It's night side on radio.
The Coal, the Coal, the Kraken, a great National Hockey League franchise, as I'm sure you remember from your childhood, right Nicole, Yeah, okay yeah. Oh. By the way, by the way, did you see did you happen to notice who rang the opening bell at the stock market today?
I believe that was President ELEC. Donald Trump.
I don't want to have him get near that bell ever. Again.
I am staying out of it.
There, that's all I got. I got it, I got it. I was thinking to myself, Oh, yeah, the one thing you can never predict is the stock bar.
That is true.
Oh and laundry and death and taxes, yes, yes, yes, well, death and taxes are things you kind of voice laundry to the tax Yeah. Your CPA will tell you sometime, probably like in middle February, what your tax is going to be in middle of April.
Yes, and then you run away and don't want to pay tax. All right, my friend, I'll talk to you.
The cracking, I don't even know what a crack it is. I think it's a fish, of it's a squid. Oh great, a big squid. Oh gret.
Okay, now I'm done by way.
Okay, I know Nicole's gonna be able to put in for overtime now said only kidding. Nicole is my friend by pal. She has the same sense of humor I have, which is kind of scary. Actually good evening, everybody, welcome on into night Side. As we start a Thursday night here, I will, as Nicole promised, take you all the way, not only through the Bruins game, but right up till midnight.
I'll watch the last period of the second last half of the last period, probably after I do my program, which is on Facebook every night, well most every night, I do what we call Nightside postgame. So if you haven't had enough of Nightside by eleven fifty eight, jump on Facebook, go to a Nightside with Dan Ray and you'll be able to see me. I'll do a little review of how I thought the evening went. Might even mention your phone calls as a good phone call or
a bad phone call. Who knows. Anyway, we have watched to cover tonight. We're going to talk about crime and punishment, going to talk about empathy, a surprising amount of empathy for the killer, the alleged killer of the healthcare CEO Brian Thompson that we'll be talking with a criminologist, doctor Scott Bond, like the former capital of Germany, Scott Bonn. He's going to talk not only about that case, but
about some other high profile cases. And then we're going to talk about those mysterious drones that are appearing and have been appearing since I think for about a month now over New Jersey and no one knows what they are. But before we get to that, we're going to get to news update. By the way, my name is Dan Ray in case we haven't established that already. Rob Brooks, the producer, great producer of this program, is back in the control room. He's ready to go, but no phone
calls before nine o'clock. First up tonight, we're going to talk about a theme that we talk about here on Nightside, and it's one that I think maybe is due for an adjustment. We're talking with Nathan Honeycut. He is with Fire, which is an organization founded by our great friend Harvey Silverglade co founded by Harvey silver Glade back on many
years ago the foundation of individual rights and expression. And Nathan Honeycut says there's a new poll done by a Fire about how welcome a university faculty would welcome a conservative professor. There aren't many conservative professors at college in universities today, which I think is part of the problem we have in this world right now. Nathan Honeycutt, welcome to night, said, how are.
You doing good? Thank you for having me Dan, Well, thanks.
Very much, so you. The question you asked of the college professors and university professors is not what their political viewpoints are, it's how they perceived the other faculty would welcome or if a conservative faculty member would be welcomed into those little closed communities. And it's not very encouraging, to say the least, tell us about it.
Yeah, it was somewhat discouraging. So we asked faculty at fifty five schools across the nation. Got a little over six thousand responding how well a liberal or a conservative would fit into their department. And then we also asked a ton of questions trying to figure out like, well, how comfortable do you faculty member feel speaking on campus? Do you have to tone down your writing, do your self censor? Do you worry about your job or reputation?
And the answer across the board for a decent number of faculty was yes to all of the above. Yes, they're afraid of damaging the reputations of losing their jobs. They self censor, and the base the base rate was about depending on the question, about twenty five percent or higher in our sample. But then when we've kind of narrowed in by ideology and looked at the conservative faculty,
it was it was through the roof. Typically over half of the conservative faculty were saying that they were engaging in all of these all of these things, which are it's they're not they're not good to say the least, and it's it's not of benefit to research, to teaching, and to the general environment and universities.
