We Has Snow

Here's the parking lot at work this evening when I came out: 

There's at least three inches of snow on the back bumper of my car. It accumulated in roughly four hours. 

Our total is now over five feet (over 1.5 meters) for this winter. It's been a long time since we've had lots of below zero temperatures and lots of snow. When I was a kid, seemed like every winter was like this -  a few inches of snow every couple days. It's nice, really. The dirty snow keeps getting covered with fresh stuff.

Today's snow is very fluffy and sparkles in the light. 

Driving home, it was as if everything had been sprinkled with fairy dust. 

In other news, John from my library writing group and I are having a friendly competition collecting rejection slips. It started at the December meeting; he had one - his Very First! I had one, also (the first for my Orchid story, but not my first one ever.) And so the competition began. 

At the January meeting he had another one. I didn't. :-(  John ahead, 2 to 1. 

The February meeting is this coming week. Orchid got two more, for a total of three. I have refrained from emailing him. Will be patient. Will wait for meeting. 

Also, have to get that story out to the next market! That's why this competition is not only fun, but productive. To keep up we have to keep submitting. 

I love all my writing buddies.  Just saying.

Winter in the Midwest

It's cold here and will be getting colder. Yes, I know it's worse in Wisconsin, Minnesota and the Dakotas, but this is where I am.

Currently it's 14℉ (-10℃), the wind's blowing at 21 mph. Wind chill is about -4℉ (-20℃). We have more than a foot of snow on the ground, judging from the snow 'hats' on the bushes.

That's the view from my open garage door, looking toward the main entrance to our building. The snow wasn't plowed today, but you can see the mound on the left there from previous plowings.  

Hurricane Sandy

I've been following this storm since she was south of Jamaica.  Tonight's news is so sad.  The NHC (National Hurricane Center) did a phenomenal job of forecasting the path and danger from the storm surge.  Too many people were complacent and ignored the warnings. 

(Photo from NASA GOES satellite)

When the sun comes up we'll see pictures and videos of the damage, the displaced people, etc. 

Please donate whatever you can to organizations that can help.  One I favor is Portlight.  They focus on aiding disabled victims and those otherwise underserved by some of the larger organizations. 

The Heat Continues ...

The rain has started and the current temperature is 69°F, so it looks like that string of days above 80°F is broken.

But we had FIVE of them.  It was 82°F both Friday and Saturday.  That’s the average high around here in August.  Prior to this heat spell, there were only ten March days with highs in the 80s for Chicago, going back to 1871.  Last year this time we had temperatures in the 50s!

The National Weather Service says:   “Chicago and Rockford have now both broken high temperature records 5 days in a row. There is even the potential they could tie or break record highs for up to an unbelievable 8 days in a row depending on how warm temperatures get Monday through Wednesday. It is extraordinarily rare for climate locations with 100+ year long periods of records to break records day after day after day.” 

The jet stream pattern that’s been in place for a while now, a deep, narrow bulge that heads south down the California coast then back north through the central plains (Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas) and on into Canada is bringing us this warm weather.  That pattern is enhanced by the La Niña event in the Pacific, which is starting to weaken but still exerts a considerable effect. 

Predictions are for us to reach at least 80°F for the remainder of the week, so the heat will linger on for a bit.  I didn't find any predictions for when the current jet stream pattern will shift, but none of the models are truly reliable more than a week out.

It's Scary Hot

Well, this heat wave is just beginning, and here are yesterday's numbers:

Chicago, Illinois hit 81°F; the warmest it's ever been this early in the year, going back to 1872, and 35°F above average. This ties the record set on March 12, 1990.

Evansville, Indiana hit 82°F, the warmest it's ever been this early in the year, going back to 1871, and 25°F above average. This ties the record of 82°F set on March 10, 1990.


Traverse City, Michigan hit 81°F, the warmest it's ever been this early in the year, going back to 1897, and 42°F above average. Previous record: 77°F on March 7, 2000.

Dubuque, Iowa hit 75°F, the warmest it's ever been this early in the year, going back to 1874, and 37°F above average. This ties the 75°F reading of March 12, 1990.

Madison, Wisconsin hit 78°F, the warmest it's ever been this early in the year, going back to 1869, and was 36°F above average. Previous record: 77°F on March 8, 2000. 

(More information here , at Dr. Masters' Blog.)

Ah, Madison - a place I lived during a January in which the air temperature never went above 0°F and we had wind chills around -50°F on a regular basis.  It may be a looonnnggg time before that kind of winter happens again.

I think I'd better start collecting estimates for my new air conditioner.  If our summer temperatures get 35° above normal, I won't survive without one.

The Weather - we'd better do something about it

Here’s a link to a very complete overview of the weather during 2010:

Dr. Jeff Masters' blog of June 24, 2011

He says, “It is quite possible that 2010 was the most extreme weather year globally since 1816.”  That year, following the massive eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia, was called the Year Without Summer. 

2010 has the distinction of  (1) being the hottest year on record since the late 1800s, (2) having the lowest volume of Arctic sea ice on record (3) being the third year in a row in which the fabled Northwest Passage was actually open (the other two years were 2009 and 2008), (4) record ice melting in Greenland, (5) second worse coral bleaching year, (6) wettest over land since 1900, (7)  the Amazon basin experienced it’s second 100 year drought in 5 years, (8) Tennessee had a 1 in 1000 year flood.  There’s more, too, that Dr. Masters discusses in this blog post.

He concludes, “The pace of extreme weather events has remained remarkably high during 2011, giving rise to the question--is the "Global Weirding" of 2010 and 2011 the new normal? Has human-caused climate change destabilized the climate, bringing these extreme, unprecedented weather events? Any one of the extreme weather events of 2010 or 2011 could have occurred naturally sometime during the past 1,000 years. But it is highly improbable that the remarkable extreme weather events of 2010 and 2011 could have all happened in such a short period of time without some powerful climate-altering force at work. The best science we have right now maintains that human-caused emissions of heat-trapping gases like CO2 are the most likely cause of such a climate-altering force.” (emphasis his)

It’s real.  It’s not going away.  It’s very scary because too many people won’t accept this reality and they put convenience and profit ahead of saving the only world we have to live in. 

Feeling kinda down today.