How's the weather?

How's the weather you ask.... Well, it's freeze your face off quickly now. It will be -39 C overnight, which makes an easy conversion to just about -39 F. It was a couple degrees warmer last night, as well as hopefully warm up a few more degrees tomorrow!

NEW222 wrote:How's the weather you ask.... Well, it's freeze your face off quickly now. It will be -39 C overnight, which makes an easy conversion to just about -39 F. It was a couple degrees warmer last night, as well as hopefully warm up a few more degrees tomorrow!

Brrr. Guess I can't complain much, it's only going to be -23 C here tonight. Then it's supposed to warm up and SNOW again by Thursday.

Well, here in Townsville, sunny Queensland it is 34.5 degrees celsius! Winds 10 to 15 knots. Rather warm chaps.

A dusting of snow this morning in the ridges of West Virginia.

But chin up, the first day of winter and the shortest day of the year arrives shortly. Then the days start getting longer and thoughts of model airplanes circling above your head creep in.

rsv1cox wrote:A dusting of snow this morning in the ridges of West Virginia.

But chin up, the first day of winter and the shortest day of the year arrives shortly.  Then the days start getting longer and thoughts of model airplanes circling above your head creep in.

I like your post Robert. If you could bottle and sell that attitude.. I'd buy it!

Weather here in Northern RI has been textbook New England. "If you don't like it; wait a minute..." and I know that you know what I'm talking about.

Sunbird wrote:Well, here in Townsville, sunny Queensland it is 34.5 degrees celsius!  Winds 10 to 15 knots.  Rather warm chaps.

Wife and I just got back from a week's break.  Spent some time on the Murray River and had a lunchtime ride on this Paddle Steamer.

With the temperature around 40 degrees C, we were happy that they had retro-fitted it with a diesel engine.  The main deck temperature reaches over 50 C with the steam engine fired, so not so comfortable for passengers.  In the cooler months it only takes 20 minutes to have it running on steam again.
The Murray river was a major inland trade route before the development of major overland roads and rail.  Still lots of active vessels using the river for tourist purposes.  Sadly, not many of them are still steam driven.

On the way home we capped off our week away by meeting up with my band in a remote "middle-of-nowhere" location to present Christmas Carols to the locals.  There is no town, just farms and a tiny little local church in the middle of a paddock.  No houses for miles and we were a little worried no-one would show up, but the organisers assured us they'd come.  Well, they did come as promised.  About 100 people showed up to sit on hay bales in a paddock and sing carols while the sun set.  It was a magic moment.

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire
Jack frost nipping at your nose
Yuletide carols being sung by a choir
And folks dressed up like Eskimo's.

Seriously, how do folks down under celebrate Christmas without freezing temperatures and snow?

There has to be carols about air conditioning and iced tea down there..

 

rsv1cox wrote:Chestnuts roasting on an open fire
Jack frost nipping at your nose
Yuletide carols being sung by a choir
And folks dressed up like Eskimo's.

Seriously, how do folks down under celebrate Christmas without freezing temperatures and snow?  

There has to be carols about air conditioning and iced tea down there..  

Unfortunately Aussies still suffer a bit if an identity problem, in that we still seem to relate far too much to our European roots.  It's usually stinking hot at Christmas yet we still sing about snow and decorate our homes and streets with bright tinsel, even though things are green and blooming colourfully in the bright sunshine.  Plus we seem to need the traditional roast dinner, with Mum sweltering over a hot stove all day.  Gradually we're changing to more of a "backyard barbecue with salad" tradition.
As for carols, we still sing all the traditional ones, but I really struggle with Jingle Bells "dashing through the snow".  What snow?


EDIT: I in no way endorse or encourage this sort of frivolity.

Merry Christmas Rod.

Bob

rsv1cox wrote:

Merry Christmas Rod.

Bob

Thanks Bob. And to you and yours.  Hope it's cold enough to feel like Christmas for you    but not so bad that you can't go out and enjoy the holidays.

It's a little hard for us to feel too "merry" this season.  I know I say it every year, but each year seems to be getting worse.  Our summer starts Dec. 1st but it doesn't really dry out and get extremely hot until late January, early Feb.  Each year the heat is coming earlier. It's already so dry (we are in a major drought) there are major bush (forest) fires that have been burning in three states for about a month.  We have two 40 degree Celcius days forecast for the next week, so it puts us on edge a little.  


What you need to understand is that most of our forests are predominantly Eucalyptus trees.  Eucalyptus oil is great if you have a blocked up nose, but it burns like gasoline and our trees are full of it.  On a really hot day, the oil evaporates from the leaves and shrouds the tree in a mist of flammable gas.  I've seen trees literally explode.  Once it starts only the weather can stop it. Sadly, a lot of fires are deliberately lit by pyromaniacs looking for a thrill.  People sadly die in fires.  .
One fire in New South Wales is at around 915,000 Acres and has killed six.

Sorry folks, I got a little out of hand. I should be a little more positive.

Sometimes it's good to vent Rod.

40 degrees C = about 104 F. 30 years living in Florida I never saw it get above 100 F, the sea breeze keeping things cooled off, but the humidity could be a problem. I loved it.

West Virginia, little humidity and the higher elevations keep things tolerable. Snow on the grassy areas this morning but todays rain will melt it quickly.

rsv1cox wrote:Sometimes it's good to vent Rod.

West Virginia, little humidity and the higher elevations keep things tolerable.  Snow on the grassy areas this morning but todays rain will melt it quickly.

Not much humidity around here right now, except for about 3 feet of the frozen white stuff.
Heading for -18f -27c tonight.

