those cords so hey talk away on yourself on all you want you're fine but getting in the shower You mentioned the shower Yeah I would never take a shower When we've got a lightning storm going on I mean, that lightning storm, that mold of lightning hits the pipes, and next thing you know,

you've got some electric shock in your house. Now, have I ever heard of that happening? No. I've never heard of somebody getting electrocuted by that, but it is out there. It is true. It can happen. So, yeah, that's the one thing that I would say. But if you're in your house, you know, when I'm at my house, last night, for example, this was great.

I was loving that. I sat outside. I got off work. I came home. I'm home by around 11, 13, 11, 14, 145, and that lightning storm was just prolific. it was amazing. And I'm sitting out on my front porch, watching the lightning. I know I'm safe. I'm underneath my awning. I'm underneath, I'm on the porch itself. I know I'm going to be safe. You know, so as long as you're inside of a structure, you should be fine.

What about, so you mentioned the shower, and it would be because the pipes could get struck by lightning. There could be a shock, water, the whole thing. What about, I've heard before that you shouldn't be next to windows in the house during lightning. Is that a myth? You know, I don't want to say that's a myth. I mean, you want to create as much space between you and a possible lightning strike as possible. But that being said, I mean, I'm going to, if there's a thunderstorm,

I'm looking out the window. I'm watching that storm. You know, I am watching that storm. Now, do I have my hands up against the window pane? No. Do I have my hands up against the wall of the house? No, you don't want to do that either. But if you're sitting there, I love to watch them.

So one of my favorite things to do, as I said, is I'm on my porch. But I also like to sit on my couch. And this is what I say to a lot of parents come to me and they say, hey, my kid is, my child is very afraid of lightning. I say, well, make it an event for them. Know that the storms are coming. First off, it's very important to know that the storms are coming so you can prepare that child. Hey, we've got some storms coming. And actually sit with them.

Make it a movie. Turn off the lights in the house. Make it a movie. you can see the lightning coming. You can see the flashes, you know, pop some popcorn, and make an event. And so many times you hear later in life that these kids that have done something similar to that, kids that were afraid of lightning or afraid of storms before, those are the ones that a lot of times become meteorologists. Because we're fascinated by, you know, we're fascinated by weather.

And you've got that fascination. I do. And you know that. And, by the way, like even last night, I happened to have been in my car. And I Oh, that rain was coming down. Yeah, and I love that. But tell me real quickly, are people safe in cars, or do they have to turn off air conditioning or turn off radio?

Is that something that makes sense or is it irrelevant? Yeah, no, you're absolutely safe in your car. I mean, if you had the option to get out of your car or stay in your car, you definitely want to stay in your car. I mean, the big thing about it, it's not the tires, everybody thinks it's the tires. You have to remember, you are essentially in a metal shelf. So if that bolt of lightning hits your car, it's going to go around that shell and then through the tires to the ground. So you are essentially grounded in that car. That's also the reason why, you know, last night we had, I saw somebody, I believe it was in Pennsylvania,

where the wires came down, and the wires are laying across the car. Now, the last thing you want to do is get out of that car. You got live wires around your car. You want to stay inside your car because, again, you know, Again, that electricity is going through the car down to the ground. There has been a number of cases, and this is, I mean, I'll tell you a great, well, it's a terrible story, but, you know, of a, of a news, somebody who died in a news van. And it's because they had their mask up that hit electrical lines, and they knew that they had the electrical lines going,

and as soon as they stepped out of the vehicle and touched the ground, they were no longer grounded by the vehicle and the electricity. and they were electrocuted by that. So if you ever get into that scene, and again, our lady had to be taken out yesterday, you stay in your car and wait for them to shut off the power. I mean, that's the only way to do it. So, yes, in your car, you're safe. You get out of your car, you're taking risk. And you said you're safe on your cell phone.

I'm going to just share with you real quickly. This is 10, 12 years ago. I'm on the phone in my car, electrical storm, and there was a shock that I felt. with a big lightning bolt. And, you know, maybe I had the air conditioning on, maybe I had the radio on, and I dropped that phone, and I was convinced that there was, you know, that something had gotten, you know, into that phone. But it was real.

Like, and you're suggesting that that probably wasn't a lightning strike or it wasn't through the phone? Most likely not, because that's not how phones work. But if you're on your radio, if you're listening to your radio in your car, you know, on an FM dial, you're not going to hear the lightning all that much. But when you turn that to an AM dial, it's just how the radio waves work. You hear every bolt of lightning. Right.

And I actually love to do that. When I was younger, I would love to do that. I would love to just turn my radio to an AM dial and listen to the lightning because you can hear it through the AM dial. You're strange. It's incredible. Yeah, yeah, I'm a weird strange weather geek here. But it's really quite amazing what you can get on the radio.

Let me switch subjects with you real quickly before. where you go because I know you've got to run. You know, Bob Ryan was a legend in this town, and you replaced him probably, I don't know, eight, nine, ten years ago, something like that. For everybody that doesn't know, you're from the area, but I'm assuming you spent time in a lot of different markets and knew who Bob Ryan was when you got back to Channel 4. Oh, yeah, I mean, I grew up, I grew up here, I left to go to college. I grew up here until I was 18. I did my 10th grade math report on Bob Ryan. Did you really?