I mean, I always saw it and was taught and obviously, well I should say obviously people listen to my show might not believe this, but not only did I graduate from a state college, but I also graduated from a very highly respected law school, Boston University Law Schools, So I know a little bit about what it's like to be on college campus, and clearly, uh, conservatives are are
not particularly welcomed. Were was there was there any cadre of uh, you know, admittedly liberal professors who said yeah, I'd like to see more diversity, you know, intellectual diversity, philosophical diversity in our in our faculty. There was there much support for that, obviously, they they have the majority on campus these days. What was there any engling? Are they just very happy with how it is right now and that there's there's not much discussion in that pe
tradition of ideas. Were not much disagreement within that p tradition of ideas.
Yeah, there there's there is a small contingent of liberal faculty, so it's not it's not uniform that all liberal faculty are against good point diversity or or having conservatives on campus. Anecdotally, on campus, I still teach as an adjunct professor about a classis semester and have a number of colleagues who are really concerned about this. But I think by and large, the majority of faculty they either aren't aware of the problem,
or they are and they just don't care. It's a lot easier to have people that surround you and your department, and even outside of the universities too. This applies where they all agree with you. Then it's like your ideas aren't going to be challenged. Conversations are easier.
But it's comfortable. Comfortable.
Yeah, it's easy, Yeah, comfortable.
And that's not what Again, a college is supposed to be a patrit dish of competing ideas, particularly in the social sciences. Obviously, Yeah, there can be some disagreements within the sciences itself as well. If you take mathematics, two plus two is always going to be four. I mean there's a lot of math, there's the arguments kind of
closed on that. But when you get into political science and psychology and sociology and world history, and you know, all sorts of subjects this room from many viewpoints, I would be a great college professor. I'd be a great journalism professor. I've spent my entire career in journalism, both as an on air television reporter, where no one knew what my political viewpoints were because I was assiduous in making sure that I was fear and I looked at
every through the through the lens of objectivity. As a talk show host, I can give more of my opinions, some of this direction, some of that direction, but I would care less. I would want to hang with faculty, people who I disagreed with, people who I agreed with it would have nothing. I would want to just hang with smart, bright people, and I'd like my ideas to be challenged, but I couldn't take the pay cut to do what they do.
Yeah, I don't blame you there. And that's I mean, when so many people idealize what a university is there when I was in grad school, or when I talk to kids who want to be go to grad school, and so I do you imagine the university is this place where you got people when kind of tweed jackets and.
With leather patches, with leather patches on the elbows. Don't forget that.
Yeah, and they debate and discussed and uh, there's there's a recent article by Roland Fryar, I think in Wall Street Journal where he talked about how when he was undergrad he used to debate people and have really deep conversations in the common room of his dorm. And it's it's just it doesn't happen anymore. It doesn't.
When I debated Howard Zinn, I was in law school, and Zin was paid two thousand this is in the seventies, was paid two thousand dollars for his appearance. I was paid two hundred and of course he was a communist socialist. He was so far to the left, And in my concluding remarks, I suggested that since you know, he very much believed equal work, equal to time, equal pay, and all of that, that we would blend our two honorarium and split the difference to no one. Surprise, Howard Zin
did not go on with that proposal. Oh yeah, Nathan, I enjoyed. I enjoyed this conversation. Say hello to all my friends. That fire the foundation of individual rights and expression. Keep on keeping on, my friend.
Thank you, I appreciate it. Thanks for having me on.
Dan, You're very welcome. We'll have you back, Nathan Honeycott of Fire and how can folks before you leave, Nathan, get more information on this great organization founded and co founded by our great friend Harvey Silverglade.
Yeah, visit us online. Our website is thefire dot org.
That's perfect. That's perfect, the fire two words mesh together, the fire dot Org. Thanks, Nathan, we'll talk again. Thank you very much. All right, well, we we're going to talk about the concept of sacred rest with doctor Sandra Sondra excuse me, Sonda Sonda Dalton Smith. Uh, we're gonna We're gonna get you. We're gonna get you in a situation to recover your life, renew your energy, and restore
your sanity, all in about seven or eight minutes. I'm up on the other side of this break on Nightside right here in w BZ, Boston's news radio. My name is Dan Rayyo, your host, your congenial host. Back on Nightside right after this.
Now back to Dan Ray, Mine from the window World Nightside Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Want to welcome to Nightside doctor Sanda Dalton Smith. She's an author and board certified internal medicine doctor. Welcome, doctor Dalton Smith. How are you tonight?
I'm great, Thank you for having me.
So we're talking about your newest book, Sacred Rest. Recover your life, renew your energy, restore your sanity. Talk to Dalton Smith. It sounds so easy. Is it really that easy?
