Baby, it's cold outside...

Snowed pretty bad last night. Had a 75 car pile up on the highway on Tuesday and people live on over here as if it's nothing. Yeah it's very cold over here. Has real feel of like -10

 

Wow. I know people "get used to it" with a lot of snowy weather, but they really need to be much smarter about traveling in those conditions. So many foolish people getting into accidents and risking their life to run errands and dumb things like that. There is some travel that certainly cannot be avoided but safety is paramount in bad weather. Be smart and go slowly!

 

Worst part is, people try to cheap out on tires in this weather and think their "driving skills" will only keep them alive.

 

I have good tires, but unfortunately, they are on a Lincoln Town Car which has rear wheel drive and a big engine in the front. It is so bad in winter that it starts sliding off the road when a snowstorm is simply forecasted.

 

I had an old car in the same style; rear-wheel drive and a lot of torque. Basically unusable in bad weather! Always best to be safe and plan ahead when possible.

 

Please be careful. Rear wheel drive cars are the worst in the snow.

 

Sometimes it is better to just stay home. I've been lucky to have a flexible enough schedule to do so but I know others may not have that opportunity.

 

I am back from DC. They were 3 super long days. I am totally wiped out. Next time (which will be in a couple months) I'll fly.

 

How was it there?

 

As far as what? The weather? It was not terribly cold. I was surprised that there was practically no snow anywhere. That particular DC area is a zoo. Dozens of cars parked on every street (blocking the roads), insane traffic, hard to find parking anywhere... I guess I forgot what it is like to live in a busy city.

 

I feel like a lot of areas in the states are like that. Yeah, I was curious about the weather. We recently thawed out a bit up here so it looks like the same down there. At least you didn't go when that big snow cyclone thing came through!

 

Okay, so the "bomb cyclone" last week dropped about 14 inches/35.5 centimeters of snow on us which means that the snow banks caused by shoveling/plowing are generally 24 inches/61 centimeters or more. It has been below freezing ever since, so the snow was as high as ever this morning. However, suddenly the temperatures went up to 54F/12C this afternoon and we are now expecting a big rainstorm tonight which will also dramatically melt the snow so we will be faced with significant flooding in streets and low lying areas. As soon as that is over Saturday night, an Arctic cold front will quickly move in and freeze everything. I don't know why anyone lives in New England.

 

Wow! What a wild ride. Everyone is going to get ill from the ups and downs. I hope you guys are all secure from the flooding. Flood damage can be a major headache to deal with. Soon it'll be back to more snow, I bet. You guys get some wild weather down there.

 

So the snow is mostly gone and the temperature this morning is 58F/14.4C. The rain is coming down hard and the wind is howling. Tonight we are forecast to drop to 12F/-11C which will turn everything that is wet into glare ice. Bit of a temperature swing, no?

Earlier this week, the temp got up to around 32F/0C after a few weeks of really cold weather and we were all saying that it felt like beach weather.

 

I sometimes see posters from down south talking about how they needed jackets when it was 15*C, like wow! They wouldn't last up here.

 

Miserable. The groundhog was right.

 

Okay, to give you an idea about New England weather: A little over a week ago we had a couple of days of 70F/21C (winter thaw) and today we are blanketed in wet, cold snow, it is 32F/0C, the tree limbs are bending down to the ground covered in wet, sticky snow, power outages everywhere (thankfully, we only lost power for about 1.5 hours in the middle of the night) and soon I have to go out to dig us out of this mess. They are saying that another storm is on the way for early next week. I am going to have to get more gas for the snowblower...

 

Hate COLD. Give me hoy days

 

We have now had four Nor'easters in four weeks. The one last night/this morning kind of sputtered out and we only got about an inch (2.5cm) of snow. However, last week we got 18 inches (46cm) of snow. There is another possible snowstorm coming next week. Happy Spring!