Winter Storms in the U.S.

[Uncle Al]

Brrrrrrrrrr and Good Morning

Here, in North Texas, we are starting with a BRISK 18*F and the wind-chill
is around 0*F +/- a degree or two. The Gas Companies have advised that
Industrial/Business use will be curtailed so that homes will be not go
without heat.

Yesterday we had "Rolling Blackouts" from the electric company. I did make
it to work, and then 10 minutes after scheduled opening, the electricity was
cut-off for 45 minutes.

Driving was easier on Tuesday than yesterday. One "person" (a.k.a. idiot)
was driving in the 'cleared' lane at 20mph with their flashers on. This
caused a traffic back-up for about a mile or so.

What North Texas has experienced is moving Northeast. What the
Greater Chicago Area has experienced is moving East. The Mid-Atlantic
States up through New England is going to get more snow than you
thought possible.

If you don't have to go out of the house--DON'T. Keep safe and warm.
If you must go out to protect your homes from heavy snow, God speed
that you can get back inside quickly.

Unfortunately, most heart attacks occur during severe snow events.
Be careful

Today is NOT a skirted/kilted day

A cold Uncle Al

[DALederle]

My sister, who lives in New Jersey, told me last night, when she called to check on us, that she had a record of over 60" of snow already. That's five feet! And there was more coming her way from the storm that hit us.
Wow!
Crazy weather the whole world is having.
A new ice age?
Where's Al Gore when you need him. He promised us global warming and I'm still waiting for those tropical temperatures to appear and thaw me out.


I'd laugh myself to tears but the tears will freeze and that could hurt!

Dennis A. Lederle
Grok?

[Since1982]

I woke up at 6 am this morning in a cold sweat, with rivelets of sweat pouring down my back. Turned on both the window A/C's and went to the window to see what the outside temperature was...88 degrees F. After about an hour of 70 degree A/C I was cool enough to set it at 75F and go back to bed until 9 am where a movie I had fave placed for 9 started with the introduction and I set the recorder to save the movie for later. Got up, dressed, came out to my computer and started playing online poker. I still am with both A/C's still on. Crazy weather for sure.

[Jack Williams]

Well, a couple of big Summer storms/cyclones here. Nothing blew over here, but stuff is sure blowing over in Queensland Australia at present! We haven't seen much of Sarongman lately, I do hope he's OK.

[Jack Williams]

In fact I just took this picture of the front page of today's New Zealand Herald showing some of aftermath of the category-five cyclone still raging on into the interior of Queensland.

[STEVIE]

My sympathies go out to all the people imperilled by it, but it's "weather".
If we had any control, it would add to all the other conflicts we have in the world today.
Nature says, I'm the "BOSS", no matter what we think.
Steve.

[Jack Williams]

While we may have got a lot of wind and extensive flooding here in New Zealand from the two storm a week apart, we are too far South to get the kind of devastation seen in Aussie above. They tend to turn into heavy rain dumps here.
I was just reading a report from Chicago about that storm there, which stretched for more than 3000km, from Texas to Maine! That's certainly some storm. 53cm of snow yesterday in Chicago. "It's such a huge city and it's silent" said schoolteacher Elana Hiller wading through hip deep snow. -27 degrees C in Fargo, North Dakota.
It seems the famous groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil ignored it all and emerged from his burrow yesterday to predict that Spring is right around the corner though, in the annual Groundhog Day tradition. Love it!

[crfriend]

It seems the famous groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil ignored it all and emerged from his burrow yesterday to predict that Spring is right around the corner though, in the annual Groundhog Day tradition. Love it!

That groundhog was dragged from his burrow -- DRAGGED, I tell you! Rodents can be pretty darned smart, and I can well imagine that guy's fervent desire to stay safely and warmly holed up in his burrow. What the folks in Pennsylvania don't want anybody to know is that no fewer than five of the people who have done that to "Phil" in the past now peacefully rest six feet down due to the ravaging that they got from the irate groundhog -- and that's just the number they'll quietly admit to, but always off the record!

[DALederle]

I still can't go out my front door. There is a four foot drift of snow that I can't get at because the plow that cleared my driveway piled up so much snow no one can shovel it out. The mail lady delivers to our kitchen door now, instead of our front door. Years ago I put up a small mailbox for the newspaper delivery boy. But the papers stopwd the boy carriers right after that and now have cars that drive by a toss papers into our driveway.
Unfortunatly, because of my heart conditions I can't even lift a snow shovel or go outside for too long in this weather. This COPD is bad enough but the heart risk is something that my wife won't let me risk.
There's talk of a two day warm up, into the 30s by this weekend and then another storm for next week!
Won't this winter ever end??????????????
Gr-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-!!!!!!!!


Dennis A. Lederle
Grok?

[Jack Williams]

Gosh Carl, is that really so? Makes a travesty of the whole thing.
Yes I think people here don't know how lucky they are with our temperate climate.
I think though that the naysayers are wrong, there is in fact climate change, and all this is part of the new more turbulent weather.

[Kirbstone]

Four feet of snow is a very good excuse for you to 'hibernate', Dennis. With February here Spring can only be around the corner.

Here in Ireland we get a long spring, with moderate low temps. allowing daffodils & tulips to bloom outdoors for a long time. Spring here usually kicks in during February and lasts until late May, but 'Summer' in very slow to arrive.
Leave the snow shovelling to the young ones...