Easy might not be the best word. It's doable.
I like doable. Go ahead. I'm just having a little fun with you. Go ahead.
Yes.
I think for a lot of people, rest is something that we struggle. It's just because we don't really fully understand what it is. We think rest and sleep are the same thing, and they are not. Sleep is a part of rest, but there are a lot more components to it.
So let's talk about it. The subtitle recover your life, renew your energy, restore your sanity. What can people do? There are a lot of people out there one who have trouble sleeping. I luckily am not in that category. If I'm awake fifteen seconds after I put my head on on the pillow, I know I'm in trouble. But not everyone is that lucky. My problem is I used to be able to sleep in easily, like on a Saturday or Sunday, I would sleep in nine thirty ten
o'clock and feel great. But it's tough to do that when you're on a schedule like I am, where you normally are getting up seven thirty or eight o'clock in the morning, and that's considered late because you're going to get the day going. Give us some advice as to what people is it. Is it smart? Let me ask you that is it smart to occasionally try to load
up on your sleep, catch up on your sleep? Just turn the turn the alarm clock off on a Saturday or Sunday and you're off day and just snooze the morning away or is that a bad idea.
Yes, marathons don't typically work. That's what I call those where we're trying to get it all in at the same time. Uh, it's more helpful for the body when you do as you mentioned, you have some regularity to your sleep schedule. Our body has a normal circadian rhythm, so it has patterns that it wants to follow. When we break too far outside of those patterns, it creates
its own stress. Some people, if they try to sleep longer, we'll even get headaches or body aches and actually feel bad when they try to prolong those those periods of sleeping.
Okay, so we now know what we what I should not be doing. What about the question of I'm hearing now that as people get older they need less sleep. What is this such a thing as the average person or the average American in terms of what their sleep requirements should be.
I don't believe so. I think you know, when we look at sleep, when we look at the number of hours if people sleep, they range really from some people say they need five hours and they're perfectly good. Some people say they need nine to ten. And really what we're noticing is that when people get higher quality sleep. When they get higher levels and longer periods of non rim deep sleep, the stage three and four non rim
deep sleep, that's when they feel restored. So some people are able to go into deeper levels of sleep more quickly and some take a longer time. And really most of my research, and what you mentioned is in my book Sacred Rest, is specifically looking at the RESTful things that were storative processes that actually help us get into
deeper levels of sleep. My research is based around there being seven different areas of rest that we need, seven different ways our body needs to enter into restorative cycles. And when we omit some of those, you can get eight hours of sleep even or nine or ten, and you'll still wake up exhausted because your body isn't rested in one of these other seven areas.
When I talked about sleep to friends of mine, I usual to say eight is great, nine is fine, and eleven is heaven. But we'll leave that. I want people to buy your book, But are there tips in the book as how people can change their patterns in terms of, you know, how soon they go to bed, maybe what they when they eat or drink before they go to bed, you know, Obviously, I think most people are smart enough not to have a huge meal at nine o'clock at
night and expect to get a RESTful night's sleep. But are there some tips in the book that people would benefit from.
Oh?
Absolutely, particularly if you're that person who is sleep you know, staying in bed eight nine, ten hours and waking up still exhausted. When someone's tired, The question that we tend to have people start reflecting on is what kind of tired are you? What is the area where you actually have a rest deficit? Is it physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, social, sensory, or creative? Those are the seven types of rest and.
All of the above sea do you have all of the above category there too?
Holy kitty, Some people do, yes, especially if you're someone who's on the verge of burnout. So those people who say, you know, I feel like I'm burned out, they tend to have sleep or rest deficits, I should say, in multiple of those areas. And unfortunately, you know a lot of people if they laid it down to go to sleep at night and they can't shut their brain off, well that mental rest deficit will actually keep them from going into sleep.
Yeah, well, I keep going even when I'm sleeping. I mean to be honest with you, That's the one thing I My best RESTful night is when I don't have a dream. I don't think about anything. I just stay awake. I stay asleep. What is that one or two tips? I don't want you to give the book away, but one of two tips people can do who are listening right now that they can try before they go to bed tonight, that might help them in the short term at least.
