Here Comes the Rain - Part 1

Summer 2012 may be remembered for the Olympic Games. Or it may be remembered for the rain. From doom laden predictions of the worst drought for a generation in the southern half of Britain with disastrous consequences for farmers in the spring to torrential rain, floods and, yes, disastrous consequences for farmers in the summer.

The burning question is whether this is just the natural variability of weather or whether underlying climate change has a hand in driving these weather systems. To investigate this question, I have studied some local weather records. My statistical skills are about High School level: mean and standard deviation of a normal distribution.

Data for Glasgow Airport from 1959 to 2012 was obtained from the Meteorological Office website but the 2012 data was discarded as it is only provisional and represents an incomplete year. The data included monthly rainfall, sunshine and maximum and minimum temperatures and the focus of this study was the rainfall data.

Annual rainfall figures are plotted below as a time series. The y-axis (rainfall) is drawn from zero to give a clearer picture of the relative changes; some graphs cut off the bottom which can visually exaggerate trends. Without performing any statistical analysis, the first impression is that annual rainfall has increased from the early 1970s to the mid 1990s before increasing again from around 2000 to the present time. The variability from year to year also appears to be greater in the more recent results, especially in the 2000s.

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Nats/Metro Stories don't Add Up

Yes, the Nats should fork over what basically amounts to pocket change to keep the Metro open for their fans, but Metro is not exactly playing ball with their customers either, according to Eric:

I don't know why they're not telling the truth, but just wanted to tell you that the Nats and/or Metro is not telling the truth about the times of the last train leaving Navy Yard.

Two pieces of evidence: The Metro website says the last train leaves Navy Yard for Greenbelt at 11:39 but has "no Red Line transfer."

But that's impossible, since the last train leaves Gallery Place, the Red Line transfer station, for Shady Grove at 12:02 and Glenmont at 12:08.

The ride from Navy Yard to Gallery Place is eight minutes.

The math doesn't add up.

There definitely is another train that leaves after the 11:20 train that they are telling fans to take, and it should transfer to the Red Line.

Even more evidence that there's something going on: If you look at all the Green Line stations after Navy Yard (toward Branch Avenue), they all say that the last train to Greenbelt leaves later, 11:24 from Branch Avenue, 11:37 from Congress Heights, etc. And unlike when the last train is listed for Navy Yard and Waterfront, it doesn't say that there is "no Red Line transfer."

Odd, isn't it, that there's no warning about not being to transfer to the Red Line from the Green Line on the last train if you get on farther up the line, but if you get on at the Ballpark, all of a sudden you can't transfer (or Metro is just really screwing with their customers.)

Of course you can transfer--it just seems that Metro doesn't want to possibly not be able to fit everyone on the last train, or they're lazy, or something--but they're not telling the truth.


Personally, I feel that this is on the Lerners--Leonis, Snyder and various organizations in town being willing to pay if they want to keep the train open.

Only the Nats owners are apparently too cheap--or just don't care enough about the fans--to keep the Metro open on the rare night that something like this happens.

But I still am puzzled by why Metro/the Nats are telling people to leave 20 minutes earlier than they really have to.