Ok, it’s bloody freezing out there, at least by west coast standards. However, it is very pretty. My main complaint is that most people here don’t seem to have figured out that you need to clear the snow off the sidewalk before it turns into a sheet of ice.
Weakling! 
You can imagine a time when there* isn’t *panic and mayhem on the 401?
Snow? Interesting concept.
Sydney has had raging fires on its outskirts for a week now.
It’s snowing here. Except folks here are calling it hail. :dubious: Honey, if it ain’t riflin’ straight down with bits the sizea BBs or more and fixin’ to do damage to your car, it ain’t hail. Drifting down means snow.
Yes. My father told me about it. 
I spoke further with my friend today. He said tree branches were down all over the place, including a large one in the back yard. I have a little awning-thing over the front door. Basically a wooden frame with corrugated plastic on top. That came down. My friend said he’d fix it (and was working on it when I called earlier). A kid who was sliding down the hill said it’s the most snow since 1992. Or maybe it was 1997. I wasn’t there, and I don’t remember what my friend said. The power is out.
My house has two fireplaces. Neither one works. My friend from whom I bought the house thought about fixing the one in the living room, but it was only $200 more to install a propane heater. He did that instead of fixing the fireplace. I’ve been wanting to have both of them torn down and rebuilt. I was going to do last year, but the fireplace guy said he only installs inserts and that I’d have to call a mason. I think now, that I’ll have a new liner installed in the fireplace in the living room. The propane heater works, only it uses an electric fan to circulate the warm air. So the house is only really warm in that one corner.
But the stove is electric. I’ve mentioned I have a small collection of Svea 123 stoves. Eight or nine of them, I think. I suggested to my friend he use them for cooking. Then I remembered I have a two-burner Coleman stove up there, only he couldn’t find it in the gloom. He ended up cooking on his own Svea 123 and one of mine.
I’ve thought it would be useful to have a generator for filmmaking. Never got round to getting one though. But now that it’s 20°F with a wind chill as low as 14 below (not so bad now, but the wind was blowing 32 mph earlier), I hate to think of my friend and his dog freezing to death. I mean, who would take care of my house? And if they froze to death, what happens when they thaw? Who knows when I’ll be able to get back up there? I’ve heard you just can’t get rid of the smell of rotting corpses.
So I bought a Honda EB3000. Good for 2,600 watts continuous power, and should run for over nine hours at half-load. That’s enough to run my oil-filled heater (1,500 watts max) and some other things. My friend says he’s plugged in the fan on the propane heater. (Why does propane need to be heated anyway? rimshot) The heat is circulating and the house is warm. And there’s plenty of power for recharging the batteries for my power drill, lighting, etc. I wonder how many watts the water heater is?
Langford got quite a bit.
I hear it’s going to be cold and clear tomorrow! I am going to do my best to get into the office (end of the month, ack) but I’m cancelling my 8:00 AM dental appointment. It was so pretty today, but my pictures don’t do it justice, alas.
Wait a few days. Unseasonably warm here last week, temps in the 50’s. A thunderstorm just passed through, and it’s almost December! Cold coming though, and probably snow.
Heh, as I write this (at nine o’clock at night) it’s a nice 60F outside, and the forecast calls for 76 on Wednesday.
And 33 Thursday night.
Temperature fall down, go boom.
At least it now looks like we aren’t going to get that icky ‘wintery mix’. I’d much rather have the snow everyone else is talking about than that crappy mix of rain, slush, and ice.
<< Disk Full - Press F1 to belch. >>
Going home to Rothenburg for a week this Thursday, and my friends and family are telling me it is unusually warm there (50 degrees F the high today).
I wanted snow dammit! 
Do y’all think Europe is feeling the effects of global warming in a major way?