Yeah. Absolutely, and I'm more than happy to. As I often say, we tend to give the secrets away quite freely from within the book within our rest quiz. I'll share about that in a moment. But to two tips that we find, particularly if you're someone with a mental rest deficit, you have busy brain. You're thinking all the
thoughts before going to bed. Something as simple as a brain dump, So having a notepad where you're jotting down whatever the ruminating thoughts are, because those ruminating thoughts will have you'll think about them for long periods into the night, and it actually keeps your brain from turning off. So jotting it down sometime is a quick way for the
brain to release it. Another thing is if you struggle with that is using something like white noise or background rhythmic noises because the brain will attach to following that particular the pattern and it will help you to kind of release some other thoughts. Cooler temperatures. Most people sleep better when the room is cool rather than being overheated. And then making sure that you do that. You are aware of blue light and how your body responds to it.
A simple tip. If your clock sitting at the bedside is pointing towards you and it has a bright red or blue light, turn the clock away from you.
Yes.
Yeah, so if you need to say it, you can go look, but don't have it shining in your face.
I'm with you on that one. Look, I could do a lot more with you and maybe what we could do some night if it's okay with you, doctor Dalton Smith, I could make it up to you. These interviews are great, but we don't incorporate callers. I could bring it back. We could do an hour some night on this whole question and take take questions from listeners and calls from listeners. If you'll be up for that one, my producer, get in touch with your PR person Corey Newman.
Okay, sounds good.
Thanks very much, Doctor Sunda Dalton Smith the book Sacred rest Recover your life, renew your energy, and restore your sanity. I love alliteration rest, recover, renew, restore. I like that.
Thank you so much, doctor, Thank you.
You're welcome. When we get back, go and talk a little football. Bill Belichick. What the heck is he doing heading to North Carolina to become a tar Heel boy? That's something I didn't expect. We'll talk with Kyle Bray, WBZ news radio reporter and try to figure it out why coach Bill is heading south. Back on night Side right after the news at the little bit after eight thirty. But I thought she was a really good guest. At eight thirty two, here comes the.
News night Side with Dan Ray on w BOST's news Radio.
Well, the big news story sports story today should be the Red Sox signing the picture from the White Sox, but it really wasn't Bill Belichick heading to North Carolina to coach the tar Heels. Kyle Bray's been working on this story today. Kyle, I can't figure this one out from a What's I mean? Obviously, I guess Bill Belichick's doing what he wants to do. Kyle, what do you think is in his head? Here?
Well, hey, Dan, thanks for having me on.
Yeah no, I thank you so much for you know, you were working late.
Oh yeah, well, I mean I was just as puzzled as you were when I first heard this, because you know, I mean, you're looking at the second most winningest coach in NFL history, you know, whether you want to debate Schula or not, probably the greatest coach of all time, and he's saying, you know what, I'm gonna I'm gonna pack my bags and I'm gonna go back to school. No,
it's it's very perplexing. But there there are definitely a lot of things that makes sense to me about this move, even if you know it.
It's okay, give me a couple because obviously there's fifty million things because I believe he signed a five years for ten MILLI a year. Yeah uh. And obviously he could probably walk away at any point because if some really good, underperforming NFL team came to knocking, he could walk away.
But you know what, the biggest difference I think that you'll see versus you know, him taking an NFL job and you know, going to the college game, is that as a as a college coach, you pretty much have complete control. I mean you are in charge of, you know, what schemes your team's gonna run. You're in charge of what players you're bringing in. I mean, obviously the landscape has drastically changed in recent years. You know now that you're allowed to pay athletes with these name image and
likekness deals. But he's not gonna have to worry about an overbearing owner sort of controlling everything, because I mean that that was he kind of he had the reins completely during his time in New England. You know, he was in charge of all the plays they put out, he was in charge of who they brought in. And you know, in the later years of his tenure here, you know, the you know, ownership seemed like it was really starting to sink its teeth into what he was doing.
And and I think that bothered him because I know that he was linked with the Jacksonville job in the NFL, but people were talking about how they would have to get rid of their GM if they wanted to bring him in. And that was the same when he was going for the job in Atlanta and I think now that you know he's there, he doesn't really have anyone kind of overseeing him. It's the you know, the buck stops at him. He gets to make all those decisions. I think that's that's huge for him.
