First snowfall of the year, boys and girls

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

House had a power failure about an hour ago. We're getting hammered. I'm at a bakery right now because I had an email I absolutely had to send; in a few minutes I'm going home again, where I may not have power back for a while.

[angus]

angus' neck of the woods is going to get slammed

http://www.post-gazette.com/news/state/2014/11/26/Snow-storm-shuts-down-Pennsylvania-government-offices-schools-to-the-east/stories/201411260233

Not too bad yet.  My son and I walked to the gym after lunch.  I played for about an hour on the equipment (mostly core and leg stuff) while he played in the Kidmazium, then we spent an hour in the pool.  (Well, when I say "I was in the pool for an hour," you can interpret that as "I was in the jacuzzi for 20 minutes, got out and did a couple of laps, then got back into the jacuzzi for 20 minutes again.")  Anyway, it was dead there.  We had the place all to ourselves, pretty much.  I was surprised since it's a school holiday.  Normally it's crawling with children on days like this.  Probably the weather keeping everyone home.

Afterward we walked home, him pelting me with heavy wet snowballs all the way back, and we got his toboggan and his body board out and did some races down the little hill behind our house.  Didn't stay out long, though.  It's not dreadfully cold.  Steady 33 or 34 all day, but it's a constant wet heavy snow.  Uncomfortable.  I expect that we'll get a few inches, but it'll mostly melt over the next couple of days.  It's expected to be near 40 and mostly sunny on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  With any luck I won't have to touch a shovel.  None of us has to work till Monday, and we stock up with food and, more importantly, liquor and wine, yesterday.  And I have good snowboots and there's enough small emergency shopping within walking distance (read:  liquor store), that we shouldn't have to drive for a few days.

Farther north they're gonna get it worse.  The Poconos and Adirondacks, and especially the Berkshires and White Mountains will get hit hard.  Here there will be a few traffic accidents like there always are on the first really good snowfall of the season, but it should be gone by the weekend.

Now I'm cozy at home with a fresh margarita, and getting smaller by the sip.  One part white tequila, one part Cointreau, and a squeeze of lime.  On the rocks, of course, with coarse salt on the rim.  We have a roaring fire.  (It's one of those where you flip a switch and--voila!--a fire starts, very Quagmire but it works for us.)  Our snowpants and coats and gloves are hanging in front of it.  I'm starting to catch a vague whiff of the scent of melting nylon so I should get up off my ass and move them away from the fire.  

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

angus' neck of the woods is going to get slammed

http://www.post-gazette.com/news/state/2014/11/26/Snow-storm-shuts-down-Pennsylvania-government-offices-schools-to-the-east/stories/201411260233

Not too bad yet.  My son and I walked to the gym after lunch.  I played for about an hour on the equipment (mostly core and leg stuff) while he played in the Kidmazium, then we spent an hour in the pool.  (Well, when I say "I was in the pool for an hour," you can interpret that as "I was in the jacuzzi for 20 minutes, got out and did a couple of laps, then got back into the jacuzzi for 20 minutes again.")  Anyway, it was dead there.  We had the place all to ourselves, pretty much.  I was surprised since it's a school holiday.  Normally it's crawling with children on days like this.  Probably the weather keeping everyone home.

Afterward we walked home, him pelting me with heavy wet snowballs all the way back, and we got his toboggan and his body board out and did some races down the little hill behind our house.  Didn't stay out long, though.  It's not dreadfully cold.  Steady 33 or 34 all day, but it's a constant wet heavy snow.  Uncomfortable.  I expect that we'll get a few inches, but it'll mostly melt over the next couple of days.  It's expected to be near 40 and mostly sunny on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  With any luck I won't have to touch a shovel.  None of us has to work till Monday, and we stock up with food and, more importantly, liquor and wine, yesterday.  And I have good snowboots and there's enough small emergency shopping within walking distance (read:  liquor store), that we shouldn't have to drive for a few days.

Farther north they're gonna get it worse.  The Poconos and Adirondacks, and especially the Berkshires and White Mountains will get hit hard.  Here there will be a few traffic accidents like there always are on the first really good snowfall of the season, but it should be gone by the weekend.

