Comments

  1. chigau (違う) says

    We’re having something very much like a chinook, even though we don’t get those here.

  2. echidna says

    Until, of course, you look at Australia’s current heat wave. We’re wilting over here. They’re falling like flies at the Melbourne Tennis Open. Even the water bottles are melting.

  3. PDX_Greg says

    Don’t mean to brag, but us left coasters are having a pretty easy time of it with our weather, which we almost always do relative to the rest of the country. More reason to visit us out here. Maybe even have a conference out here (I’d be happy to volunteer to help out with such an event, should any potential PDX organizers be lurking in the wings). I’m just sayin’.

  4. saganite says

    And meanwhile Europe barely gets any snow whatsoever. Increased rate of extreme weather events seems a fitting description for what’s happening.

    Also, that grass is purdy.

  5. madtom1999 says

    A group of us climbed Whernside one new years day and near the top every blade of grass had grown a razor blade of ice about 1/3rd of an inch deep along the windward edge of the grass blade. Looked amazing in the sun but no camera!
    Had to put the dog in the rucksack as it got cut! Only about -7C so quite toasty.

  6. carlie says

    I feel so sorry for the Australians. My skin is completely useless as a sun shield; I can’t imagine spending even 5 minutes outside there right now.

  7. Lofty says

    carlie

    I feel so sorry for the Australians. My skin is completely useless as a sun shield; I can’t imagine spending even 5 minutes outside there right now.

    Thank you for the kind thought. It’s actually bearable to go outside for an hour or so in the shade because it’s a dry heat. White skinned people like me need to keep out of the full sun unless protected, anyway. The people to really pity are the firefighters and the linesmen trying to keep people as lucky and privileged as me happy, cool and safe. Tomorrow is the day of rising brick oven winds before the change, some people are going to suffer, for sure. I’ll be keeping a close eye on the fire service website all day.

  8. paulparnell says

    Off topic but your autoplay video is back. It seems to be a flash thingy set up to only play sound on mouseover. But it is broke so that it plays random sound bits of 10 seconds or so.

    A logo on the video is “SekiNdo” which seems to be some kind of ad company. If others aren’t seeing it I wonder if it is enabled by something on my computer. Or maybe the mouseover silencing just works better in other browsers.

    The same thing was on Dispatches from the culture wars.

  9. Ariaflame, BSc, BF, PhD says

    Currently the West Coast of Australia, at least near Perth is relatively cool. Mid to high 20s (°C). Even under a blanket since breeze cooling here rather chill. But apparently back up to 38-39°C at the weekend.

  10. says

    @echidna #3 – The US west coast has been having a (relative) heat wave, too. Ski resorts in the Cascades opened two months late, and some areas still haven’t opened yet due to the lack of snow. It has been incredibly dry, and what precipitation does fall has been rain more often than snow.

    Imagine: western Washington, dry, and too warm for snow, in January.

    Yes, I know the difference between local weather and global climate, but abnormal is abnormal. And as odd as it is, these kinds of patterns were predicted in global warming models decades ago.

  11. Ogvorbis: Still failing at being human. says

    Heavy snow today. Got almost 1 cm. And it is cold. Down to 31F.

  12. says

    @PDX_Greg – Yes, the weather is lovely… as long as you don’t own a ski resort, or had planned on doing some snowboarding over the holidays.

    I can’t speak for you, but nice weather up here in January makes me very uncomfortable: I cannot help but think, “If we are 20 degrees above normal in January, what will July and August look like?”

  13. Randomfactor says

    left coasters are having a pretty easy time of it with our weather

    My local snowpack is at one-quarter of normal. And we’re 50 percent higher than the next-most-snowed part of the California Sierra.

    This state is going to burn to the ground next summer.

  14. Desert Son, OM says

    Thoughts of warmth going out to those of you in extremis for brutal cold (Caine! Power restored, I hope!), and of cool breezes and gentle precipitation for those of you in extremis for brutal heat.

    Still learning,

    Robert

  15. ck says

    Ogvorbis: Still failing at being human. wrote:

    Heavy snow today. Got almost 1 cm. And it is cold. Down to 31F.

    That’s somewhat rare. Heavy snowfall and temperatures that low don’t often go together. Just yet another oddity in a winter/summer (depending on hemisphere) of oddities, though.

  16. chigau (違う) says

    Heavy snowfall and temperatures that low don’t often go together.

    ???
    what?
    where?
    31F is a “low” temperature?