Yep. Not humid here either. Rather quite brisk. We're at the tail of another vortex, as we are expected to hit -33 farenheit overnight. Much better than the -40 farenheit that was called for a couple days ago. Sometimes I think I would rather the snow as it is usually warmer out then, but in recent years, we have gotten some good snowfalls at temperatures around -22 farenheit. Also, today was bright and sunny out, and here that usually means cold! As for snow, we really do not have much here, but that usually comes starting mid to late January.

Nothing new here in the Portland area. Just the usual 40F at night, and 50F during the day. It is as regular as our Winter rains that dribble down for days on end this time of year!

Fortunately, that rain helps clear the chocking smog and wood smoke from the just as regular California Forest fires south of us. They tell me that those fires all start mysteriously all over the state at the same time?

Sometimes I think those thousands of California Arsonists have a regular Labor Union.

Bill

rsv1cox wrote:
Seriously, how do folks down under celebrate Christmas without freezing temperatures and snow?  

Just how it is.  How do folks up yonder celebrate Christmas with freezing temperatures and snow? Don't know how you don't all get cabin fever.

Oldenginerod wrote:

rsv1cox wrote:
Seriously, how do folks down under celebrate Christmas without freezing temperatures and snow?  

Don't know how you don't all get cabin fever.

Not too much of a problem up through Christmas, but January and February can get a little weird!!!

Hope you folks are enjoying the cool conditions. I know I go on about this, but today is another stinker here. Forecast 44º C here today with 60 mph wind gusts. The whole state is in lockdown. 30,000 people evacuated from a popular coastal resort town including my 3 year old grandson. His mother took him along with the rest of her family (we're not included) to Lakes Entrance for New Years celebration. They arrived, had a swim and after 4 hours were told by the local police to go home (3 hours away). Only one major highway gives access to the whole east side of Victoria. Fire was threatening to cut this route in two places. The whole East Gippsland region is heavily forested.
In the west of the state a major music festival held in the forest has been cancelled and everyone sent home. Hopefully that will save a few drug deaths, as there is every year.

As for us, we're just shut up in the house trying to stay cool. I can just about guarantee that we will lose power it some point today. 15th outage for the year. Thanks to the greens for closing down our coal power stations with no though of how to replace the base load power. Wind and solar won't cut it. They won't allow nuclear when we have the largest deposits of yellow-cake in the world, which we sell to everyone else so they can have cheap reliable power.
Every hot day, when we need our air conditioners most, you can guarantee we'll have a blackout. Just scanning the horizon for smoke every hour or so. Cool change is on its way but that will bring multiple lightning strikes, sparking even more fires and blackouts.

My opinion on climate change is divided, but it seems that every summer is now a time of stress as we "expect" major fires every year rather than every 20-30 years as it used to be. I guess the difference is also that more and more people now choose to live on "lifestyle" bush blocks, so the forest areas can't any longer be burned in the cooler months to reduce fuel. No point complaining. Seems no-one's listening these days.

Wishing you all the best down there Rod. I have been watching about the fires going on down there.

As for weather. here it is slightly in a blizzard like state with it being -13 F, but we missed the big dump that Minnesota and the Dakotas were getting. Fargo, ND got around 2 feet of snow in the past 36 hours.

NEW222 wrote:Wishing you all the best down there Rod. I have been watching about the fires going on down there.

As for weather. here it is slightly in a blizzard like state with it being -13 F, but we missed the big dump that Minnesota and the Dakotas were getting. Fargo, ND got around 2 feet of snow in the past 36 hours.

I reckon 2 feet of snow would just about get us out of trouble

It cracked 60 in northern Illinois, played disc golf for most of the day, sore and tired.

Normally by now we'd have a snow or two, usually 4" or less at a time, all melted in a day or two. This year we've had none, although we finally got a good rain 2 nights ago after a month and a half dry spell.

Here in Slatersville (N. Smithfield, Rhode Island, New England/USA) it was unseasonably mild, this past weekend. Windy as #$%&.. but very mild. Sunday was sunny, breezy.. and peaked at 70+ degrees F. which broke all regional records for the entire month of January.. since records were first recorded.

The preceding Saturday was overcast all day.. but crept up to 59F by noontime. There was occassional precipitation.. in the form of "mist" throughout the day/night. It got really windy Saturday night. I was out in it for a short time.. around 2:00 a.m. (now Sunday).. lashing resin chairs to the deck-railings.

Sunday's weather was as gorgeous as you'd ever want to experience in New England.. in the month of January. It had been seasonally cold through our Thanksgiving holiday..and toward Christmas.. but this day was special. Our family had a belated Christmas get-together "here" at Roddie and Lynne's ranch.

Our U.S. friends have been very supportive and generous to we Aussies in the wake of our disasterous bushfires. That's fantastic, but be careful what you believe. It sounds like the media over there has got hold of the stories and then exaggerated them by 400%. Celebrities were Tweeting "photos taken from space" which showed the majority of Australian landmass in flames. The originator of the picture had to step in and announce that it wasn't a photo after all, but an artist's impression based on several overlayed photos of many weeks of fire (and high temperature) activity. What appeared as a fire could have been in fact an iron roof reflecting the sun, or a hot rock in the desert.
Never let the truth get in the way of a good story. Many are using the misinformation to fuel their protests about climate change and against our current conservative government. Cold comfort for the hundreds of folk who've lost all their worldly possessions, or particularly those who've lost loved ones.

Having said that, the sad reality is that millions of critters have been lost, not the least our Koala population which, if they survived the fires (and many thousands didn't) they now have very limited habitat to return to. If you want to help, find a good Koala conservation charity and give them a hand.