[crfriend]

Gosh Carl, is that really so? Makes a travesty of the whole thing.

Unfortunately, the whole thing is very hush-hush, sort of like drop bears from Down Under, so getting hard verifiable facts is difficult at best. However, many rodents do stay somewhat active through the winter months -- I saw squirrels out and about a few days ago -- so folklore originating about seeing a groundhog up and about at this time of year as a harbinger of spring (and usually it is "another six weeks") is perfectly believeable. The shenanigans in Pennsylvania with "Punxsutawney Phil" (the spelling on that is, of course, incorrect) are a time-honored tradition going back several decades; it seems a harmless-enough enterprise to badger a groundhog for one day per year, but there are those persistent rumours...

Yes I think people here don't know how lucky they are with our temperate climate.
I think though that the naysayers are wrong, there is in fact climate change, and all this is part of the new more turbulent weather.

Seconded. On a geologic scale, we're still clawing our way out of the last ice-age, so warming is to be expected. Are humans playing a role in this? Likely, but the precise extent is not well understood at this time and more work, especially at the geological level, is going to be required to properly answer that question. However, what would the harm be to cut back on the amount of energy we consume and, by cause, how much carbon dioxide we emit into the atmosphere? Why isn't more attention being paid to solar power (where it works), wind (24x7 so long as it's blowing), and even nuclear (yes, it produces some really nasty by-products, but what's worse several hundred tonnes of lethal stuff or millions of tonnes of pollutant spilled into the atmosphere)?

Here in New England, we're staring down the barrel of yet another couple of approaching storms; the one today is supposed to drop about five inches of snow after starting as rain, and there's another slated to hit mid-week with the forecast as yet uncertain. I was going to try to get up on the ladder and bust up some ice-dams on the roof today, but seeing as I didn't get any sleep last night I cannot do that safely.

[Since1982]

I love Groundhog Day, I watch it 2 or 3 times every winter to see how the people in the Northern Climes suffer thru the Winter and Bill Murray changes from a hard core nasty hateful weatherman into a sweet big huggy bear. Now I've met Bill Murray back in 1992 and that movie IS a REAL Fantasy. Mr. Murray is a really sarcastic, argumentative, self centered, pushy troublemaker of an actor and he told a bunch of reporters that he loved the first half of that movie and hated the second half. (in the movie, he played a troublemaker in the first half, the part he loved and a nice guy in the second half, the part he hated. ) This was at the Miami (FL.) annual Bayfront Park boat show and his histrionics were at a display 2 stations down from the one I was running. I was teaching people how to tie unbreakable monofilament knots in fishing line. My Dad invented a knot that if the system breaks it's always the line itself that breaks, never the knot.

[crfriend]

Here in Ireland we get a long spring, with moderate low temps. allowing daffodils & tulips to bloom outdoors for a long time. Spring here usually kicks in during February and lasts until late May, but 'Summer' in very slow to arrive.
Leave the snow shovelling to the young ones...

Go ahead and rub it in. "Spring" here in New England is not-so-fondly referred to as "mud season" and typically lasts about two weeks following the last freeze and the first 90 degree (F) day. We have tulips, daffodils, and crocuses which "snout up" in the reverse of the order listed, and last for maybe three weeks or a month. There's a patch of semi-wild tulips in our backyard which are still going fairly strong after 27+ years (they were there when Sapphire bought the place almost 30 years ago) that to this day give me strength that better times are on the way when I see the first "snouts" (and I look daily for them, mind you, once the snow is gone (which may be in June this time 'round).

Given that freezing rain is in the forecast, and we started taking water from one of our roof's ice-dams this morning, I went aloft twice today to deal with the dratted things. After spending an hour-plus in digging out the ladder, I managed to wade through hip-deep snow to place said ladder (and, NO, I was NOT wearing a skirt for this exercise). After warming up and drying off after the previous work session, I climbed the ladder and went to work on ice that was six inches deep with a five pound hand-maul -- and was rewarded almost immediately with a strong stream of water. Which, needless to say, soaked me rather thoroughly adding a profound level of discomfort to the rest of the task. At least we're not taking water any longer -- at least from the roof (the foundation is another matter).

I am so ready for spring, er, "mud season", because it means that summer -- and all that that season brings with it (sailing, short skirts, griping from Sapphire, air-con bills, and sweltering in traffic-jams) is just around the corner!

[DALederle]

The bad news in Chicago is that we are in the deep freeze right now. Overnights below zero and days in the single digits. After all the snow this bites. My wife doesn't me want to go outside at all right now, because of my COPD, so all I can do is sit inside and watch the snow and cold out my window.
Does anyone else noticed how bright it seems during the day, this time of the year, when the sun finally comes out? My word! The glare off the snow is so bright that after I look out the back door to see what the dogs are up to I can't hardly see a thing in the house for a few seconds and even then it all gets hazy for a while.
Now the good news!
It's going above freezeing this weekend and into next week.
WOW! aren't we lucky!
Of course it'll take a while for that white stuff to melt. But the more sun we get the faster it will work.
Glad my dogs don't mind the cold or the snow. But I am careful, right now, about how long they stay outside. Next week they can stay out most of the afternoon and run around and bark all they want.


Dennis A. Lederle
Grok?