respublica

Of all the snow pictures...

The front page of the Post-Dispatch stopped me in my tracks this morning. I'd bet thousands of pictures were taken of yesterday's snow and this was what was chosen. I had to stop and ponder what possessed this guy to go out in his bathrobe to shovel snow, I mean, it would be still be there if he'd taken the time to dress warmer. And, how did the P-D photographer just happen along when he was out there?

I guess that is what a good front page photo does, it makes you stop and give some thought to what's going on.

Early snow

We've probably had snow in mid-November, but I sure don't remember one as wintry as this. Woke up this morning to see that the weather forecasts yesterday were correct, another unusual happening.

Our poor golf cart didn't get covered in time.

Right now at ten to 9 it is snowing really hard again, big flakes. Glad I went to the store yesterday. Ferdie will not do his business this morning, he sniffed around, but after a couple of minutes in the grassy, snow covered areas he gets very painful ice balls under his foot pads which causes him to just sit down in the snow and refuse to move. I try to get the ice balls out of his feet, but within a couple of minutes new ones form. So we're inside until he's desperate.

Weather alert

All this week we've been warned about a huge storm system heading our way for the weekend with a possibility of 3-6 inches of rain and wind. It was supposed to begin last night, into today and tonight and Saturday. Nothing much happened last night and so far today has been cloudy, but dry. We may still get this big storm, but the lead up to it reminds me of so many winter storm scares we get from our local news.

A massive winter storm with snow, ice and frigid temperatures forecast comes with all the advice-get your shovel handy, check the snow blower, have extra warm clothes in your car in case you get stalled or stuck. The state road crews are out salting etc. Way too often nothing much comes of these forecasts in the St. Louis area. The storm stalls or heads north or south of us.

This morning local news people were so obsessed with a coming rain event that they filmed county sewer workers hosing out drains with the added advice that we should be checking to see that our gutters aren't clogged. Get the umbrellas handy. Any number of schools have already cancelled or postponed football games and MoDOT and IDOT have cancelled their planned work on the Poplar which would have completely closed that bridge in both directions all weekend. Yay for that cancellation.

On the other hand, Clayton officials are not going to be undermined by weather or warnings. The annual St. Louis Art Fair in downtown Clayton will go on rain or shine.

That's the attitude Clayton! We go every year and a couple of years it rained but the fair continued and the people still came.

I don't know if we'll get a big rain storm but, really, it's just rain, miserable on a weekend, but not an Apocalyptic event.

A dark morning with rain

This is not the kind of weather we were hoping for today. It's so very dark with thunder storms and downpours. Today is big around here at the seminary. Not only will the hoping service for the school year take place, but the dedication of the huge library renovation this afternoon. In between is a luncheon for people from various parts of the country who supported the library's construction.

As for this morning, there were so many crashes during rush hour that one of the local news traffic reporters said, "I think it would be a faster report if I said what roads are not delayed."

A weather story with something missing

Fox2 weatherman, Dave Murray, put up this story last night:

"THREE WEEKS WITHOUT SUNSPOTS: The sun has been blank for 21 straight days--a remarkable 3 weeks without sunspots. This is an almost decade-class event. The last time the sun lost its spots for 21 consecutive days was in the year 2009 coming on the heels of an historic solar minimum. With the current stretch of blank suns, solar minimum conditions have definitely returned."

After reading this, are you like me, wondering the age old question: What does this mean? There is no explanation of what solar minimum means or the difference for us between no sunspots and sunspots.

I'd be interested in knowing.

A power outage follow-up

Discovered a couple of extra odd things after Saturday's storm and power outage here on the campus. Not only did the storm turn on our gas fireplace, but it knocked out a couple of electric sockets. Not all, just two. Plus, it did something weird to our projection clock in the bedroom. This clock shoots the time up onto the ceiling which we like, but since the storm the temperature numbers are upside down and there seems to be no way to reverse this except to turn the entire clock around backwards which sort of defeats the purpose for general use.

An unusual fire

We spent the weekend in Collinsville and like most people around here, we watched the big storm roll through on Saturday night. There were power outages in many places, but not where we were. I came back to the campus on Sunday afternoon and when I walked into the living room I was immediately shaken by seeing our gas fireplace burning full tilt.

I mean, seriously? This sight scared me. We did not have that fireplace turned on at all over the winter so how in the world did it come on? My best guess is something in the thunder and lightning caused it to go on, but how, I do not know. I am going to go ask the guys in the shop if they have any idea. My impression was, judging by the temperature in the room, that it had been burning for some time and that is worrisome, especially since no one was home.

If you know me at all, you'd know I am a bit paranoid about safety things and after turning off that fire, I worried about carbon monoxide or gas leaks in the room. So I opened a couple of windows and let the hot air in for a while until I was sure things were safe.

The summer storm

We had a heck of a late afternoon/early evening story yesterday. Thunder/lightning/heavy rain/ power outages all after a really stifling hot day. As it began I took a couple of pictures from our back deck in Collinsville. 

We could certainly see it coming and then it got as dark as night when it was only around 4.

We've gotten rain when we needed it

That's one way to look at all this rain we've had lately. But pretty soon we're going to be facing way too much rain. Last week we had torrential rain and last night and this morning, thunderstorms and lots of water. Here is our rain gauge right now, it looks bigger in the picture than it actually is and, I checked all 3 of our gauges and the amounts are the same.

Around here we keep gauges in various places.

Well it's raining

I can't remember the year, but tonight will be only the second time in the years we've been here that graduation evening will be held indoors because of rain. Logistically it will be difficult, but we got through once and certainly it was memorable for all involved. Hopefully the memories will be clear and good for this year's class.

Last night we had a reception in our yard for graduates and their parents which went well on a very lovely evening.