Yeah, it's gonna be interesting. I know one of his former assistant coaches pretty well, and I have some insight into what went on down in Atlanta. I think he was I think he thought that deal was done and I had that from a what I would consider to be a pretty good source, and it fell apart, not on his end, but on the Atlanta end. So maybe he just got tired of the gamesmanship within the NFL. But I'll tell you he doesn't have He might be the boss of the football program down there, but they
have something that most major colleges, the Alumni Association. If he wins, they will build a shrine to him. But if he doesn't win after a couple of years, and UNC has not been a powerhouse football program, although obviously Drake May the Patriots quarterback, came out of UNC. Yeah.
No, definitely. I mean under Mac Brown they had some they had some moments. I mean this year they went six and six. They're going to be playing in the Fenway Bowl actually, which is pretty exciting. You know, maybe Belichick's not supposed to coach that game, but he might be in attendance.
Oh, I definitely think he would want to be there to watch because some of those guys on the team, He's not going to turn that that roster over completely. They'll be changes, graduating seniors and maybe some players will decide to get in the portal and leave. But who I mean, it's just no, Yeah, what do you think? What do you think the key? What do you think the key was? I mean, was it it was? It could have been the money because he could have gotten just as much money in the NFL.
You I think a lot of it has to do with that. And then also, I mean in his prens conference today, he just said, you know, he just loves to coach. I think that, you know, I mean, he was he was pretty good on some of the media circuits.
He was doing.
But I mean, we know from anything, you know, Bill Belichick and the media are not exactly you know, they He has had his spats, but you know, I think he just really wanted to get on the field, and I think, you know, NFL teams didn't want to give him that control. And I think he he looked at this opportunity, as you know, and I get to be get to be on a field, and I get to build a build a program from the ground up. I mean the you mentioned, you know, the the he'll want
to see those players. I mean, this is a tremendous opportunity for any players that are that are on un see. I mean you in the college football landscape right now, you see so many people, you know, kids transferring because they're not getting enough playing time. You know they're transferring or you know, sitting out seasons because they're not getting
enough money. I mean that this is now, like I would argue if you want to go to if you're a start player that thinks that they're a star and wants to go to the NFL, I mean, this would be the best place to do it. I mean there's really no one else better to learn from than Bill Belichick. I mean it's only gonna time. Only time will really tell the results on if he, you know, can bring his you know, mindset to the college game and you know, if he can have success in that conference. But you know,
I was when I was working today. I saw comments from a former Patriot player, Logan Ryan. He was talking on CBS Sports and he was basically like, if you're a if you're a transfer player, like and you you really want to make that push to go pro, like, why would you not consider UNC? I mean, to get a chance to learn from maybe the greatest coach that's ever coached the game. I mean that's I mean, that seems like a no brainer.
Well, it's this is another factor and I'd love to get your reaction to it. I'm a sports guy. I know you're a sports guy, and not that either of us, you know, make our living covering sports. You cover a lot of different news stories. But Belichick's success at New England was over a period of twenty years, and he had a pretty good quarterback for most of those years, and when the quarterback left, the team sort of went away.
So you can have you can draft a quarterback like Drake May who's twenty two or twenty three years old, and you can say, okay, ten years minimum, maybe fifteen. Anybody who he brings into UNCEE three years, four years max. That's a different sort of situation that he's now going to find himself in and I wonder how difficult that will make it. You know, you start to get somebody good and all of a sudden they're going to boom, then they go, yeah, they're not there long. It's what
I'm saying. And I wonder if he'll have the patience because I don't think Belichick is someone who's imbued with a lot of patience. I don't know him at all, but I don't think patience is probably his strong suit.
Yeah, no, I could certainly see that. I mean, you bring up a good point where I mean, and especially if he's being successful, he'll probably only have three years because some of those kids will probably want to declare for the draft. And he talked a little bit in his press conference today about how, you know, developing players is really important to him. He mentioned, you know, Brady
was a fourth stringer his first year. You know, Gronk Edelman, you know those guys, they went through a lot of development in their time. But you know, I mean, you're right, you know, getting to work with these work these kids for such a short period of time, will that payoff? And I mean, you look at some of the issues that they had that the Pats had in his final season. You know, offensively, they weren't strong and the personnel that they were bringing in weren't up to the caliber that
you would expect the past Patriots teams. And in college recruiting is so much more important than it really is in the NFL because you have such a wide pool, and you know with now with nil deals. I mean, I know that reportedly UNC is increasing their nil pool to help him sort of entice more players there. But I mean, at the end of the day, like it's is he gonna be able to do the recruiting that's required. I mean, because I mean, obviously he has a pretty
good pitch. You know, Hey, I'm Bill Belichick. I'm the greatest coach of all time. Come play for me. But you know that there are coaches that have to put it a lot, a lot of legwork to get these deals done. And sometimes, you know, you put in all this work, you've you've got the money on the table, you got them all excited, and then they just flip
at the last second. And I can't imagine what what we'll be going through Bill Belichick's head the first time he has a recruit flip on him at the signing day.
