The weather forecasters have been predicting a warmer and drier winter here. So far we haven’t seen it. We received more snow in the past few weeks than we did all of last winter. And when Andy plowed today the snow was coming down so heavily it was hard for him to see the sides of the road. Of course this was only the second day of winter.
Do you think the rest of the winter will be any more mild?
In Arkansas, the weather has been wetter than normal the last couple of months and a little bit cooler. I hope that it isn’t any worse here for the rest of winter, but we are prepared, more so than we used to be.
Because of lots of snow, I could have cabin fever here in Los Alamos NM. I’m keeping well with my exercise machines (not really since I do all the work using them) while listening to recorded books. I’m getting more housework done too.
Christmas is in 2 days. It’s like any day for us since we don’t have family here & we buy what we want online all year. We have a large amt. of tiny colored lights on the railing inside. Cheerful!
I am absolutely forgetful about weather, this year I can see and know but whether it’s different from last or the decade before I don’t know…
Weather is probably about par for norm here right now…some mixed weather, humidity and dark clouds (that never rain stuff), breezes that are okay on the non-humid days
But down in Christchurch they have been given a whole lot of new earthquakes – yesterday and again today…more shallow and closer to land and up to around 6.0 on the Richter Scale. Not a nice way to be moving on especially with Christmas looming i.e. it’s tomorrow in New Zealand
Remember I am not in that area…I’m up in the top 1/3 of the North Island, so I can do is listen to the news and try to send virtual hugs to those affected… … … …
Mike,
Is your precipitation mostly in the form of rain? What new preparations are you making? We’ve been told to have about 3 days supply of food and water in case of an emergency, but I need to replenish my water supply. If the electricity went out it would be a nuisance to keep warm. We have plenty of blankets and coats, but our heater uses an electric fan, so we would be without heat. And we cook with electricity, so we would be eating cold food. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that it never comes to that.
bikehikebabe,
What I love about winter here is the sun comes out a lot. I stayed in yesterday because of the snow, but I went to the Y today because it was sunny. Cold, but sunny. That makes a big difference to me. That plus it got slightly above freezing for a while so it was easier to dig the car out. 🙂
Cathy,
If you don’t notice the difference in the weather it’s probably not changing that much. That’s too bad about Christchurch. They certainly have had more than their share of bad luck.
Merry Christmas! Since you will experience it before my Sunday post.
We normally just have rain. However, in the last few years, there have been disastrous ice storms, heavy snow, and severe rain/wind events where we’ve lost power for periods of varying lengths. We live on a state highway, but it’s not a major route, so it takes a little longer before it’s cleared of snow or ice, but never more than a couple of days. We’re always stocked up with enough food for several days, unless we’re getting ready for a trip — we don’t leave food in the freezer or fridge any more when we’re gone for extended periods (lesson learned from experience). We have two generators for power. One is a 1000 watt Honda gasoline portable unit. The other is the generator in our motorhome, a 3400 watt Onan diesel powered unit. We run extension cords into the house to power the refrigerator, blower on our fireplace insert, a few lights, the TV and satellite receiver and our laptops and DSL router. We have plenty of firewood, which we seldom use, so it’s in reserve. In all the times we’ve lost power, we only lost water once and we usually still have our phone line for DSL.
The generators are the main change, for us, the Honda in 2006 and the motorhome in 2008.
The reason we seem to lose power is mostly due to wind toppled trees or ice buildup on power lines. The power company does a good job of keeping right-of-ways clear of overhead limbs, but when severe weather topples trees or ice pulls down power lines, we get spotty to widespread outages.
It’s not like we lose power a lot. We’ve lived in this house almost 30 years and we’ve had very few outages lasting more than an hour or so. Our weather is generally mild so a loss of power is usually just an inconvenience. However, the 2009 ice storm, that we got just a taste of here, toppled trees and long stretches of power poles from western Arkansas over to Kentucky and Tennessee. Driving north from here we started seeing bad tree damage about 20 miles from home. That’s just a tad too close and, now, when we get a forecast of ice, the motorhome is moved away from the trees to an inconvenient but protected area between the house and shop.
