Baby, its cold outside

[imafan26]

It is the low 60's at night and around 76 in the daytime. In the day, it is fairly nice, but the nights and mornings are a bit chilly for me. When I am at work in the early morning I make a raincoat out of a 32 gallon garbage bag and it doubles as my sweater at least until about 9 a.m.

I know not really cold for most of you guys, but I am warm-blooded.

The weather can't decide what it wants to do. It rains with flash flood warnings for three days and then it is sunny for the rest of the week. Today we had Kona weather so no rain and very light winds but lots of vog leaving a haze over everything. The volcano has been erupting from the Puu 'o'o vent continuously since Jan 3, 1983 so the vog (volcanic smog) creates haze whenever the tradewinds fall off and the wind comes from the south. It is natural air pollution. It burns my eyes. It is supposed to rain again late in the week. The one thing that is consistent about the weather forecasts here. It is usually right when it is mostly sunny with the usual trades and windward and mauka showers, but I think the weather service use a Ouija board to forecast rain. Sometimes it comes, sometimes not, sometimes it is not as bad as predicted. Well, at least the surf reports are usually accurate.

[rainbowgardener]

Such a wimp! We had that warm Christmas weather - warm meaning we had highs in the low 50's! Now the blast of Arctic air is coming back: Arctic Cold Returns to Wrap Up 2014: Dangerous Wind Chills Ahead for West, Midwest https://www.weather.com/forecast/nationa ... -northeast

"Wind chills to 20 below or colder could reach as far south as southeast Colorado, western Kansas, Iowa and western Wisconsin by early Tuesday. The combination of cold temperatures and winds may lead to frostbite on exposed skin in 30 minutes or less in these areas."

I am not in the bitterest cold part of that forecast, but we have very few hours with temps above freezing in our ten day forecast.

[rainbowgardener]

This morning while I was on the way to work, the radio told me that the temperature with wind chill factored in was EIGHT degrees! I don't want to know, thanks anyway!

[imafan26]

Ah, but you don't know. Your houses are heated, and the walls and windows are insulated. The houses I saw actually had few windows and they were small.

No heat here except from my heating pad which I am using nightly and which my cats do not want to give up either.

Houses here are built lightly. Older houses are single wall, and roofs with wide overhangs would not hold up to the chill and snow well at all. Actually most of the home insurance covers snow damage. Nice of them to cover something that is very unlikely to happen! I have a lot of windows and glass doors, none of them are insulated. We have jalousie windows that are designed to let the maximum air in and keep things cooler especially in summer when the only other options are air conditioning, the mall, the movies, or the beach.

I have a couple of extra blankets for the bed and I wear my sweats over my clothes to sleep with. Winter gear is layering with long sleeved shirts ( I don't have many), long pants, sometimes two, and a jacket. I have a couple of area carpets but for the most part I have tile and pergo floors that are downright cold at this time of the year. It is probably the only time of the year, I consider wearing socks all day.

But you still win, eventually you have to go outside in that and I do is just shiver and tuck my very cold hands in my sleeves and put the blanket over my head to stay a little warmer when it drops to 49 degrees.

[lily51]

December and January is Big Surf and when the surfing competitions are held. The dates are dependent on surf conditions they have to be high and clean enough. On those days, traffic slows to a crawl especially since Kam Hwy is one lane in either direction.

We were there in January. The day we arrived waves were 35 feet, but we couldn't get to North shore to see them. The day we went waves were 25 feet and there were surfers out there. We (us and other mainlanders) were just watching from the beach at a distance from the shore. A lifeguard came racing down the beach on a four wheeler yelling at anyone who was standing on damp sand to get back onto totally dry sand. He was very urgent about it.
We were ignorant as to the unpredictability of the waves.
Even at 25 feet the waves were amazing.

On Kauai we were told not to step one foot into the water due to extremely strong currents that time of year. I relaxed all afternoon on a lounge chair, soaking up the sun and the sight of the beautiful deep blue water with whales breaching a little ways out. It was like heaven.

[digitS']

Things are warming up! ... umm, for me.

Three days out - minimum temperatures, should update:



Steve

[lily51]

Here comes the cold, wind and snow. Guess our month long of pretending we were in fla is over.

[imafan26]

It has been a crazy season. Some days are nearly normal with a brief shower, colder than usual, and sunny around 72 degrees which is normal for this time of year. Then a few days go by and a storm approaches and everything changes sometimes in just a few hours.

Last Friday the storm dropped most of the rain on Kaui and started to lift so we did not get as much rain as predicted. It rained and sometimes the rain was going sideways but it did not cause any flooding. The power did go out in places, but that happens pretty much every time it rains hard enough to get a couple of inches of rain on the street. The wind caused most of the damage.

My bathroom was was splattered with mud that came through the closed jealousie windows. When I went out in the morning it was cold but sunny and the wind had gone back to normal. In the intersection I saw a crepe myrtle with half of the branches broken and lying on the sidewalk, Monkeypod branches were littering the median and even some of the Norfolk pines lost a few branches. It looked like a mini hurricane had come through, the wind must have been gusting over 50 mph to do that. Thank goodness my roof did not lose any tiles.