So, yeah, I mean, again, I've wanted to do this my whole life. So I literally, the very first time I was on the Beltway, I'm 16 years old, and I drove from my house to NBC4 to do my interview with Bob Ryan, and I was there with Jim Vance and Doreen and, you know, I was there with George, obviously. I got to watch the newscast, and Bob took me up and put me in front of the green screen for the first time and gave me a whole bunch of at the time, what they're called Dysax charts, which now you get on the internet, but those are printed out weather maps.

Yeah, and that was amazing. So since that time, I still kept up with Bob. You know, even during my career, I was locked at him for sure, and then once I became part of the NBC family when I moved to Philadelphia, which was in 2003, because this has been now 17 years ago, Bob was still working here at NBC4, and, you know, him and I were partners on a lot of things, and, you know, got to meet quite a few times and talk a lot. So, yeah, Bob was a little bit of a mentor for me,

and I absolutely loved watching him as a kid and being the fact that I can move back to my hometown and take over for the legend that is Bob Ryan and still, you know, talk to him on an occasional basis is really something that I, that I guess I can't even speak to how huge it is. Every time I walk into that building, the NBC4, and I see those faces that have come before me. It's just so humbling to know that that's where I am now.

Snowstorm or like a big tropical storm? Which do you get more jinned up for? Oh, man. It depends. If I'm in the middle of it, I'll be above. I mean, you put me in the middle of a hurricane. I've been there. You know, I've been in the middle of the snowstorm.

I probably love a blizzard more than anything else. Yeah. I really do. But the same thing. I've been in the middle of a hurricane. I've been close to the eye of a hurricane. You know, I've been to the top. from Mount Washington with 114 mile-an-hour winds at the time.

I mean, absolutely incredible. I mean, the power of other nature is simply incredible. It is amazing to watch. I have yet. I have yet to see a tornado on the ground. That's my only thing. But, you know, I know I get there one day. What's your favorite snowstorm of all time for this area?

It's either got to be the super storm of 93 or that blizzard of 2016. You know, and I say the Superstorm in 93, I'm a senior high school, and here comes this storm, this monster storm, which has already, unfortunately killed a lot of people down in Florida because a huge storm surge down in Florida. And then it's dumping, you know, you saw that you could still take a look at Superstorm in 93, take a look at the video out of Atlanta, Georgia, getting eight inches of snow. And it just made it way right all the way up the coast. I was in Hernden at the time, and the amazing thing about it was we got about a foot of snow, and then it changed over to, I, And that's the worst thing. And that's also the worst thing as a meteorologist. It changed over to ice and then back to snow.

So there was a nice layer of ice on top of about a foot of snow. And the wind with that, we have three-foot snowdrifts with that. I mean, the amount of ferocity that that storm had is really one for the record book. D.C. only had 6.6 inches of snow for that storm. Well, we don't count the Reagan numbers. We don't count the National Report numbers. Very good point. You know, that 93 storm, that's why it's not even in my top three or four because of the changeover.

96 to me, January of 96 was my favorite, Doug, because it was so cold, plus it's early January. Every single flake stuck. There were sort of two, you know, events to the storm. The wraparound ended up producing another, you know, 8 to 10 inches with. ridiculous wind and drifting. And then, by the way, like three days later, we had another eight to ten inches. That stretch may have been my favorite,

but 2016 was great, too. Well, 2016 was great. I'll go back to 2009, 2010. Unbelievable. Yeah. That was, for me, I'm in Philadelphia forecasting weather at that time, and you've got back-to-back blizzards. I mean, we had places around the Philadelphia,

and places here. I mean, Frederick Maryland, close to four feet of snow on back-to-back blizzards. I mean, you had one on a Thursday, I believe, and then another one on a Saturday. I mean, just incredible. It was super, well, you had the December storm to start with, which we ended up with close to two feet.

And then in- Yeah, we were 28 inches in Philadelphia. Yeah, and then in February, we had the Super Bowl weekend storm, and then three days later, what turned out to be actually, and you said it, like, I still remember just standing out there

when that wind was coming through with heavy snow. It was a true blizzard at that point. I mean, we ended up literally in Bethesda, you know, in close Washington, with 80 to 90 inches of snow that winter. Yeah, that was pretty amazing. I mean, that was one of the most, it was 56 inches of snow for the season at DCA. So yeah, I mean, you're talking about 70, 80 for sure in around the Bethes area and even more to the west. I mean, it was the coolest thing I've ever been a part of, and you mentioned, you What do I like better? Well, I was out for 19 hours straight on that Saturday before the Super Bowl.