Webcam is here if you’re interested: Tourismus Rothenburg ob der Tauber: Tourismus Rothenburg ob der Tauber
Q
It’s been snowing here near Sea-Tac Airport for about four hours now. Most of the time, it’s been light, fine flakes so the total so far is about a half inch. The road out front partially wet and partially covered with snow. Around 6 o’clock, we had thunder and lightning. The snow really muffled the thunder, though, and sometimes made it rumble on for a good thirty seconds or so.
I have a dentist appointment in the morning. Normally, I would be happy to have an excuse to miss going but I’ve waited two months for this appointment and I want to get it over with. My first fear in not being able to make it because of the snow and my second fear is that I’ll get there only to find *the *dentist couldn’t make it because of the snow. (I’ve got the first appointment of the day, so I can’t call in beforehand.) Oddly, the ordeal of a possible root canal comes in third.
By the way, I heard on Northwest Cable News that Mount Baker, up near Johnny L.A.'s neck o’ the woods (when he’s up in that neck o’ the woods) got over 12 feet of snow. Just this last week! The skiiers should be very happy!
I had to cancel my birthday dinner party tonight due to the cold weather and snow. When a Western Canadian cancels something due to cold and snowy, it’s goddamned cold and snowy. (I think the windchill was about -35C (-31F) today - the roads were polished like glass with the old ice and new snow on them).
I’m sorry about your birthday plans. I know you can re-schedule, but it’s not the same, is it?
Too bad we can’t have “Camelot” weather, huh?
Anyway, Happy Birthday!
Q
One site in Bellingham is reporting:
Temp 13.2°F
Wind Speed 26.0mph
Wind Direction NNE
Wind Chill -23.7°F
Good time to be in SoCal.
MSNBC’s 10-day forecast indicates rain with high temperatures above freezing Thursday through Sunday, followed by four fair days with highs ranging from 37ºF to 44ºF. Perhaps that will be enough to get most of the snow off of the houses and roads. But the cold nights will make the roads treacherous with ice.
I had to call in to work and tell them I wasn’t coming in. Hwy 512, one of the highways I use to get work is CLOSED and is considered impassable.
According to my work’s weather curtailment line, road conditions are amber and they expect us gov slaves to report in as normal. Sorry about that, but I’m not watching someone slide into my rig. It is SOLID ICE out there. I can’t believe they expect people to come in. I am NOT mission essential.
It is white out here and cold. Not as cold as Bellingham, which is -11 degrees right now, with windchill, but still damn cold.
That isn’t what the local news is saying.I’m watching KIRO 7 right now.
It’s supposed to be clear and cold today. Bellingham isn’t expected to get above 25°F today. Wednesday is only going to be in the mid 30s Thurday is supposed to snow again. The places that will be into the low 40s are only the dense urban areas. They’re saying less populated areas (like Birch Bay) likely won’t get above freezing until Friday.
Hubby went to a friend’s house to watch the football game last night, and ended up sleeping on his couch. I don’t expect to see him until noon. The comute is expected to take hours in some places. They’ve been showing the glare ice under hundreds of spin-outs already this morning.
No one here knows how to drive in these conditions.
With few exceptions, all the area schools are closed.
10-day forecasts are why I call them ‘weather guessers’.
There really isn’t any safe driving on ice. I’m an experienced winter driver, with good tires on my car, and I stopped driving yesterday because the roads were too bad.
Johnny, our forecasts here are accurate for the next day, possibly the next two days, and after that, we don’t even bother looking.
Not if it’s soft hail, or graupel.
Anyway, I’m insanely jealous. My part of England hasn’t seen a decent snowfall in years and years. I love snow, and while it’s all well and good going to the Alps for a dose of powder, it’s just not the same as getting it in your own back yard. We used to get snow, back in the eighties, but it’s incredibly rare nowadays 
Temperatures are set to be up in the 60s by the end of the week… it’s almost December goddamit! Give me ice and frost and snow!
Damn global warming…
Who knows. The local news says 1 to 2 feet of snow in the Colorado mountains. Web sites say very cold and only about 6 inches.
Tomorow is a high of 9f and a low of -6f. So it’s gonna be a bit cold.