Grateful Dead

Now reporting 15% of normal statewide. Forecast for Truckee is warm and rainy for the next 10 days. Meanwhile, 3300 miles to the East, we're getting lashed by snowstorm after snowstorm. Cape Cod is being battered as well as the North Woods. I love winter, just not continuous winter. The old folks are are taking a battering slipping in the snow, slush and ice - lots of broken hips, arms, ankles. Also fractures and sprains backing up the emergency rooms. They look so apologetic as they seek aid.

New England has been an icicle this year. Alaska has been warmer. Since I can't do winter sports anymore all I want to do it is hibernate. Cabin Fever is at a pitch up in the hills these days. Meanwhile, record low snow packs in the Sierra has the Central Valley crisping our (corp.) veggie crops.... Pensacola, Fl. was under a winter weather advisory yesterday. Acornmaxe's post is right on. The oceans in general have been mitigating the effect of global warming by soaking up the heat, making this years repeated breakout of the polar vortex completely predictable. Human beings will not adapt in time and there will be a mass kill-off sometime in the next 20-30 years. A few will thrive and profit in that post-apocalyptic world. I'm planning on directing my next incarnation to another planet.

I was fortunate enough to re-locate to northern California in 1989, but not until I had spent many years in Ohio, where I saw -30, an ore boat frozen in the ice out on Lake Erie, and several ice storms that were remarkably severe. "If you plant ice, you're gonna harvest wind". Ain't no wind chill like being out on the glare ice of a frozen Great Lake! Of course, after the smoke and ash from the big fires last summer, our currently balmy weather is enjoyable, but I am also having to water the garden so the bees and toads have some moisture - it is really DRY here. It snowed on December 8th here in the foothills of the Sierra, but, yes, honeybees and hummingbirds in January! The manzanita bushes used to bloom in February, but now they are blooming in mid-December, and the daffodils are coming up already. People don't realize that global warming can cause severe snowstorms - it's not a direct effect. If the polar seas thaw out and turn to open water, glacier-building storms will come down from the north, and the mountain passes could possibly be completely closed all year. A little-known fact from NOAA weather satellites is that the very edge of our solar system, out by the De Kuyper belts, is running into electromagnetic radiation from other sources outside our sun's influence, and the normal wavelike energy patterns are bunching up, like the ruffles on a ballerina's dress. This is in turn slightly warming up the entire solar system, and increasing the sun's solar flare activity. Really. A doctor in Aptos, California did a webinar on this last year, it's well-documented, but not well-known. California is having a drought, that's for sure!

on behalf of all Wisconsinites, JDSept, we feel your pain.

How about it's -2 with a wind chill of -9 here in CT.

A town just east of me was featured on the news tonight with a low of -29. It was fun picking my wife up from the auto repair shop after midnight last night. She must have thought it was a swell time for a night out. When she arrived back to the car in the parking lot, it would not start and the hood latch was frozen. Awesome! Will try out the new snowshoes Wednesday if it's not so windy...I love Wisconsin.

If you saw the movie, the weather pattern this year, while not so extreme, is still reminiscent of the major theme of global weather shift. Breakouts of Arctic air from the polar regions due to ocean temps being warmer than normal. I don't think the idea is to study this new polar vortex for the best way for corporations to exploit it, rather, even ice breakers seem powerless to break out scientific research ships from the polar regions. Couple this with the lack of snowfall in the Sierra and you can see a catastrophic winter lining up. I hope Jon Stewart has a glib expert or two in this week to expand on the current evolving crisis...

we hit our high today of -12F. Looking forward to tomorrow's radiant glow of 2F above. These wind chills are the coldest I've ever experienced.

Keeping almost warm indoors this morning as the mercury hovers around -6 in Kansas. Stay warm, my friends.

It has been a brutal winter here in sand county also. We too have had just enough snow every other day to keep the roads slick and hazardous with seriously low temps. Forecast tonight: 18 below with Monday and Tuesday night forecast at around 20 to 25 below with wind chills to 40 to 50 below. That's just flat out f#@*ing cold! And to think that non-hibernating animals like deer, squirrels, and birds survive those temps is utterly amazing. I don't know how our Canadian friends do it year after year; this furless cat is far enough north. All I know is that lots of layers and a few boilermakers help make the hard parts of winter warmer :) *For those few San Fran folks crazy enough to come to Green Bay this weekend, Sunday will hit a high of three below....bundle up!