Yeah, and also you gotta you have to go most of these college coaches, maybe Belichick would be the exception, but you have to go to the to the home of the kid. You gotta get on on a puddle jumper maybe, and go to wherever the talented players are and you got to meet mom and dad, and you got to schmooze a little bit. And I'm not sure he's the schmoozing type, but we'll see.
Yeah, No, he's He's He's definitely the type of guy that kind of always gets what he wants, if at least for most of his career. So it'll be interesting to see what happens when he's got to go into those you know, he's got to go to these high school games, got to go to these living rooms and meet with you know, the whole exten family and and and give a you know, a you know, sweet talk them and whatnot. I'd love to see. I'd love to be a fly on the wall and see that happen.
Yeah. I have a buddy of mine who played basketball at BC when Bob Coosey was a coach, and he told me it was just amazing, you know, Bob Cousy became the coach at BC right after his NBA career with the Celtics finished. And uh, he said, Bob Coosey walks into our house and he's asking me to play on his college But it was like done deals just by walking to the door. But I'm not sure that that the same sort of magic is going to occur when when Wody walks in the door. I don't know.
We'll see what happens. Gole. I enjoyed the conversation. I really appreciate it.
Of course, thank you for having back.
Come on back whenever you can, and don't forget to put in for some overtime tonight. Okay, definitely, thank you. Okay, we're gonna flip from school. This is like a regular newscast, going to go to weather next. Where do we stand with the drought. We're gonna be talking with an ACU
weather meteorologist. I'm pretty sure. Uh, we'll get to that right after this break here on Nightside, And we got lots of questions about not only the weather in the past, but what's coming up, particularly for the rest of the month. Coming back on.
Nightside now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World nightside studios on WBZ News Radio.
All right, we a very pleased to be joined again by Matt Benz. Hey, Matt, how are you tonight? Hey doing well? How are you doing? I'm doing great, a little bit better after this rain. Look, I'm trying to figure this out. We had a drought that a lot of rain. Where do we stand with the drought? Are we still in the drought? We out of the drought, were.
Close to the We're still We're still in the drought. So a couple yeah, I know, we keep that word going. But hey, there's a couple of different ways you can look at it. So for the year, we're actually a bob average in the precipitation department. He thinks, Okay, no drought. Yes, that's good, that's what we want to hear. But since September, September through November, that's a time period right there, we accumulated a drought deficit and rainfall of over five and
a half inches. So even though we saw all this rain, you know, in the last couple of days, that now puts us about one point nine inches above average per December, we still have about another four you know, three four inches a go to really say, hey, we've recovered, because we kind of went missing there for a while in the fall months and earlier in November.
So so you kind of look at like the year to date sort of thing, you know, almost got to do it. Obviously, we were in a drought in October and started in September, but we've now had more precipitation in twenty twenty four than we had in twenty twenty three.
Yeah, since it would be about correct. And yeah, it kind of weird that we're in the severe drought, but sometimes that's kind of how drought goes. It goes by, So it's not like it's not like the way it's been going slightly.
But it's what I'm saying is you got to think of it differently. It's not like a baseball season. A win in April is just as good as a win in August. You know, you want to get the number of rights to get the play. That's not quite it's not linear. So how much more rain would we need because it's going to rain next week to get out of the drought here.
I think what you'll see is, especially after this wet start to the month, you're gonna see a dent in. You know, when the drought monitor comes out right now, we're in that extreme drought category. I wouldn't be surprised that that usually updates every Thursday, and unfortunately we just kind of caught the tail end of this latest wet cycle, so to say. But I have a feeling what you're gonna see is we're gonna kind of step down gradually.
So we're in the extreme danger right now. Extreme drought right now probably go to the severe to moderate maybe, you know, by next week, and especially if we get the rain, I think you'll quickly see things improving here across the area. But just because it was so dry in the fall months, that really set us on the stage where where we're at right now.
