respublica

Warning! Winter weather coming!

All morning, even last night, local weather reporters and MoDOT officials were blasting out a forecast of snow for today. There were even dire pieces of advice to "please stay off the roads" today. You'd have thought we are in for a major snowfall, but further checking seems to predict 1-2, maybe 2-3 inches, most of us in the 1-2 range. All the weather people are being very forceful in getting our attention. "Get Ready for More Snow!" They've got us covered with the timing of this storm. A MoDOT even had a press conference this morning with two officials giving very serious advice for motorists today, "Stay off the Roads, we already have trucks out pre-treating."

This is certainly different from last Sunday when we woke up to roads which were covered with ice and not driveable at all. We'd heard similar predictions on Saturday, "ice coming, be very cautious and maybe don't plan to drive." The grocery stores were crowded on Saturday as most people heard the forecast. But for some reason it didn't seem as though MoDOT did much pre-treating since everything was ice covered the next day. Lots of accidents and road closures last Sunday morning.

Maybe last week's ice wasn't something that could be pre-treated, but it was the one odd part of that ice storm. So today they're out treating for snow.

An icy morning memory

Yesterday, Sunday, all of us in the St. Louis metro area and beyond woke up to a shiny glaze of slippery ice on every outdoor surface. it didn't look so thick and awful until we walked out on it and barely kept standing. Ferdie stepped out and his back legs immediately went out on him sideways. He was done with going out for the rest of the day. Cars driven by people on highways were sliding and often crashing into each other. Even some salt trucks over-turned. It was bad and lasted for most of the morning.

What amazed us was the man who delivers our Post-Dispatch each day. He somehow managed to get the paper on our lawn by 5:30 before any of the seminary streets were salted. Then he drove downhill to the neighbors with their paper and back up the hill, around the curve of the chapel and back to Clayton Road. I have no idea how he did this, but we talked about that guy and how outstanding that was all day. We wouldn't have complained if he had not attempted it or even waited until afternoon.

The Post-Dispatch needs to give him an award.

More weather terms

Since January began there have been many new (to me) weather terms used to describe what is going on. I've posted a few others in the past week, but here is another, gravity wave) via Chris Higgens of Fox2 in St. Louis:

"Gusty winds spreading into the metro as a gravity wave ripples across the region from the west. Gravity waves form when a stable sub-cloud layer is disturbed from above by a rapidly strengthening weather system...it is a lot like throwing a rock in the water...and the rigs spread out from there. Those waves in the atmosphere result in gusty winds....top gusts of 30 mph are possible."

Gusty high winds tend to worry me more than rain and snow.

The best thing about February...

It doesn't last as long as other months...

Another rare weather phenonmenum

This morning I came across another thing new to me which occurs during very cold weather.  Light Pillars! Most of the time these vertical lights coming down from the sky happen in places in northern climates such as Norway, Canada, Wyoming, Russia. Very rare in our part of the woods, but last week was so cold, Light Pillars became visible over Scott Air Force Base/ Mid-America Airport. I saw the photo accompanying the local light pillars, but it is very copyrighted so I could not download it which is only fair to the photographer. 

But here is a link to that photo.

And, here is a stock photo of light pillars from Laramie, Wyoming.

How cool is this?

January is finally behind us

It's February! It can't be worse than the longest, coldest, snowiest January. So it's great to welcome a new month which hopefully won't be as physically difficult as the past one. Speaking of weather which is all we've been doing lately, Here is a look at a few of St. Louis' February's past temperature highs and lows.

On the 1st the record high was 84 in 1911 and the low was -6 in 1951.

