Weather

[Helen]

We, in the North West, were hit with a pretty good windstorm before Christmas. It damage my car, gutters and fence.

For the past two weeks it really hasn't been much above freezing if at all. Two days ago we had a pretty good snow storm by NW standards. Tonite we are getting more snow.

Here's a link to a video from yesterday. (I like it when his headlight falls off the car), I swear the first person has his foot on the gas.

http://www.king5.com/sharedcontent/VideoPlayer/videoPlayer.php?vidId=114054&catId=231

What is your weather like this winter and where are you ?

 

[ladelfina]

Here we have had an unseasonably warm winter so far. Right now it's about 50°F at 11am. Central Italy at 575 meters above sea level. Usually it would be at least 5-10° colder. Haven't noticed any nights below freezing, either, which usually we would've had by now, along with at least a dusting of snow. A lot of humidity and fog which leaves everything continuously wet, but that's normal.

I like the video ("Heads up!"). You'd think after seeing a couple of these, people would get a clue and just stay put.

 

[dumpster56]

We, in the North West, were hit with a pretty good windstorm before Christmas. It damage my car, gutters and fence.

For the past two weeks it really hasn't been much above freezing if at all. Two days ago we had a pretty good snow storm by NW standards. Tonite we are getting more snow.

Here's a link to a video from yesterday. (I like it when his headlight falls off the car), I swear the first person has his foot on the gas.

http://www.king5.com/sharedcontent/VideoPlayer/videoPlayer.php?vidId=114054&catId=231

What is your weather like this winter and where are you ?

Morons. The first jerk was trying to hit as many parked cars as he could!!

In conditions like that you DO NOT DRIVE!

 

[linkerbink]

Here in eastern Pennsylvania we've also had a weird winter so far....warm, no sn*w as yet. There is a ski resort just a few miles from my house, and about a week or so the manager was on NPR's "All Things Considere" lamenting about the terrible season. He said they were already about 1.5 Million behind their usual to-date income, as they missed their busiest time of the year, Christmas vacation. At least it's finally cold enough to make snow... highs in the 30s. Wouldn't you know, this year I decided I'd try my hand a skiing (although I HATE cold weather!).

By the way, I'm in my third week of retirement, and I can't be happier. The sense of relief is unbelievable...I feel like I'm two inches taller, with all the weight of work off my shoulders!

 

[Outtahere]

I saw that video last night on the news, crazy to go out in weather like that. We had an ice storm Monday into Tuesday morning, everything was covered with a layer of ice, people are still without power in some places. The temps went from unusually warm to single digits, it's insane.

 

[Rich_by_the_Bay]

It was at times frustrating here in Florida two years ago when the state was revaged by 4 hurricanes. A few folks elsewhere whined about "why should the rest of the country help pick up the tab when you chose to live there."

Well, over the last couple of years, a combination of ice storms, wind, rain, power outages, flooding, fires and other weather events elsewhere have displaced, injured and killed people in regions all over the country. We all chose to live somewhere. My heart goes out to anyone touched by these events.

Natural catastrophes can occur anywhere. It is heartening to see the nation rally to help those in need. I hope people keep that in mind next time disaster strikes, whether in Florida or anywhere else.

 

[dumpster56]

It was at times frustrating here in Florida two years ago when the state was revaged by 4 hurricanes. A few folks elsewhere whined about "why should the rest of the country help pick up the tab when you chose to live there."

Well, over the last couple of years, a combination of ice storms, wind, rain, power outages, flooding, fires and other weather events elsewhere have displaced, injured and killed people in regions all over the country. We all chose to live somewhere. My heart goes out to anyone touched by these events.

Natural catastrophes can occur anywhere. It is heartening to see the nation rally to help those in need. I hope people keep that in mind next time disaster strikes, whether in Florida or anywhere else.

Rich

It snowed 1 inch here in the raleigh area this morning and to listen to the news channels its like the world is ending. They closed all the schools and it is now raining and above freezing.

