Tuesday, January 27, 2009

What a difference a few degrees makes

The low this morning was(is) 20, which had the effect of causing most of the falling wet to turn into falling solid, either snow or sleet. There's a nice thin blanket of mixed snow & sleet on everything, which is much easier to deal with than sheet ice, with light sleet still coming down. Go east a ways to the Muskogee area, the temp is currently 32, and here's their forecast:
Today: Freezing rain. Some thunder is also possible. High near 32. North northwest wind around 13 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. Total daytime ice accumulation of 0.5 to 0.7 of an inch possible.
That's a lot of ice on its own, let alone on top of what already fell. Ok, the ice storm warning says
FREEZING RAIN...OCCASIONALLY MIXED WITH SLEET...WILL CONTINUE TO
DEVELOP AND MOVE ACROSS SOUTHEAST OKLAHOMA...NORTHWEST AND WEST
CENTRAL ARKANSAS TODAY. TOTAL ICE ACCUMULATIONS BETWEEN A HALF AND
ONE INCH ARE LIKELY THROUGH TONIGHT...WITH LOCALLY HIGHER AMOUNTS.
which is downright nasty. Which is about what happened here last year, it just wasn't cold enough to freeze the stuff before it hit the ground, so it hit and then froze.

Security Staff proved her general intelligence by staying curled up in her house until I had her food ready, then sliding out and diving into the garage to eat. After which she ran round long enough to sniff, stretch and pee, then dived back into the house. The birds in the holly trees were bitching about things enough the trees were moving, so I scattered some food around in front.

Years ago lived in a town named Medford, way up near the Kansas border. One winter, instead of ice, we got right at four inches of sleet; looked just like snow on the ground, except it was little balls of ice. That was interesting.

I think this is that day I kept putting a bunch of cleanup/putaway off for, so I think I'll get some of that done.

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