February 2nd the high was 66 in 2016 and the low was -10 in 1917

February 3rd  high was 75 in 1890 and the low -12 in 1996

That takes us through the weekend with past temperatures all over the place. The normal high for this date is 44 and the normal low is 25

This Polar Vortex brought with it all kinds of new terms

These terms are new to me in any event. Watching the weather obsessively this week, I've learned these things:

1. Frost Quakes. It seems these have occurred in many of our cities which have been hit by the minus temperatures. They are loud explosion type booms which can make the ground shake. Frost quakes happen "when water trapped underground freezes suddenly as the temperature drops, causing it to expand. All that rapidly expanding water underground can split rocks and put stress on the soil, causing loud booms."  Lots of reports on these this week.
2. Bubbles freese in sub zero or near zero temperatures. This takes some practice according to those who do this, but it starts with getting some soap bubbles like you find in the toy aisle or better yet, make your own. "Every bubble is made up of three individual layers: a thin layer of water molecules squished between two layers of soap. It might look like the entire surface of the bubble is freezing, but what you’re actually seeing is the innermost layer of water—which freezes at warmer temperatures than soapy water—turning to ice within the film." The  bubbles don't last long and when cracks in the surface begin the bubbles explode into crystals.
3. Boiling water turns into snow. Get some boiling water into a pot or bowl or cup and toss it up into very cold outdoor air. It immediately explodes into snow.
4. Halo around the sun has been noticed by many this week. It happens when thin, wispy, cirrus clouds move in front of the sun. Cirrus clouds are made of ice crystals and are much higher up in the atmosphere than the big puffy cumulus clouds. If the cirrus clouds pass in front of the sun, the sun's light refracts from the ice crystals and creates the illusion of a halo.
5. Setting train tracks on fire. I saw this going on in Chicago from lots of news outlets yesterday. Railroad workers in Chicago were setting the tracks on fire. Why? "Tracks are affected by extreme cold in two ways.In some cases the tracks experience what's called "pull-aparts." This kind of rail defect occurs when two rails separate at their connection. The extreme cold shrinks the metal and the rails literally pull apart from each other and Heating the tracks with fire expands the metal until the two rails can be put back together again. The tracks aren't really set on fire, it just looks that way. The flames actually come from gas-fed heaters that run alongside the rails and keep them warm.

Temperature and real feel

It has taken a painful deep freeze over a good portion of the country to bring us all together with one mind. We all feel horrible in sub zero weather. What's interesting to me since I'm stuck inside and bored, is the difference between the actual temperature and the wind chill temperature. At the moment it is -4, 4 below zero in St. Louis but the Real Feel is -33.

That minus 33 supposedly is due to the wind (wind chill) and my weather app has the wind at 20 mph.  As I walked Ferdie a bit ago and now look outside, there is very little evidence of wind. No way the wind is 20 mph this morning. It was during the night for sure. So, I'm not believing the -33 Real Feel.

Not that it isn't bitter cold. It certainly is.

The cold of 2014

It is so darn cold today, single digits, and we're in what some weather people are saying is a Polar Vortex. This reminds me of a really painful Polar Vortex that hit in January of 2014. Not only was the cold bitter, but we had so much snow it took days to remove it. The days the sun came out and the skies were blue made everything look gorgeous, but the snow did not go away nor did the cold.

I guess I'd take today's Vortex over reliving that 2014 one. Here is a blog post I did back then.

 

We learned then that ice melt does not work when it's zero degrees or even 10 degrees. And, if you toss a pot of boiling water up into the air when it's zero degrees, it practically explodes.

This is one of those days..

It's so cold

So windy

So gloomy

Being outside or even wanting to drive anywhere to shop or anything else is not even considered.  I do worry about the wind, it's so strong it's blowing our heavy recycling can across the yard stopped only by the fence. And slamming our doors shut. HonestIy, the wind is so loud it sounds like a plane coming in for a landing. Really hope the it dies down sooner than later.

We've done a big nothing so far today and it's kind of nice actually. I cleaned out the refrigerator, washed the shelves and now very little is in there and it looks so good. We've watched basketball, a movie, worked on a jigsaw puzzle and walked Ferdie. We will make stuffed peppers for dinner and call it a day in front of the TV.

Here is my puzzle so far, it's a cool look at St. Louis