Not AGAIN!

The American Northeast is on the receiving end of everyone else's bad weather - storms from California that go directly across the continent, Gulf Coast low-pressure systems that become nor'easters, Alberta clippers from Canada, and, of course, hurricanes from the Atlantic.  But, I thought, at least we don't get hurricanes from the Pacific.

Think again, sucka.  Although Hurricane Patricia, a tropical system from the Pacific, isn't even a depression anymore, its remnants will still affect the Northeast, especially New Jersey.  And again, even though it's obviously not going to become a hurricane again, it's going to strengthen to bring heavy rain (one to three inches) and - this was added to the forecast after the fact - tropical-storm-force gusts. 

Unnnnhhhhhhhhhh!

Although northern New Jersey, where I live, isn't likely to get the worst of this storm, the chances of yet another tree coming down on our street and our power lines are still pretty good.  To respond to the inevitable insistence that the chances of the same thing happening on the same street in two storms within four weeks are in fact mathematically remote, I say only this - there's a tree along our street with practically no bark on the trunk.  On the other hand, if the winds come from the south and southeast as expected, the tree might be blown away from the power lines instead of on them, given the positioning of the tree.  But it could fall on the house it's next to.  I just hope it doesn't fall anywhere.

Ugh.  I guess I have yet another storm to weather and possibly a thirty-second power outage to fear.  Not a power outage lasting half a minute, Power Outage (no, Blackout) Number 32 for my house since November 2009.  Stay tuned - I may be around.