I was gonna be a sub today and walked to the school to find out they closed at the last min with buses pulling up with kids on them.

Humans really are dumb!

 

[Martha]

Weird winter here too in northern MN. Hardly any snow and we have been able to shovel all the snow that we get, without using the snowblower. Supposed to get some snow today but it hasn't appeared yet.

Warmer than average as well. The past week or so it has been floating around between 5 below and 5 above, but should be in the teens the rest of this week. No bitter cold 20-30 below days. Fortunately we are cold enough that we don't tend to get those ice storms that are hitting much of the lower midwest and northwest.

 

[justin]

It has been unseasonably warm in Raleigh - in the 70's. Up until a day ago when it turned really cold. This morning we had an inch or two of snow on the ground. I went outside and all the dandelions are frozen and partially covered with snow.

Raleigh does slow to a crawl when there is a slight amount of snow. I think it is because no one here uses snow tires or winter tires (we only get winter weather a couple times per year, and it usually lasts 1-2 days max). My impression is that folks "up north" all matter-of-factly put on snow tires every winter and switch them back for all-season tires in the spring.

Newguy - make sure you stock up on as much milk and bread as you can find since a trace of snow causes a run on these grocery items in Raleigh!

 

[REWahoo]

It was great here until Monday. As some of you may have seen on the news, South TX had some icy weather over the past couple of days. It has been 32 or below for 50+ hours, which hasn't happened for 25 or 30 years. And it rained and drizzled enough to coat everything with 1/2 - 3/4" of ice.

This is not normal for this part of the world (San Antonio area). Icing on bridges & overpasses overwhelmed the limited capacity of the city/state and almost everything ground to a halt. Many lost power due to icy tree limbs downing power lines. We were lucky and didn't have a power problem...but the ice has wreaked havoc on our mountain laurels, bending them to the ground and breaking what I estimate to be about 1/3 of them. Gonna be a lousy spring...

 

[Martha]

Justin, I don't think it is the snow tires, though they do help a lot when driving on snowy streets. Most people I know don't bother with snow tires. I think it is lack of experience. When you were a kid did you take the family car out on an icy lake and do doughnuts?

REW, that ice is dangerous! Be careful out there.

 

[dumpster56]

Oh lack of experience IS THE PROBLEM!

I was out this morning in the 1 inch blizzard!!!

People flying in their pickup trucks like it was dry saw two crashes due to SPEED!!

I hate to say this BUT the local Yokels who hate us northerners are well, nice goodoleboys and I will buy them a drink at a gin mill and help my new neighbors BUT they really need to get some common sense!!

Uh ice and snow means SLOW!!!

 

[Outtahere]

I've seen that too on our trips to Florida. We just trudge along at a reasonable speed and the locals whiz by. We usually see them a ways up the road in a ditch or over a guard rail.

 

[TromboneAl]

I swear the first person has his foot on the gas.

Yes, definitely. I remember watching that clip on TV last night, and thinking "I wonder if anyone else noted that he's stepping on the accelerator."

What I think isn't obvious from that clip, is that the street is on a hill, and once the cars lose traction they just keep going. That first guy was either on drugs or thought he could power his way back up the hill(?)

It's colder than it's ever been here. Living room was 55 degrees this morning, but I'm in front of a nice fire now.

 

[BigMoneyJim]

When I saw the firetruck in the video I thought "oh no", but apparently he wisely blocked the street.

A few years ago I was driving home in a pickup truck after a sudden freezing rain. I was careful and stayed off the freeways (although sometimes the freeways stay warmer and better cleared due to traffic) and tried to avoid bridges. Well, I had to cross one big bridge that arched up. The drivers were being relatively smart and letting people try one car at a time. I was smart enough to give up after not making the first try and turn around, but in retrospect I wonder if it was smart to try at all after seeing that some people didn't make it and I was in a empty-bedded pickup. I went to the nearest hotel and grabbed the last room. The next morning the roads were heavily salted and safer.

