Weather in NW Europe

[Kirbstone]

I'm amused at the weather presenters on the British TV who stand in front of the map blocking off the Irish Republic with their bodies/heads and gesticulating with their right arms all over the aforesaid map, waffling on about snow here and blizzard conditions there, with treacherous frost & black ice everywhere, presumably all this ghastly weather missing our Republic altogether..... and for once they're right!

I have family still stationed at strategic points of the Youkay who are all reporting a lot of snow &c &c. Even our home weathermen dared to predict a white slippery weekend for us....Wrong. We haven't had so much as a flake of snow and only a few light frosts to date. Both yesterday & this morning I was up in Dublin at 08.00 hours pounding up & down the Liffey in near-ideal conditions and a bone dry nearly empty road back home again.

Perhaps I'll eat my words this coming week......

T.

[crfriend]

Both yesterday & this morning I was up in Dublin at 08.00 hours pounding up & down the Liffey in near-ideal conditions and a bone dry nearly empty road back home again.

I'm a wee bit jealous. Running up and down the river sounds like a good time and an even better workout. Just don't hit your noggin on that low bridge!

Later in the coming week the forecasts here are calling for low temperatures of 0/-18 (F/C) and highs of only 15/-9. I just hope the wind won't be whipping! It was in the mid 20s last night and this morning, with a southwest wind at a steady 30 MPH with gusts into the mid 40s -- this had the result of chilling my study, which usually stays at a nice balmy mid 70s (F), down to about 55 (F) where it was when I was blown from bed by the pager at 04:30 and had to get up, log into work, and sort the mess out. Boy did it feel good to get back into a warm bed after that!

[john62]

Well here in Southern Australia temp. from mid 20sC to mid 40sC, a bushfire outside of Melbourne has burnt out 50 000 hectares taken 20 or so houses and one life, and unfortunately this coming Thursday will again be in the 40s with srong winds.

[Sarongman]

The Warrumbungle National Park is also a massive blaze and over 40 dwellings lost and numerous sheds. A firefighter from interstate has lost his life in the Tasmanian fires, which almost wiped out the town of Dunalley, We have been comparatively lucky herer with only the smell of smoke from distant fires. There is hope on the horizon though, as the monsoons have ( a month late ) finally hit the top end and a small cyclone has developed. We got 14 points of rain the night before last, but Waewick was hit by the same storm and had strong winds and flash flooding, but thankfully no hail.
One good thing about the drought, though, has been the fact that there has been negligible mowing needed.

[crfriend]

I must say that it's good to hear from the Aussies amongst us, just to know that they're OK. I wonder how our Tasmanian (Tassierob) is faring!

This is the time where we in the Northern Hemisphere gripe and complain about the cold and wet. Things have been warming over the past half-century to the point where it's rare we get cold so severe that it's life-threatening, and that's one of the reasons we gripe about it when it is (and, make no bones about it, 0 degrees F can be real trouble if one is not prepared for it). But, it's nothing like having a wildfire breathing down your neck.

And, I fear, it's only going to keep going in the same direction unless we can do something about it. Like stopping idiocy like this.

[Kirbstone]

My word, Carl, It really is very cold with you just now. Not a lot of gardening being done I expect. Being a computer expert, are you on call 24/7 on that pager? Don't envy that.

When the tides are wrong we stay above our wier on the non-tidal stretch of the Liffey where all the boathouses are and where they hold the small regattas. Today for instance we just did four 'runs', each of which is 2.5Km up to the next bridge at a place called Chapelizod & back. That's 4X5Km, 20Km. in all, which takes about 90 moinutes. Shower & change and it takes me 35 mins gentle driving to get back home.

After such a strenuous work-out I generally have to take a magnesium salts pill or two to ward off muscle cramps in my legs afterwards, to which I've become prone.

Sarongman. Glad you survived the firing squad. They must have used dummy bullets. Yes, We've been reading in the news about your ghastly fires. They've had it bad also in Tasmania & I hope Tassierob's OK.
Re: mowing: A German who owned s holiday home near us in Kerry, SW Ireland sold up and returned to Germany, giving one of his reasons that he couldn't stay on top of the lawnmowing.....The grass grows down there on 389 days a year.!

T.

[crfriend]

My word, Carl, It really is very cold with you just now. Not a lot of gardening being done I expect.

It's been a bit of a crap-shoot. For a goodly part of the winter so far we've been running several degrees above normal, but recently we've taken a bit of a dive. I'm hoping that the dive will be a short one.

Being a computer expert, are you on call 24/7 on that pager? Don't envy that.

I'm on call 24/7 every third week, soon to be every other following the most recent corporate re-org. I'm working like mad to get the international staff to the point where at least they'll be able to triage problems before waking us up here in the States. I work for a company on which the sun never sets, so it only makes sense to let the folks that are awaks deal with things!

Today for instance we just did four 'runs', each of which is 2.5Km up to the next bridge at a place called Chapelizod & back. That's 4X5Km, 20Km. in all, which takes about 90 moinutes.

A good friend and colleague at work used to row on the water for a while, and now does so on a machine in his basement (I regard that as torture as without the gentle sound of the water and being close to nature it must be positively awful.) and says he does 10 kM in about 90 minutes. I'm beginning to think he's making it up.

