Archive for February, 2008

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Fun little ice storm

Thursday, February 14th, 2008

Well this last storm was one of those times where the cold air just hangs tough at the surface. We ended up below freezing here until about 11am with freezing rain. Some of it was heavy. Cold air damming sure is fun to watch in action. It was a good thing state college issued the ice storm warning.

The roads seemed to mostly stay wet but it was really accumulating on the trees and wires and other things. I saw some branches bent down to the ground. That’s the first time I seen this since 1994. We did lose one pretty big branch from the only tree we have early yesterday morning.

I think it was a good thing it rose above freezing. After the wind switched to the NW last night it got pretty windy. I would imagine there would have been many more trees and wires downed if there was wind with the pretty thick ice accumulations.

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Switched over to freezing rain and sleet.

Wednesday, February 13th, 2008

We just got back from a short walk around the neighborhood. We ended up with about 2 inches of snow I’d guess.  It seems the accumulating snow is over now.  It’s switched over to freezing rain and some sleet and is showery with a temperature of 23.  Should be a fun night especially for thos who can’t drive.

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Last Year’s memorable sleet storm

Tuesday, February 12th, 2008

This time last year we had the most sleet I have ever seen.  We ended up with about six inches of very compacted sleet and snow.  We had some rain mixed in there too.  it was heavy to shovel it.  It was funny to see the people on the news trying to dig there cars out of the icy mass after everything refroze.  We did ours while it was still fairly mild.

It warmed up enough for it to melt a bit then we head a deep freeze.  Everything froze as solid as a rock for a few days.  It surprisingly enough didn’t seem that slippery either.  While it stayed cold the stuff didn’t melt and when the sun shined on it it made it look like shiny ice.  It was also really interesting to be able to just walk on top of the frozen sleet and snow.  It was pretty much like walking on rough concrete.

The roads stayed covered with ice and Pa had a mess with a 50 mile stretch of I-78 being closed due to it for more than 24 hours.  At some points I-80 and I-81 were closed also

There was also a fire across the railroad tracks from our house.  That was a bit odd because I was just going to bed when I thought I smelled smoke.  Me being the way I am I had to find the source of the odor before I could go to sleep.  where if I remember right they had trouble getting water to fight the fire due to frozen pipes.

This was a pretty memorable storm for sure.

North of here in New York state and Vermont some areas received record snow fall when a heavy band of snow set up over their area.  They were the big winners as far as snow is concerned.  That looked like one intense band and I hope to be under one like that someday.

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wasted arctic shot

Tuesday, February 12th, 2008

Sunday ended up being very windy with temps dropping into the teens as soon as the sun set. We bottomed out around 10 here. Monday it only made it into the 20s and back down to 16 last night.

We had a little light snow this morning and then more snow will move into the area later and change to sleet and freezing rain then over to plain rain tonight. Once again it just seems like wasted cold. If we are not going to have snow with it I’d rather it just stayed warm so we didn’t have to pay for heat. It seems totally pointless with out snow. It just hasn’t been that good of a winter here but I expected that before winter even started.

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surprise snow flurries

Saturday, February 9th, 2008

Cool.. snow flurries out side now.  This is a nice surprise but not really anything to get excited over but it’s something.  It would be too warm for any real snow today anyways.  Tomorrow we get a quick shot of arctic air but it will be pretty much wasted cold again.  I love snow but just don’t see anything really happening this year with snow.

Bring on spring and severe weather!

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turn off your lights

Friday, February 8th, 2008

I wonder how much energy could be saved everyone would turn off lights at night.  It’s interesting to see how many outside lights are left on all night.  It just seems very wasteful to me.  One neighbor has a light bright enough to light up our back yard and they live something like three houses down.

Another neighbor behind us leaves more than one light on every night.  One lights the side of their house.  One lights up their back yard.

Much of the light is wasted by just going into the air and causing light polution at night.

What if there was a reflective shield everyone put above their lights so that it’s not wasted lighting up the night sky?  There’s not much of a point in trying to light up the sky.

Americans are very wasteful with so much of what they do.  It’s time to be less wasteful.  We have a limited amount of resources.  Just something as simple as turning off lights would save some money and electricity.  I don’t think that will happen around this country anytime soon.  Think about how many people have to drive huge SUVs that they’ll never actually need.

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What season is it anyways?

Thursday, February 7th, 2008

We had two thunderstorms yesterday.  One in the afternoon which was racing across the area.  That one only gave us a little rain and a couple cracks of thunder.  I was happy with that for February.

Later on between 10 and 11pm we had a more impressive storm complete with a severe thunderstorm warning.  It was pretty cool to be out on the porch watching lightning off to the north and west at 10pm with no jacket in February.  If we can’t get any snow I’d rather have this.  It got a little breezy then had a good gust of wind or two and burst of heavy rain.  It made me look foward to storms in spring.

Also many records feel yesterday for the high temperature.  Middletown hit 66 breaking the old record of 60.

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Mississippi wants to ban fat people from restaurants

Tuesday, February 5th, 2008

A bill was introduced in Mississippi to ban obese people from restaurants.  I can’t imagine this would pass.  It seems too much like discrimination to me.  Some people are overweight due to health problems they can’t control and it just seems unfair to not let them enjoy dining out.  I don’t feel the state has the right to tell people where they can eat or tell the establishment that they can’t serve those people and lose the money.

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