Starship Asterisk*

Well, the storm didn't materialize, but i don't have X-ray vision so the clouds are still like blinders. Oh well, maybe next eclipse.

A little nippy this morning: 3°F (-16°C) on the deck, but all the microscopic ice crystals forming in the air created some nice effects, including this very bright sun pillar. It's still very cold, with ice in the air. I'm looking for halos, but I think the air is just too dry. The ice is mainly a ground effect.

That picture is made of argent longing for nature and for mountains... there is a dense fog advisory here and I want to go out in it and take crappy blurry photos but it might be stupid for me to go out to the exercise path at night.

Lovely picture, Chris, but I don't envy you the cold.

Here in Malmö, the weather in November can be summarized in four letters: GRAY. That is most certainly not a lot of fun. But at least, so far, it hasn't been cold.

Ann

Ann wrote:Lovely picture, Chris, but I don't envy you the cold.

Here in Malmö, the weather in November can be summarized in four letters: GRAY. That is most certainly not a lot of fun. But at least, so far, it hasn't been cold.

Ann

We're running 20 degrees below normal for about 3 days and the forcast is the same for about a week yet! Brrrrrrrrrrrr!

Ann wrote:Lovely picture, Chris, but I don't envy you the cold.

This cold isn't typical, though. Most of the U.S. is getting hit by it, pushed down from the far north by an Alaskan storm system as large and strong as Hurricane Sandy was. Yesterday we never got above 0°F/-18°C, with most of the day at about -5°F/-20°C. In a normal winter, we might never have a day like that, and it's barely winter yet. Last night we hit -12°F/-24°C, which would only be an overnight low a handful of times all winter.

Unlike your part of the world, we don't do gray here. So even when it's cold (typical winter daytime temps around freezing) it's sunny, and if you're outside in it you don't even really need a jacket.

In New England, "normal" is what you now have. I had 17 degrees F this morning. I had 60 degrees F yesterday around noon. I like my yesterdays 'normal' better.

Beyond wrote:In New England, "normal" is what you now have. I had 17 degrees F this morning. I had 60 degrees F yesterday around noon. I like my yesterdays 'normal' better. :yes:

I was in South Carolina weekend before last and it was drizzly, windy and 50°F/10°C. A little colder than we had in Colorado when we flew out, and a LOT colder feeling, what with the gray and the damp. Weather's crazy everywhere these days.

Yesterday was absolutely unbelievably gray, and there was a light drizzle. On my way home I stopped to buy a magazine from a semi-homeless man who sells his magazines on behalf of other homeless people. Since he has to stand outside on the sidewalk to do his business, I asked him how he was dealing with the weather. "Oh, this is fine," he said. "It's still nice and mild, 10C! And this little rain doesn't matter."

I guess he might have been putting on a brave front, but I sort of agreed with him. I was warm and comfortable myself, cycling home without gloves.

Ann

Bundle up tonight. The NOAA is predicting below freezing temperatures in parts of every one of the 50 states tonight with >80% of the contiguous states being below freezing Alaska -10deg
Hawaii 31deg (Mountain Peaks)

11/29/14, 7am. My thermometer is showing 5 degrees F. I hope the rest of the degrees are just hiding. Coldest day here in N/E CT. so far this winter. Tomorrow it's supposed to get up to 50 F.

YEAH Rain...YEAH rain...YEAH rain
I love rain YEAH YEAH YEAH

Here is an interesting article on the Atlantic Hurricane Season close from Livescience

The mellow 2014 Atlantic hurricane season ends Sunday (Nov. 30), marking another year without major hurricanes hitting the Eastern United States.

It has been a record-breaking nine years since a Category 3 hurricane (or stronger) made landfall along U.S. coastlines. The last was Hurricane Wilma in 2005 (Sandy was not a hurricane when it hit the northeast in 2012). The United States has never recorded a nine-year period without a hurricane touching its shores.
But the eastern Pacific was busier than the last 20 years... .

See the rest here

Beyond wrote:11/29/14, 7am. My thermometer is showing 5 degrees F. I hope the rest of the degrees are just hiding. Coldest day here in N/E CT. so far this winter. Tomorrow it's supposed to get up to 50 F.

It's been in the 50s here for a few days. Rode up onto the higher slopes looking for elk, and even above 11,000 feet I didn't need a coat. Barely touching freezing overnight.

Chris Peterson wrote:

Beyond wrote:11/29/14, 7am. My thermometer is showing 5 degrees F. I hope the rest of the degrees are just hiding. Coldest day here in N/E CT. so far this winter. Tomorrow it's supposed to get up to 50 F.

It's been in the 50s here for a few days. Rode up onto the higher slopes looking for elk, and even above 11,000 feet I didn't need a coat. Barely touching freezing overnight.

Here it is almost 9 pm and it's still 40 F, here in the N/E corner of Ct. It's not uncommon to get 30 to 40 degree changes, sometimes in 24 hours, until winter really sets in. Sounds like it's really nice w-a-y up in your high neck of the woods.

Spring is here! Golf ball size hail and tornadoes in Oklahoma today.

bystander wrote:Spring is here! Golf ball size hail and tornadoes in Oklahoma today.

And we're having spring snow. 6" overnight, but warm enough that the snow is wet. I was shoveling it today without needing gloves or a coat. Pretty weird for December.

It's warmer in Nome than it is in Maryland. In single digits (°F) last night; am hoping we get above freezing this afternoon.

owlice wrote:It's warmer in Nome than it is in Maryland. In single digits (°F) last night; am hoping we get above freezing this afternoon.

That's been a trend in recent years. It's becoming a normal winter pattern for cold polar air to push down into temperate latitudes leaving it warmer in the Arctic than further south. There is still a good deal of debate in the climate science community about the exact cause, but that it's happening seems pretty certain.

Our electric fencing looks particularly... electric today.

Chris, that's a beautiful picture!

And a really nice shock of frost

It looks like OUCH! without even touching it.

Hoarfrost. One word I probably would not know without video games. The word sounds mystical so it gets used in fantasy games.

Blizzard was bearing down on us but then for whatever reason backed off. New Yorkers unimpressed. Still, it was a significant snow. Here's my usual time lapse video.