Do you do "cool-down" exercises as well, or just hop in the car and solidify there on your way back to Castle Kirby? Even I tend to do cool-down stuff from my strenuous work, the hardest of which is usually shovelling snow. If I don't wind down gradually I tend to lock up in whatever relaxed pose I adopted immediately after hard work.

[skirtyscot]

I'm amused at the weather presenters on the British TV who stand in front of the map blocking off the Irish Republic with their bodies/heads and gesticulating with their right arms all over the aforesaid map, waffling on about snow here and blizzard conditions there, with treacherous frost & black ice everywhere, presumably all this ghastly weather missing our Republic altogether..... and for once they're right!

I have family still stationed at strategic points of the Youkay who are all reporting a lot of snow &c &c. Even our home weathermen dared to predict a white slippery weekend for us....Wrong. We haven't had so much as a flake of snow and only a few light frosts to date.

Not a flake here either. The wind is from the south-east and by the time it reaches us it has dumped all its snow on somebody else. Still chilly though!

[Sarongman]

Thought Carl, and others, might appreciate my bumper (actually rear window) sticker.

[Kirbstone]

Good poster, Sarongman. Fracking seems to have become the flavour of the month among miners recently. Perhaps after the Revolution we can summarily execute all them, too.

Carl, A Concept Erg(ometer) is about equivalent to a coxed four, slower than an eight. 45 minutes would be reasonable for a Masters' Rower to do 10Km on an erg. 90 mins/20Km static would commit the user to some asylum or other. Far better to do that sort of distance out on the water in changing scenery.
Today, due to injury/illness we had two imported 'young bloods' in the stern, ages 41 & 43, and they set a cracking pace for the last two 'runs', finishing with a 2Km piece against a fast quad from a neighbouring club, so we had no warm-down, which we usually have. It's no wonder I got a leg cramp later in the day!.

Yes, SS, my 'contact' on Skye (Camuscross) reported no local snow either, but mighty amounts on all the hills behind her and on those across the Sound of Sleat in her view....Very pretty!

T.

[crfriend]

Good poster, Sarongman. Fracking seems to have become the flavour of the month among miners recently. Perhaps after the Revolution we can summarily execute all them, too.

I have a couple of observations. One, "frack" was a verb used in the late 1970s version of Battlestar Galactica and was roughly equivalent to the F-word which could not be uttered on television at the time; two, if we execute everybody deserving of it after the Revolution I rather suspect we'll have a bottleneck in the gene-pool. From recent experience, I have my own set of miscreants I'd like to see led off to their ends.

A Concept Erg(ometer) is about equivalent to a coxed four, slower than an eight.

That makes sense, the four being shorter on the waterline than an eight. When Sapphire and I attended her 45th high-school reunion one of the places we dined in had an eight hung from the ceiling; I still recall wondering how those things get kept upright in practise other than blind luck and fast reflexes. Handling one of them on anything remotely resembling open water must be akin to ballet.

Far better to do that sort of distance out on the water in changing scenery.

And better for the soul, too!

Today, due to injury/illness we had two imported 'young bloods' in the stern, ages 41 & 43, and they set a cracking pace for the last two 'runs', finishing with a 2Km piece against a fast quad from a neighbouring club, so we had no warm-down, which we usually have. It's no wonder I got a leg cramp later in the day!.

I hope your scullmates are already on the mend and will be back on-line soon! The kiddies need mentors.

So, yes, without a cool-down you answered for your "sins" (and I hope it's better now). I'm a sprinter, not a marathoner (like you), so my heavy work is mostly anaerobic. I can beat a snow-blower in clearing a foot of "white stuff" from a driveway (it torques the neighbours off no end), but by the time I get inside the effort expended all of a sudden becomes very apparent, and I need to keep mobile to keep from locking up in place.

[Kirbstone]

After our outing today when our convenor asked us for our ages 'this year' I joked about our two youngsters not having joined-up handwriting, to which one of them said that joined-up thinking was harder.

An eight with three-quarters of a ton of humanity aboard sits well down in the water and at the end of a rowing piece when the cox orders 'easy all', everybody just sits arms straignt & hands down on the gunwale, blades uniformly high off the water feathered and the boat can balance like that indefinitely before the order 'drop' comes, which returns the feathered blades to the water. Novices can't do this, of course.
A single racing scull is just 10 inches across at its widest and the rower sits on top. The balance between strokes is achieved by the level of the hands as one slides forward, directly affecting the flight of the feathered blades. These boats won't balance indefinitely and the flight of the blades is short, usually skimming the water in choppy conditions.

T.

[Big and Bashful]

Well for a change we actually have snow, not really lying, but the rain is definitely sort of white and floaty, oh ok, sleet I suppose!

[Different_Trains]

We've had lots of snow here near London. Constant all day on Friday and again on Sunday. Temps not getting above freezing during the days.

[Big and Bashful]

Rain at my house, but less than ten miles away had great fun on a snow bound single track road over a pass into Glen Fruin. On the way back stopped to tow a postman who was never going to make it up without help. Yep, Shogun + chunky tyres = good in snow.