Now I'm cozy at home with a fresh margarita, and getting smaller by the sip.  One part white tequila, one part Cointreau, and a squeeze of lime.  On the rocks, of course, with coarse salt on the rim.  We have a roaring fire.  (It's one of those where you flip a switch and--voila!--a fire starts, very Quagmire but it works for us.)  Our snowpants and coats and gloves are hanging in front of it.  I'm starting to catch a vague whiff of the scent of melting nylon so I should get up off my ass and move them away from the fire.  

Classic, angus.  Enjoy with your family, my friend.  And we have the same kind of roaring fire place.....remote controlled. 

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

I am going back home, where I will while the evening away with books and Scrabble assuming the power doesn't come back.

[afleitch]

I wish we had snow

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

We've got snow for one day, before it dissapeared

But it will be back

[Ban my account ffs!]

Its just miserably cold here. -8F currently.  I think it will get milder though and our snow comes tomorrow night... Just a few inches.

[angus]

It has been snowing steadily since about midnight but it's starting to taper off.  So far it's around 3 inches in depth this part of Lancaster.  Surprisingly, they didn't cancel school and I'm actually glad about that.  I shoveled twice today.  Well, I pushed:  the smart thing is to do it often, that way it's just pushing, not shoveling.  The temperature is not expected to rise above the freezing point of water for the next several days so it'll remain on the ground for the workweek, I expect.  Today I've walked everywhere I needed to go, and my son took the bus.  Hopefully the streets will be clear tomorrow because I have to do a little driving. 

[muon2]

It's not the snow, but the wind and cold is cancelling schools throughout Chicagoland.


Issued by The National Weather Service Chicago, IL
Tue, Jan 6, 9:24 pm CST

    ... WIND CHILL WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL NOON CST /1 PM EST/ THURSDAY...
    * WIND CHILL VALUES... 30 BELOW TO 35 BELOW ZERO OVERNIGHT INTO WEDNESDAY MORNING. WIND CHILL VALUES WILL IMPROVE SLIGHTLY TO 25 BELOW TO 30 BELOW DURING THE DAY WEDNESDAY. WIND CHILL VALUES WEDNESDAY NIGHT WILL FALL BACK TO 30 BELOW TO 40 BELOW ZERO.
    * IMPACTS... FROST BITE CAN OCCUR IN A MATTER OF MINUTES ON EXPOSED SKIN. EXTENDED EXPOSURE WITHOUT PROPER CLOTHING WILL INCREASE THE RISK OF HYPOTHERMIA.
    * STRONG WINDS WILL ALSO CAUSE AREAS OF BLOWING SNOW... WHICH MAY REDUCE VISIBILITY TO LESS THAN ONE MILE AT TIMES AS WELL AS CAUSE DRIFTING OF RECENTLY FALLEN SNOW ACROSS MAINLY RURAL ROADS.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

We never get as cold as Chicago but muon2's city is sending that cold mass our way. 

[angus]

I heard about chicago schools on the news.  Nasty cold.  Here is was pretty cold as well, but not nearly so cold.  It was 6 degrees Fahrenheit when I checked this morning about 7:30.  So far we my son's school hasn't cancelled, which is good.  Last year was rough.  There were so many snow days that he didn't get out of school till June 14.  They love the snow days in January, but when it gets warm and the pools are open, they hate it. 

[All Along The Watchtower]

I live in the SF Bay Area so...

[Ban my account ffs!]

They're closing the main highway into Grand Forks, ND in NW Minnesota tonight and pulling the snow plows due to high winds creating ground blizzard conditions which are fairly unique to the northeastern plains and eastern Canadian Prairies.



No snow falls, but the wind picks snow up into the air where it reduces visibility in the vast, flat open areas, especially in the Red River Valley.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Please resize the picture, Snowguy.

[Ban my account ffs!]

http://youtu.be/obMLp8mw8Qs

The video is loud, but captures the misery of the northern plains in January.  Luckily where i live there are hills and everything is forested so the wind is much less.  Still, there are icy patches on the roads and the DOT is out en force to keep roads clear.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Apparently this website has a unique way of resizing images that bbcode reference pages don't know about. A moderator will have to do it.

You must have made an error, just use the standard width parameter, it'll work fine:
[img width=640]http://media.graytvinc.com/images/GFStorm.jpg[/img]

[Mr. Smith]

Looks like Virginia is going to get a dusting next week.