Sunday, December 2, 2007

Snow Chat

It's no Coffee Talk with Linda Richman, but for what it's worth, welcome to Snow Chat!

I lucked out for my drive to work this morning. The temperature rose during the night, so by the time I left for work at 6:15, it was just rain. There was still some slushy stuff on the roads, but I had no problem getting to work, and best of all, I didn't have to wake up Ken.

Today, it's been all rain, and lots of it. If it were cold enough to snow, I can't even imagine how many inches we'd be looking at! It would be a major storm, that's for sure. I think it's supposed to change over to snow tonight, but I don't think we'll get a huge amount. We dodged a bullet today!

I mentioned lake effect snow a while back, and I said I would write a little about it and why it is a big deal in these parts. Sometimes the weather people around here call it the Lake Effect Snow Machine, because when it gets going, it cranks out snow like you wouldn't believe. We live within about an hour of Lake Michigan, and what happens is that the cold wind blows across the relative warmth of Lake Michigan, where it picks up lots of moisture and it changes over to snow. Depending on which way the wind is blowing, various areas south and east of the lake can get heavy amounts of snowfall. It can be very confined, too--extremely narrow bands of snow, so narrow that we can get very little here, while a couple of miles west of us can get several inches. It's an interesting phenomenon, but not if you're the one getting dumped on. If I mention the weather a lot in the coming months, it's because it's always a huge topic around here. It can really make for a miserable drive to work when you have to get through several inches of snow. Our house is fairly rural, and sometimes the plows don't come through until when I'm already supposed to be at work.

Speaking of work, it was another good day, and I got out of there at a really decent time. I managed to catch most of the second half of the Colts/Jaguars game. Jags always play us tough, and they did so today, but the Colts won. Now we're getting ready to watch the Bears/Giants game. Ugh, it's in Chicago, and they're having the same weather we're having...and the temperature is dropping. Could make for a miserable night on the field.

Later

Many moons ago, I wrote about inflatable Christmas decorations. I still don't care for them, and I just don't get the appeal. This year, one of our neighbors across the road has put up a couple of them. One is a snowman with a kid on his shoulders, and the other one is...Santa riding a motorcycle. <sigh>

Why am I thinking of the Hindenburg right now? Hmm.

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