Okay, I know this is not your department, but are there any brush fire is still burning in Massachusetts? I know they have some problems out in California, but I assume that our chance of brush fire has has diminished remarkably over.
The last few Yeah, especially with the especially with the rain that we've had. Now you've gotten you know, the at least a cut top soil top. They call it the duff, the all the leaf matter and stuff. Now that that's all really good and soap. That fire danger has gone down. Of course, if you get any long term drying trend for a couple of weeks, that could return, but at least for now, that fire danger has come down quite a bit.
And then the other question, of course, that everyone wants me to ask you, is we're going to have any snow by Christmas.
There's a big question. And here's what I can tell you right now. Right now, ACI Weather has some confidence that we're going to get another real cold shot of air here right before Christmas. And the big question is is that going to include snow. So we're gonna go through this weekend, it's gonna be chilly, we're gonna get into next week and it's gonna kind of warm up again, and you're kind of gonna think, well, we're not going to get back to that cold, winter like weather again.
But it does look like winter will turn at least with regards to cold air here probably after the twenty first and going towards Christmas. The big question is can we get some sort of moisture with that colder air, And that's kind of hard to say right now. Right now, our forecast looks like a low percent chance for a light Christmas here in Boston, but a little bit shift in the pattern could change that.
What's the long term for the balance of the winter. I read somewhere today that we are expecting, well, they didn't have much snow last winter, but that we are expecting more snow at least than last winter.
Yeah, we are expecting more snow than last winter, but still below the historical average of what we'd expect for a winter period. We're kind of on a fine line. I think northern New England, especially once you get into the interior Vermont, New Hampshire up into northern Maine, those areas could overperform this winter. But we're going to be right on that boundary where we're going to get into
these sloppy sides of these storms. We're probably going to get more rain and then some snow, but overall we expect the balance of snow to be higher than last year, but perhaps below the historical average for the year.
Matt, let me ask you this. When you go to parties and people say, hey, what sort of what's on a line of work you win, Matt, I kind of assume that you really don't tell on your meteorologists, because I assumed every question for the for the balance of the parties. What about this? What about that? Do you get that when you get out in social settings, I'm assuming you do.
Yeah, and then you also get you know, you get paid for being wrong all the time, and you know all that different stuff.
Oh yeah, so they'll ask you what the forecast is and then they'll insult you. Oh yeah, that would be.
But yes, I kind of keep it a little down low when you go out some days.
Yeah. Yeah, no, with a name like Ben's last name, Matt, Ben's what's some of your car dealer or.
Something like that, I get to add as my my daughter's name, Mercedes. You know, I get that a lot. So yeah, all sorts of fun jokes that come up. Yeah, that's great, that's great, Matt, to get a great sense of humor. Always enjoy talking to you, particularly now that a little bit of.
The pressure is off. I was down the Cape for most of the summer and well into the fall, and it was amazingly beautiful in the Cape. I know it cost a lot of aggravation up here, but it was spectacular September and you know, an opulent October in terms of how we were doing, and uh, you know if you had anything to do with that, Matt, I just on behalf of everyone down in the Cape. I want to say thank you very much, well, thank you and and you're welcome.
I just did it for the Cape though, and not for everyone else because I know we needed the rain elsewhere.
AH got you, I got you, all right, Matt, thank you so much. We'll talk again. Okay, all right, sounds good. Thanks for having all right, my pleasure, my pleasure, absolutely always like to talk with Matt Benn's. Okay, when we get back, let me give you a quick rundown on what we're going to be doing tonight, because I think it's important. We'll be opening up those f FO will actually be Rob will be opening up the phone line.
It's going to talk about the level of empathy and I guess you could almost stay sympathy shown for this guy, Luigi Mengioni, the guy charging the murder of US Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson troubling, including some comments made by our own Senator Elizabeth Warren. We'll get into that. Also, we're going to talk with a criminologist named Scott Bond. We've had him on before. He has an expertise in serial killers. Now again, this guy, to the best of our knowledge,
is not a serial killer. But we're going to talk a little bit about what goes into the minds of these folks and the Later on tonight, we're going to talk about those mysterious drones over New Jersey and of all the places in America, why would anyone be flying in drones over New Jersey. I mean there's really well, there's a couple of military bases there, you get, right,
Air Force Base Fort Dix and all that. But so we're gonna that's Those are the topics for the night stay with us always welcoming new callers feel free as well as old callers. My name's Dan Ray. This is Nightside. We'll be back right after this