curmudgeonly chaos - the storm is here?

We're in the four hour of the storm that is supposed be dumping three inches of rain on us. So far, there has been way more wind than rain. Weather radar from Portland shows that the brunt of the storm is hitting North of us in Washington. However, we've seen this pattern before.

In the big storm right at then end of December, the hammer-blow was several hours late. We were lured into a false sense of security when the rain did not arrive at the predicted time. We thought the storm had shifted North because of the heavy rain in Washington. Today's IR radar image shows very similar pattern.

So I remain tense, but utterly fascinated. The wealth of weather data instantly available for free over the Internet is completely amazing. This free instantaneous viewing of satellite data as well as the output of NOAA's computer weather models is a great asset to everyone. I wonder if I had access to this sort of information when I was a teenager, would I have been inspired to take a different path in my life?