Mike: you sound well organised…for any misfortune created by nature.
I have a portable gas cooker if our power should decide on a major outage, which used to occur a lot over the winter period. But we forgot we had it until…why because it lives in the basement and is my dyeing yarn set-up and hadn’t really thought too much about it…so we decided to have a fry up and then as went downstairs in the dark, the power came on!
Jean, et al: Yes, this is Christmas morning – fine and sunny and just right temperature wise. No breeze so it might be a scorcher. I will be going out later with my friend, who will be arriving late morning. We don’t do the traditional thing (other a few bits of it) – but we will be going into the City later and wonder around the harbour edge…and so forth!
Mike,
I think you’re very wise. We’re in an apartment down here so are a bit stuck about electricity, but hopefully by the end of next year we’ll have our solar energy system in with a backup propane generator up in the mountains…assuming we could get to it! We did buy our first gallon of backup water tonight. My guess is we’ll never need it, but I figure it won’t hurt to have about 6 gallons just in case. It’s something we can do easily and inexpensively even now.
Cathy,
I hope you had a good time. I thought of you when I read this article. Until we had Kaitlin Andy used to work on Thanksgiving and Christmas. He was doing experiments on particle accelerators and it was a good chance to get some extra beam time.
Now we’re like bikehikebabe, our Christmases are even more low key than when Kaitlin was here.
Today wasn’t terribly successful…although there were a lot more food avenues open (seemed like many of the chains were open including McD’s and Esquires) So there were more choices but we ended up at our regular venue, Dennys’ which neither of us enjoyed…somehow the food and staff seemed most disinterested.
Because B and for that matter, myself are getting older and he not so great health-wise we had to curtail much of what we normally do…
We will definitely have to re-invent what we do next year…but we have a whole year to decide on that. For now, today is over 🙂
Jean: thanks for the link about how to celebrate Christmas from a non-Christian point of view.
I remember when I was in the workforce, I would work Christmas Day for many of the reasons stated. I didn’t have children so I would easily be able to take up the reins and let families have the day off…
But now, I’m not working and I don’t care to volunteer for the “free dinner” because of various reasons which I don’t care to talk about 🙂
Cathy,
Sorry Denny’s didn’t work out. We’ve had more lackluster experiences than good ones with that chain. Someone once said Denny’s does a great job with its menus. The pictures are great, but the food doesn’t quite match up.
We too have noticed that we need to modify our traditions as we get older!
I was scratching a mosquito bite yesterday, so really would appreciate some snow.
I killed a fly yesterday & we have LOTS of snow.
Looney,
We don’t have many mosquitoes here, thank goodness. It’s too dry. Now you have me trying to remember if we had mosquito problems when I lived in California as a kid/young adult. Way too long ago, I’m afraid. 😀
bikehikebabe,
One weatherman said right now NM has the most snow of any of the lower 48 states. It’ll be interesting to see if it helps the drought. It is supposed to be sunny for the next week or so, so it’s always possible the rest of the winter will be milder than our late autumn.
Years ago our favorite weatherman used to compare the day’s weather with what he had predicted the evening before. Once when his forecast was way off he said, “One thing about the weather, it sure is unpredictable.” He was a good man. 😀
While there is no snow, winter certainly is back to what it used to be when we first came to Pune. It is bracing and it is nice to take out the woolens and wear them after a long time.
I think that it will be unpredictable rather than any milder.
Rummuser, Your weather is “bracing” & you need your woolens? I was told that India’s seasons were Hot, Hotter, & Hottest.
Not all of India is like that BHB. The coastal areas are like that except during the monsoons, but the rest of the country has cold seasons too. http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/cold-wave-back-in-north-india-162230?pfrom=home-india
Pune, where I live is up in the mountains at 560 Mts above MSL. One of the reasons that it was India’s largest cantonment when the British were here. Today for instance, the maximum was 28 deg C and the minimum already is 8.8 and falling.