More recently there was a steady day-long rain, and the drainage ditchwater fountain behind my apartment overflowed and started flowing over the road into the next drainage ditchwater fountain. (Rent was $5 per month extra for a water view, lol.) The flow was heavy, and I started worrying about cars getting washed away or even the road washing away under the flow. I tried to wave cars away and warn drivers of the danger. Almost nobody turned around even after one car stalled from water ingestion and was sitting abandoned in the shallow part of the flow. Even some pedestrians waded through the flow to get to the laundromat. I have some red road triangles in the trunk of my car, so I put those out to "block" the road. Surprisingly the drivers found the triangles much more authoritative than me and nobody drove around the triangles. Go figure.

So the morals of the story are that many drivers place speed and convenience priorities far above weather safety and that orange triangles are far more effective in keeping traffic out of dangerous areas than a roadside human.

 

[ronin]

We've had some really cold weather that, over the weekend, dropped into a hard freeze and is knocking the aggies for a loop. My own smaller citrus were frozen solid even though I wrapped them up, and the water pipes outdoors were frozen so I couldn't spray them to help defrost in the early morning. The big citrus and avocados seem to have survived. Makes me wish I was still trying to grow apples and cherries.

 

[USK Coastie]

I've been busy thawing out crawl space drains that have frozen causing water to back up into the crawl space

 

[Nords]

Yeah, it's been pretty brutal here too. The surf's in the mid-70s and the surfer girls are starting to wear full-coverage bottoms instead of thongs...

 

[Goonie]

Here in north-central IL, it was spitting a few flakes again....about a 1/4" in the last 24 hours, and a total of about an inch onthe ground. It was 35 out today, and it's 30 out now.

The other day was the first snow in 44 days. We had 8" of snow on top of about a half inch of ice the first of December and it was gone in about a week when it got back into the 50's. It was 56 on New Years Eve. We finally got back to normal or lower than normal temps the other day. We had above normal temps for 34 days straight. It's been a nice winter thus far!!! We did have a fair amount of rain for the last month or so. Minor river flooding, but no danger to homes or property.

Last weekend we were "supposed" to get 3" to 5" of snow.....NO snow just rain....about an inch! Don't have to shovel rain!

 

[rs0460a]

Looks like Europe is sharing in this "strange weather":

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2007/01/18/D8MNSLIG0.html

 

[d]

and the surfer girls are starting to wear full-coverage bottoms instead of thongs...

... bummer!

 

[ronin]

Snowed in Malibu a couple of days ago...

 

[laurence]

Ice on my windsheild this past week two days in a row. Highs were in the low sixties, but we are warming back up to the seventies now. Phew! I thought I was going to have to wear a jacket! Can't beat Nords, though.

 

[Zoocat]

More snow for the Denver area coming up this weekend! Yippee! The temperature has only inched above freezing for a day or two since around December 20. This morning in the news someone was quoted as asking "I'd like someone to tell me when I moved to Minnesota!" I've also heard reports that normally happy Coloradoans are getting cranky and actually beeping their horns at people during rush hour traffic.

There's still two or three inches of packed ice from the first big snow dump at Christmas on the streets in my neighborhood and now it's bumpy and wavy so while driving around the neighborhood your car's suspension system gets a nice workout.

At least the sun has been nice and bright, even though the 20 degree weather forces you to wear two layers of polartec and a down parka. :

 

[lazygood4nothinbum]

we've got some freak high set up over florida which is keeping the cool air out. my garden seems confused. stuff that normally flowers in winter has already gone out of bloom. bamboo is starting to sprout months early and even the cypress tree is starting to green already.

i was hoping the snowbirds would also get confused and go home early but i don't see that happening.

rewahoo!, great pic. i've never seen frozen cactus before.