April Fools weather humor; all-time March warmth in WY, NE

I don't have an April Fools blog post for you this year, but instead thought I share with you two of the funniest weather-related stories of the year. Firstly, it turns out that you don't need to be a human to enjoy a little snowboarding. The snowy conditions in Russia this winter gave the opportunity for an intrepid crow to take up the sport in this remarkable Youtube video. I found the video over at Andy Revkin's DotEarth blog at the New York Times. The bird is a hooded crow, and has evidently been doing quite a bit of snowboarding, judging by the multiple tracks on the rooftop. Too bad us humans can't use a flap-assist from our wings while snowboarding, it might cut down on injuries!


Video 1. A crow in Russia goes snowboarding on a snow-covered rooftop.

The most insane letter ever written by a child to a TV weatherman
I've done a lot of talks about the weather to schools, and have gotten hundreds of thank-you letters from the kids afterwards. But I've never gotten a letter quite like the one KVUE morning and midday meteorologist Albert Ramon in Austin, Texas recently received after talking at a local school. A sampling:

"Some day when I become supreme Ultra-Lord of the universe I will not make you a slave, you will live in my 200 story castle where unicorn servants will feed you doughnuts off their horns."

And this: "Thank you again for teaching us about meteoroligy, you're more awesome than a monkey wearing a tuxedo made out of bacon riding a cyborg unicorn with a lightsaber for the horn on the tip of a space shuttle closing in on Mars while ingulfed in flames."

Check out the letter here.

Finally, realclimate.org has a funny April Fool's blog post today called ‘Wrong sign paradox’ finally resolved?

All-time March warmth records in Wyoming, Nebraska
Most of Wyoming and much of Nebraska set or tied their record for all-time warmest March temperatures yesterday, no fooling. A strong ridge of high pressure that generated a strong flow of warm air from the southwest was responsible. Some of the records included:

Omaha, NE: 91°F
Lincoln, NE: 91°F
Casper, WY: 77°F
Lander, WY: 76°F
Rock Spring, WY: 72°F
Worland, WY: 81°F
Laramie, WY: 71°F
Rawlins, WY: 73°F
Chadron, WY: 83°F
Sidney, WY: 83°F

Jeff Masters