Category Archives: Weather

One of my favorite topics — beware the wall cloud!

Spring has Sprung

Today has been a weird weather day. We started out with cloudy, humid weather, with pendulous clouds, laden with rain…. none of which fell on us. It’s all moved southeast, and made for a very bumpy day down there.
Click to enlarge!

Here, though, the first day of Spring has cleared up, and we have a crystal blue sky, with a lot of wind…. perfect weather to sit on the deck and watch the world go by.

And the birds. I’ve been popping photos of all kinds of birds as they’ve feasted on the ground’s bounty. I think we need to get a book on birds (and maybe flowers/plants) of North America. When we head west, it’ll come it handy!

Chris and Jina are coming by tonight for dinner. I’m sure that will be a great time — it always is!

Sputter, Sputter

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I am disappointed. The storm is a bust. The six inches of snow, promised, feared, prepared for, ended up being an inch, and just a slight bit of freezing rain.

Schools were out, the road crews were standing ready, and the storm missed us. The snow shield was apparently up!

Oh well!

Calm Before the Storm

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The stores are frantic, the roads are jammed, and the local stations are trumpeting the perils of the oncoming storm. Even the gas stations have given us the gift of a 17 cent per gallon increase between this morning and this afternoon. Nice guys, them.

The prediction is still for four to six inches, only now the forecast includes a 1/4″ of ice in the middle of the storm. That should make life fun tomorrow!

So, it begins around midnight, and goes all day tomorrow.

This house looks great in snow!

Groundhog Day

And, much like Bill Murray in that famed film, I feel like we’re living the same February again.

We had an ice storm on January 25th.

We had ice and snow yesterday.

We had rain all day today, and it quickly changed to snow again. It was a beautiful, fluffy snow — about an inch or so in all. Really nice to look at….

So, last February’s snows appear to have joined us again this year. I read somewhere that this kind of winter may be more normal for us for a while. I’m fine with that — I love the snow!

Weather, Football and Networking

Much as we did last year come February, we are poised for a snowy time, with another ice and snowstorm due tomorrow. That’ll probably put a damper on our Super Bowl festivities — the bowling team is set to come over.

Of course, the game is non-event. The Rams aren’t in, so we’ll be watching the big game for the commercials. I’m still rooting for the Panthers, but I don’t know if they have enough umph to pull it off.

On another note, Mom finally got her bi-directional satellite internet connection hooked up and working. Kevio tells me that they’re getting about 600kbps down — not too shabby! That was the only broadband solution that was available on The Mountain, so that was the solution they picked. Pretty cool!

Icebox

This morning was the coldest of the year — 0.6 degrees below zero. BRRRR!

The last week has been frigid, and hasn’t lent itself to getting the snow and ice off the grass and driveway. Not a big, big deal, but it sure keeps things feeling cold.

Becky and I are trying to figure out where we’re going to go on vacation in a few months. She and both have our corporate anniversaries coming up this summer, and must burn two weeks of vacation in order to keep from losing it. Nice position to be in, but I feel some pressure to come up with a plan to use the time wisely. I would prefer to go somewhere, rather than spend it all sitting here at home. That’s just a huge block of time, and I haven’t been able to take two weeks off work in almost ten years.

I’d love to do something big, go someplace unusual, but with the sale of the old house looming large, it’s hard for Beck to focus on a big trip, and I don’t want to add to the pressure on her.

Nice Piece of Ice

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Tonight we hunker down, awaiting a terrific ice storm — predictions are for 1/2″ to one inch of ice, to begin just after midnight tonight.

All our infrastructure cabling is underground, but trees and lines falling elsewhere could impact our power and cable. It’ll be interesting to see how that all plays out tonight.

I’ll be up for much of it too. We’ve got a network upgrade at the office tonight. I’ll be dialing in to handle my end, but if the power or phone go, I’m out of the water. And, of course, everyone who is on campus will be trapped there through much of tomorrow.

I did go and get a bunch of lumber for building shelves and a gate for the deck. The deck gate went well, despite the temps falling all day. It looks good, and Beck’s happy with it. The shelves may get started tomorrow, but only after a long, long sleep after the network maintenance for the office tonight.

Fun times in the midwest, eh?

Weather? There’s No Weather Here!

OK, so Friday it was 70+ degrees, and tonight it will be about 4 degrees…. Nah, we don’t have real weather in the midwest! 🙂

It has definitely cooled off, with a tremendous wind, and the clearest skies — perfect telescope weather! A little too cool for me, though, so I’ll quietly slip off to bed shortly, and dream of snow covered hills….

(BTW, no snow tonight, just cold. Boo….)

Is It Spring Already?

72 degrees today. Seventy-two! That’s just not right for January in the midwest.

However, it made for a great day to work around the house, emptying boxes, and trying to get this place where it’s somewhat presentable, and ready to start working from (instead of working in) starting next week.

I’ve built three desks for us, along with a host of other unpacking and fixing up tasks over the last week, and I’m almost looking forward to going back to the office — it’ll be like vacation!

First Snow

Today was the first real snow of the season for mid-Missouri. Beautiful snowfall, too, with almost five inches falling at Lake of the Ozarks.

We ate, shopped, shopped, ate and went back to the hotel to play in the snow. Sio rolled and rolled in the snow, encrusting her hair and clothes with it. She and Darla even got into a good ol’ snowball fight.

I tried to take some closeups of the snowflakes, but didn’t do too well with that endeavour. I needed my tall flash, and had forgotten it, and needed to be tripod mounted. Next snow, I’ve got some ideas about how to improve my odds of capturing some nice snowflake pictures.

We finished off our afternoon with an hour’s swim in the indoor pool. That was wonderful after having played in the snow just 30 minutes previous. I love swimming, and enjoy just lounging on my back, floating unaided in the warm water. I did that in Jamaica, and got a pretty bad sunburn. With the snow covering the roof of the building, there was no chance of that this time!

I was very impressed with Sio’s command of the water. She’s confident, and swimming well, and that’s great. She needs to grow up with no fear of the water.

We capped off the night with a game of Life… the Star Wars edition. I’ve never played Life before, and have no idea how well this matches up to the original, but it was fun, and we had a great time.

It’s nice feeling like a family!