Ahira's Hangar

Yesterday was a perfect winter day - just under freezing and very sunny. Today we are having freezing rain. though we still have our power (so far). They are saying that on Tuesday night we will have snow. Depending on the storm track, either we will get only 2-4 inches and Ontario will get around a foot, or vice versa. Tuesday the docs will be giving me a tiny amount of radioactive iodine to swallow, and Wednesday morning they will be taking x-rays of my throat to see how much of it my thyroid sucks up. So obviously, I am hoping we get the smaller amount of snow and that Canada gets nuked with it.

Heh, I don't mind snow - except when the snow-clearing crew shows up at 3:00 am, interrupting my sleep.

But what I'm really getting tired of are the unseasonably low temperatures we've been experiencing. This past December was Winnipeg's 4th coldest in 75 years, and apparently for that month the Prairies were overall colder than Antarctica!

Rainy today here. Yesterday they were forecasting the possibility of sleet and freezing rain; today, they're saying it probably won't drop below freezing, so it'll stay all rain. Which is Just Fine By Me, thanks.

I've been wondering how the Obamas will react to DC's weather wimpiness. They'll probably laugh their butts off.

Probably. I know we Michiganders laugh our heads off when we hear about Southerners ccanceling school and closign roads for a coupel of inches of snow. And Yoopers from the far northern UP on the Lake Superior coast laugh in turn at us Trolls for cancelling school and closing roads for anything less than a foot of snow. Everything is relative.

As it turns out, the storm went to the south and east, so Ohio and Ontario will get nuked with freezing rain and snow, and we will only get an inch or so. I can happily live with that.

We had a very cold week over here in england temps hit as low as -12 c in some places and for us thats cold , lots of icy roads and lots of road accidents we never seem to be ready to deal with the icy roads compared to you guys over in the States. And its no fun being a gardener either this time of year I can tell ya.

You're a gardener? We've had less than 2 inches of slow all winter (Santa Fe has had 2 feet), so far, and it's supposed to be in the low 50s all week so will be mellow and a bit brisk but not cold at all for January.

Maybe I should start calling you Samwise, lol. I have great respect for gardeners I've done a lot of landscaping. Are you a gardener, or landscaper or both or do you guys call landscapers gardeners over there?

A lot of the landscaping I've done on New Mexico is a combination of both called xeriscaping heavy stone work and planting native and semi-native species...

We are so seriously in the deep freeze right now. Our high today was only a bit above zero farenheit, and they are saying the windchills will be in the negative twenties and negative thirties tonight and tomorrow. And plenty of snow and ice on the ground. I will be very glad when this weather breaks next week.

It's pretty freakin' cold here in the greater DC area this week. The Weather Channel says it's 14 degrees Farenheit out there right now; it's not supposed to get much above 20 tomorrow and windchills are supposed to be in the single digits. I know I sound wimpy to youse guys up there near the Arctic Circle . But this is the coldest cold snap we've had in at least five years, and we're just not used to it. (And I left my hat on the train this morning, like a dope. Luckily I had a scarf to wrap around my poor li'l punkin' head for the walk to work from the train. Stopped at a sporting goods store and bought a new watch cap on the way home....)

The good news is that it's supposed to be back up near 30 on Sunday, the day of the really big Inaugural concert on the National Mall. I figure 30 will feel like shirtsleeve weather by then. I wonder what Beyonce's gonna wear for her performance. Maybe they'll have global-warming-level space heaters around the stage.... Haven't heard an Inauguration Day forecast yet.

Beyonce? Haha, maybe she'll wear next-to-nothing as per usual. But I suppose she might try to be somewhat demure with her wardrobe out of respect for Mr. Obama.

I'm fed up with our own cold spell that we've been enduring since the start of December, with a very brief respite on Boxing Day. But now it looks like we may finally be getting some sustained mild weather beginning this weekend. The forecast is for -1 Celsius Saturday and zero on Sunday (gasp - single digits!). And the prediction for Monday is +1 (double gasp!!).

28°C In Joburg today.

--A

As long as we're doing celsius...
+1°C in sunny North Central Florida right now...