[applestar]

Here, it's currently 14°F with windchill/"feels like" of 1°F and forcast for overnight low is 8°F with windchill/"feels like" of MINUS 11°F

In the garage, temperature is hovering a few tenth's of degrees above freezing. The fig is covered and the banana is double layer covered, but I'm going to have to do something more before going to bed. Survive it or go dormant for the two Pineapple Sage plants that have stayed green and blooming until today, and the peppers that are already in dormant state.

I was going to pot up and bring in some of the peppers but life had other ideas....

[pepperhead212]

I am not looking forward to going out there tomorrow! Fortunately, I got my rosemary covered Sun., when It was 62º out! Hopefully, the high hoop house will save them. I harvested a bunch of my greens, just in case, but they usually make it, no matter what.

[rainbowgardener]

OMG ! Radio when I was going to work today said it was ZERO degrees and that was without counting in any windchill. We've been having overnight temps in negative numbers.

imafan I'm sure you are right that there is a difference in how houses are made and my house may be more cozy at 40 degrees than yours is at 60. But when you get down to zero and below it is a whole different story. My 90 year old house has drafts and air that cold finds every one. Pipes are now frozen in the downstairs bathroom.

And I do have to go out in it. I actually considered calling in sick to work today just not to have to go out in the cold, but I have too much work ethic for that. But it is scary cold out there. I drive a car with 200,000 miles on it. I keep thinking about what if the car would quit while I was out on the road? I could DIE before help could come!!! I need to start keeping blankets and stuff in my car.

Because I grew up in So California, I know that people in warm climates don't think about Nature being hostile. I hate the feeling that if you step outside the door without all the proper gear on, it could kill you in short order. Starting seeds and working with lights and plants is what saves my sanity through this time of year!

[catgrass]

Here in Southwest Louisiana at 7 am today it was 26 on my patio and 35 in my greenhouse, with the little heater running all night. I DO NOT like cold weather-it makes me cranky.

[digitS']

downloadfile.jpeg (13.15 KiB) Viewed 1381 times

It isn't that way here. We really have separated again from the part of the country east of the Rockies ..! Well, think of it this way: the weather in the West will likely reach other places on the continent before too long. It may mean some warming to your neighborhood.

Imafan, don't let your imagination run wild. By "not that way," I just mean it isn't below zero or even close to single digitS'. It's 33°f this afternoon after an overnight low of 30°. Foggy!

The international airport nearby has had 1/8th mile visibility today. I hope air travelers continue to have safe travels in & out or that sad face above won't be nearly sad enough.

Steve

[rainbowgardener]

National Weather Service wind chill advisory for my county and a number of other Ohio counties:


This is National Weather Service wind chill advisory for Hamilton and other Ohio counties: ...WIND CHILL ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 1 PM EST
SATURDAY...

* WIND CHILL READINGS...AROUND 10 BELOW THIS AFTERNOON AND THEN AS
LOW AS 10 BELOW TO 20 BELOW TONIGHT INTO SATURDAY.


* IMPACTS...THE FRIGID CONDITIONS WILL BE DANGEROUS TO THOSE
VENTURING OUTSIDE. EXPOSURE MAY CAUSE FROSTBITE.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...

A WIND CHILL ADVISORY IS ISSUED WHEN A STRONG WIND WILL COMBINE
WITH COLD TEMPERATURES TO CREATE DANGEROUSLY COLD CONDITIONS FOR
EXPOSED SKIN. THE WIND WILL MAKE IT FEEL LIKE IT IS BETWEEN
10 AND 24 DEGREES BELOW ZERO FOR A PERIOD OF SEVERAL HOURS. THOSE
PLANNING TO VENTURE OUTDOORS SHOULD USE COMMON SENSE AND DRESS
WARMLY... MAKING SURE THAT ALL EXPOSED SKIN IS COVERED.

basically be prepared to die if you set foot outside the door, which I am not planning to do today!

[lily51]

In my part of Ohio, for two days
-8 with wind chill -25, some snowing, but with wind produced whiteouts. Now it's the cold that's the worse.

[digitS']

Finally, some more snow! The nearest Snotel station now says "Latest Observation is 62 % of average." Things look better in the mountains north, south and east. It's only in the southern Cascades where below normal shows up in a serious way.

I'm a little surprised that our local mountain snowpack looks more like the central and southern Cascades but since much of our weather comes from that direction, I guess I shouldn't be.

The USDA just put out a report yesterday: " A normal water supply is predicted for much of the West, while the Southwest, Sierra Nevada region and Pacific Northwest are beginning the year drier than normal ..." I'm trying to figure out how they seem to have referred to just about the entire US West as dry but still saying "normal." I think it may mean that the US and Canadian Rocky Mountains are catching adequate snow. I hope our lower elevation forests don't miss out. The drought map for California does not look good and is linked within theUSDA report.

Steve

[tomf]

We have had a very warm winter, as a atter of fact we keep getting warm winters. The smow pack has not been the same for years, out here that affects more than just skiing, water for farms, drinking and wild life can become in short supply.