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Let's compare weather!
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Weather - What's YOUR weather today? (Part ONE - Started Sat., March 14, 2009) (Let's keep this going.)
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Joy H., Group Founder
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Dec 25, 2017 06:39AM

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I wonder how my Golden Rain tree will do in the cold this time. When I first planted it a decade ago, it grew well for a couple of years & then a single digit cold snap killed it. It grew back from the roots & has since survived a couple of similar (one longer) cold snaps without any harm. One of those was cold & long enough that it killed off all the crepe myrtle bushes, even my neighbor's which was 30 or 40 years old. They've all come back from their roots, too.


Good news - sunny and no snow in forecast today!!

;)


That's not what global warming means. Sigh. As Heinlein put it, "Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get." You don't assume women are taller than men because you see a few that are in one small group.
It means the average temperature around the globe is warmer & that's the case. Whether this is a short term or long term trend, how much is due to humans, just what the damage will be & more are different arguments, but there is no doubt about the overall average temp. You can see more here:
https://globalclimate.ucr.edu/resourc...
It's pretty interesting what they've found out about climactic changes over the years & what it's done to civilization. It might be why farming began when the Fertile Crescent got drier & hunter-gatherers started responding to it. IIRC, that was due to a melting glacier that flooded in & goofed up the Gulf Stream. The Black Sea used to be a fresh water lake until global warming caused a rise in sea levels which broke through a land bridge & it was flooded raising its level 50' or so. I forget exactly. Had a big effect on how all the people living around it lived, though.
All that happened thousands of years ago, a seemingly long time by our reckoning, but just a blip in geological time. It's hard to keep that perspective. A century is barely an eye blink geologically. I struggle with that constantly since I'm aware of it, but my ego says my few short days are the truly important ones. They are to me, not to the world or the universe, though.
Here is a picture of Earth from Cassini, the probe we sent to Saturn, in 2013. Look closely for the arrow pointing to Earth. We're really an insignificant bit on an even less significant bit in the scheme of things.





http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick....

We turned on some space heaters & I manually turned the main furnace on & off to get us back up to 70. I'm thinking the new unit really should have a 40 amp breaker instead of the 30 amp that is there. The new unit is a year or 2 old & the breaker wasn't replaced when it was installed. I'll get in touch with the installer, a friend today. Probably nothing I can do about it until tomorrow. While I could swap out the breaker, I'm not sure about the wire. It's a short run, so I don't think the gauge is a big deal, but that's out of my league. I might need to get a real electrician in.

I haven't used the frost-free hydrant outside my shop in over a week. I covered it with a contractor's trash bag & a tall trash can, but am still worried about it, so I put a light in a tomato cage under that. I'm only putting it on for a few hours at a time, though. I'm worried the plastic will get too hot & melt. So far, it hasn't, but I'd hate to burn my shop down.



There is one company that is seeing the brighter side. I stopped by Interstate Battery today & they said they sold $5000 worth of car batteries yesterday alone. Apparently that's about a month's worth of sales.

Oh dear! More investigating to do.
Not good about no house phone or internet service. Do you have a cell phone?

Heading out for work in a little while. Sunny. Cold. Not snowing which is good. Wind is not as high as expected. All good news.
Stay warm and safe everyone. Nina, I'm hoping your issues get resolved very quickly. Keep us posted.



We're the same way with the cell phones at home - we rarely use them. The landline is still the best way to get us. We have extensions around the house, in the barn, & in the shop. The cell phones are spotty at best in any of the buildings & don't work at all if we're down by the pond or in the woods.



Good luck with the plumber, Nina. That is a drag. At least you have the toilet! We needed a port-a-pot for a couple/few weeks one February 25 years ago or so. I remember sitting in it with ice crystals & wind pounding it. NOT FUN!

Good luck with the plumber, Nina. That is a drag. At least you have the toilet! We needed a port-a-pot for a couple/few weeks one February 25 years ago or so. I remember sitting in it with ice crystals & wind pounding it. NOT FUN!


35 degrees at 8am this morning! Heat wave. Yahoooooooo!

Good about having cell phone. Thanks for letting me know. (I get concerned about people.)

Winter is back with a vengeance. Yesterday we were in the low 60s. This morning at 6am, we were still in the mid 50s, & now at 7:30am, we're at 33! It's raining, too. Supposed to change to freezing rain & then snow shortly after that with a few inches of accumulation. We're supposed to be below freezing the rest of the week.
After weeks of hard freezing, then a couple of warm days with rain, the fields are just soup on frozen ground. The horses are worse than pigs for wallowing & are covered in mud. Marg put blankets on the Throughbreds (Tango & Topaz) last night after giving them a bath to get all the mud off. It was too warm, but she needed to get the blankets on them before they got wet with the icy rain. Chip & Pumpkin were too shaggy to dry off in time & can handle the cold better, but I think it's going to be a chilly day for them.



We're supposed to get another 1"-3" tonight into tomorrow morning with VERY cold temps. Lexington is calling for 4 degrees which means we'll probably be below 0. That's real temps, no windchill factored in. Salt doesn't work in that kind of cold.
I see the snow has just started & it's 3:30pm. Yuck. Well, maybe it will go through faster than they thought & the roads will be clear in 13 hours when I need to go in to work again. Fingers crossed. If it's anything like this morning, I'm staying home.
It was scary driving in. Not only were the roads super slick, so that the least pressure on the gas or brakes made the tires lose traction, but I saw 2 herds of deer on the edge of the road. Luckily, they just stood there & didn't go bounding about. Worse was the driver I got behind who was going far too slow. I had to stop a couple of times since they'd get to a hill & then spin all over as they attempted to get up the other side at 15-20 mph. They almost went off the road a couple of times. At 30-40 mph, I did it without a problem. They were peeved when I finally had a chance to pass them & did. Tough.



We have 50 degree weather coming this weekend, too. Wish I could have just hibernated until it came.
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Louise Penny (other topics)Petra Durst-Benning (other topics)
Anne Enright (other topics)
Anne Tyler (other topics)
Jane Gardam (other topics)
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