An Associated Press story printed the St. Paul Pioneer Press mocks Londoners from the headline on: "London, the city that survived the Blitz, crumbles under a little snow." Apparently they got about 4 inches overnight, which shut down the trains and buses, and four more inches in the afternoon that completely crippled the city.

Even a photo caption drips with scorn: "The eight inches of snow, referred to as a blizzard by Londoners, challenged those famous stiff (now frozen) upper lips."

For some reason, Winter is very political! Conservative London mayor Boris Johnson blames the snow on European regulation, and his rival, former mayor "Red" Ken Livingstone, blames it on the Tories. Of course, every time there is winter weather in the States, Matt Drudge helpfully updates us on what Al Gore is up to, because as we all know Mr. Gore claims that because of your SUV there will never be snow again.

Even Rachel Maddow got into the act, wondering why Republican House members voted against the stimulus plan, which would've helped people who got their power knocked out by a real blizzard. An American blizzard.

Snow! It's a handy symbol of the death of rational political discourse based on the acceptance by all sides of the basic reality-based facts underlying the debate! And the English are all pussies!

Con Edison has notified us of a strain to its electrical grid and has asked us to curtail our power consumption where ever possible. Plant Operations is currently reducing power consumption where it is feasible but we need your help.

Please:
Turn off lights when not in use.
Close shades, blinds or drapery.
Raise thermostats to 75 degree set point where possible.
Turn off PC terminals, computer monitors, and PACs monitors that are not in use.

These simple actions will go a long way to reduce electrical consumption and the high heat load Plant Operations is contending with during this heat wave.

Thank you for your cooperation.

A city-wide outage would be great, sure, but it's not like we can sleep in this weather so why not continue rising and blogging each morning, sigh.

How are you coping with the heat? Send your tips and tricks to Gothamist and LEAVE US ALONE WE JUST WANT TO DIE.

• Springtime in NYC
• Winds Near 50 MPH in NYC!
• Summer in Manhattan
• Rainstorm Cripples Commute in NYC Area
• Did Global Warming Cause NYC Tornado?
• The Day The Sky Fell In NYC

Or, you know, we could just recycle his.

The site just launched today, so it's a little rusty (trying to change your location from default Seattle to "New York, NY" causes the site to tell you "no results found" and suggest that you maybe "select a larger metropolitan area"). But the idea is that it combines aggregated data from the lame "professionals" with the predictions of regular folk like you and me and blogger and young father Jason Kottke. Then, brilliantly, it asks what you're wearing today, just like a Perverted Justice chat room mole.

And with two aggregated "real" weather feeds and eight user predictions, we learned that it is apparently "sweatshirt or sweater weather." And you'll want to wear pants!

New York [cumul.us via Kottke.org]
The Wisdom of Clouds [Magnetbox]

Online
The Daily News was the worst offender here, deviating an average 6.78 degrees from the day's high. The Post and the Times, both of which use AccuWeather for their online predictions, were the closest, with only a two degree deviation. Overall, the online temperature matched the actual high a pathetic 10.25 percent of the time, giving a ninety percent chance that forecasts are off by at least one degree. Special mention goes to the Sun, which was 23 degrees off on Aug 21st and 21 degrees off on Aug 22nd.

Average Variation By Paper
1) Daily News: 6.78 degrees
2) Sun: 6.53 degrees
3) Times and Post 2 degrees

Print
The Post takes the title here, being off an average of almost four degrees from the day's high. The Times is the most accurate, with an average 1.54 degree difference between forecast and reality. Overall, the print temperature matched the actual high only 17.3 percent of the time. So print temperatures are more accurate than online temperatures, but are still wrong more than 80 percent of the time.

Average Variation By Paper
1) Post: 3.77 degrees
2) Daily News: 2.62 degrees
3) Sun: 2.61 degrees
4) Times: 1.54 degrees

What's the lesson here? Watch T.V. NY1's "Weather On The Ones" is usually right, right? But if you can't stand to do that, maybe you actually have to buy a newspaper!

Is there really going to be a hurricane?
Well, as we noted above, no one can say with any real certainty. But, yes, there is going to be a hurricane. It is going to wreak terrible damage on the city, leaving a wake of death and destruction not seen in this area since those riots in the Bronx back in the seventies.

That sounds terrible. What can I do to prepare for it?
Apart from fleeing immediately, nothing. Oh, sure, you can go to the grocery store and panic-shop for provisions, but they're not going to be of much use. Once this baby hits, all bets are off. Society will be divided into two groups: Marauding zombie rapists who will take advantage of the chaos and lawlessness to feed their insatiable rape urges, and everyone else, referred to from here on out as "rapees."

Oh, come on. Is it really going to be that bad?
It's going to be worse. Here's what's going to happen: The combination of wind shear and chronic rain is going to snap our crappily-constructed bridges in two almost instantly. Tunnels will flood and collapse. The authorities will consider sending boats or air carriers to help evacuate the island, but will decide against it because of the more-than-reasonable fear of being raped. Escape from Manhattan will be all but impossible. Shelter will likewise be difficult to find: While many of our buildings are supposedly constructed to withstand these kind of storms, city inspectors are notoriously easy to bribe. Many of the structures you see in Manhattan are actually constructed of balsa wood and sheetrock. With almost nowhere left to hole up, you will be easy prey for the zombie rapists, who will be hypersensitized to the presence of rapee flesh due to the high humidity and their boundless desire to rape. As night falls, the ass-raping will begin. By day two of the storm, those rapees who have somehow survived twenty-four hours of being brutally violated in every imaginable orifice will be chained together and marched down to Ground Zero, where they will become participants in a Zombie Rape Olympics. (Particularly painful: The Synchronized Raping competition.)

Now you've got me worried. I really don't want to get raped by zombies. Is there any way to defend myself?
Conventional weapons have no effect on the zombie rapists. Fuelled by the adrenaline that comes from continually violating the bodies of unwilling victims, the rapists are almost impervious to knives and bullets. Your best bet is to smack them on the nose, like a shark, which will momentarily distract them, but be warned: This makes the zombie rapists extremely agitated. Should they catch you as you attempt to flee, you will be mouth-raped. Repeatedly. Then they will eat you.

So basically you're telling me that this hurricane is going to turn New York into an island of rape-crazed zombies who will rape everyone in their path and will not stop raping until there's no one left to rape, and there's nothing I can do about it except get raped a lot?
More or less. But you can save yourself by leaving now. NOW. Drop what you're doing and get on a train or a bus or an airplane and leave the city immediately. All of you. Clear out of New York for this weekend, please. It's the only way we're going to be able to get into Wakiya this Saturday, which we stupidly forget to make a reservation for last month and are now in a serious amount of trouble that has resulted in a withdrawal of sexual services for the last week and an endless tirade of abuse about how inconsiderate, thoughtless, and insensitive we are, not to mention we're crap in bed. But we're thinking about you here: Leave New York now or you're going to be raped. You heard it here first.

Potential Tropical Storm Could Strike NYC [WCBS]