The Best Time to Run

I'm not the only one to rely on my iPhone these days.  This time of year in Highlands, finding the optimum time to run can be a challenge.  For example, this morning it was 18 at my house (colder in Town) with a 15 mph wind out of the northwest.  So I ran this afternoon when it was 31 degrees and the wind had died down substantially.  I refer to this little hourly forecast from Intellicast pretty frequently, and while some of its others features leave something to be desired, it seems to have the most accurate hourly forecast:

To view incoming rain or snow, I like WeatherBug, and also my latest discovery, MyRadar, which simply gives you the Doppler radar wherever you are located, in great detail, and without any extraneous information.

Gone are the days of getting caught in a shower?  Not quite, but these devices sure make possible a more informative guess about what conditions to expect.  I have found that I no longer enjoy "character-building" runs as much as I used to.  And I can have a much better workout when my shoes aren't sloshing through ankle-keep puddles or slipping on icy roads.

Still, I miss the mystery of incoming snow, how the sky darkens gradually - it just "looks like a snow sky" - and the air seems to take on a metallic scent.  I don't always want to know it when those big flakes start to fall.  I remember this memorable 3-mile run several years ago that caught four of us completely by surprise, huge snowflakes coming down like silver dollars out of the sky, until it looked like this when we got back to the parking lot:

Could our smart phones have predicted that one?

I like to think not.