Right. And again, 19 hours straight in the element, 19 hours straight. And I was loving every minute of it. I mean, you're getting snow, you're getting wind, you're getting thunder snow, which is one of the coolest things ever. Ever. Yeah, so I would definitely put those two back-to-back blizzards as my favorite. Yeah, that thing came in Friday night and wasn't over until Super Bowl Sunday,

which was incredible. I mean, I think you and I could sit here for another hour and talk about snowstorms. But last question, are we going to have, is our climate here in the Mid-Atlantic changing to the point where we're not going to have, maybe we'll have big storms,

but we're not going to have consistent cold and consistent snow threats every winter? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this past winter was, you know, this past winter, we didn't see much snow at all, but what we're going to get, we're going to get less snowstorms, Our total, our average right now is about 15, 16 inches in D.C.,

obviously higher out towards Belmont and Frederick and things like that, but our averages may stay the same, but it's going to come from one or two storms rather than from six or seven storms the way it used to be. The bigger storm, we can get. The 2016 storm, I'm convinced was tied to global warming, was tied to climate change because of the fact you had the warm waters off the Atlantic Ocean. I mean, you're going to get cold, you're going to get these cold outbreaks. You talk about the polar vortex.

The polar vortex is going to break off, and it's going to make its way down here, but it's not going to be prolonged. I mean, we're having now three to four days of it's just extreme cold, and then it warms right back up. You know, we're not getting a month of cold. We're not getting weeks of cold, even though, you know, April and May this year, we're below average because the polar vortex did sit down here, did sit down here for a while, but you're not seeing that in the winter months.

And that, you know, it kind of stinks. You know, in summertime, we're going from an average of the average right now is sitting at 36 days for 90-degree days. The last decade, it's been 49. Right. You know, last year we had 62, 90-degree days. You know, this year I'm predicting 52, 90-degree days, up to, potentially up to 55. It is. It's a warming world, and it's just something we're going to have to continue to do.

I mean, last night's rain, tremendous. I mean, a warming world, you get more rainfall as well. you get more flooding. I mean, and we're in a perfect area where we have all of those things, you know, that global warming will continue to enhance. Am I scared about it? No, is the world coming to an end? Absolutely not.

You know, are our kids' futures in danger because of this? No. And so many people try to use that as a battle cry, you know, oh, what kind of world that we're leaving our kids? All right, well, it's a warmer world. You know, are we going to have to fix things? Are we going to have to fix New York City? Or we're going to have to fix Miami?

I mean, they just put in billions of dollars, $4 billion in Miami for a pump out the water. You know, we built New Orleans on a swamp. New Orleans, the only reason that happened in New Orleans is because New Orleans is sitting below sea level. You know, and that was the Army Corps of Engineers, which failed us. The levees, the levees. Yeah, the levies. I mean, you've got, you know, our levies are 10 feet tall down there towards New Orleans area. I don't know the extent of the highest one, but they're average about 10 to 11 feet.

You go to Denmark and the Netherlands, which also have towns and cities below average, their levies are 30 to 40 feet high. They are engineering marvels. They're able to live in an area that's below sea level. So we're going to have to do that. We're going to have to spend, I mean, again, billions, trillions of dollars in a warming world to protect ourselves, but that's what we do as humans. We adapt and will continue to adapt.

Do I want to see lower carbon monoxide or carbon dioxide emissions? Absolutely. I think we can do things to make our planet greener, absolutely. And I would love to see us do that as well. But we've done the damage. You know, the damage is done. Even if we stopped today, we're going to continue to warm because carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for years and years to come. But, you know, we can still help.

And, you know, everybody needs to do their part in that as well. We certainly for three months didn't put off that much in terms of emissions. You know, for the – I mean, it probably was pretty good for the climate. Well, let's... Yeah, but you say that real fast, and I'll just end with this. You say that, and that's exactly right. I mean, our air pollution is down. Right.

Carbon dioxide emission is down, but just because we're down, we actually still have the highest concentration ever in the month of May. So we've been down for the last three months, but yet carbon dioxide is the highest ever been in the month. Really? Wow, that's fascinating. But that's not because of anything that happened in the last three months. It just would have been worse. No. Absolutely.

It would have been worse. Yeah. So let's just hope, last thing, for a negative A-O and a negative N-A-O when we get to wintertime. That would work out for us, right? I mean, we had it in April and May, and you see what happens to us. You know, we need it in January and February. December, January would be perfect if we could get that

and get a couple of big ones next winter. That's why we love where we live. We have all kinds of weather. Winter is supposed to be winter. Let's bring back winter. Exactly. I enjoyed this. I really appreciate it.

You know I love watching you because you're the one that outwardly roots for snowstorms and looks, you know, 10 days down the road and says, maybe, just maybe, you know, as you look at the long-range GFS and pray like I do. Thanks so much, Doug. I really appreciate it. Absolutely, Kevin. Thanks for calling. And, hey, man, anytime you want to talk weather, you know where to find me.

I'll do it. Thanks, Doug. Thanks, buddy. I enjoyed that. I hope you guys did, too. Doug's a good guy. He does a great job on Channel 4. Follow him on Twitter at Doug Camera.

All right. We're done for the day. Enjoy the weekend back on Monday.