h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Rural cities? Oxymoron? I assume they're referring to suburbia.

Been absolutely gorgeous here for the past week. Highs touching 70 every day since Thanksgiving - Christmas shopping in shorts!!

We'll pay for it tomorrow, though. Same cold front, same 30F temps by Thursday. As long as it comes with some SNOW I'll be happy

I live just far enough south that we're mostly in for the freezing rain/wintry mix crud that ices over the power lines and turns the roads into a skating rink. I want snow too. Well, I say that but I'm turning blue just thinking about how cold it's going to be Thursday.

I wouldn't expect you get much bad weather down that way. One of our new engineers is from that neck of the woods and the prospect of a Missouri winter has him shaking in his (snow)boots. I keep trying to convince him it's all bark and no bite but he isn't buying it.

You shouldn't lead him on like that. I lived in Missouri once upon a time & know better. I've even lived in Nebraska & South Dakota. There's more than one reason I don't live there now.

Actually, St Louis gets cheated out of most of it (well, I guess the term "cheated" would depend on your point of view ). The biggest storms always veer north or south of the metropolitan area. A majority of the winter storms leave us two inches of snow or less, which is nothing. Very rarely anymore do we ever see a major winter storm, we've probably only had 2 in the last 10 years where we've gotten more than 4 or 5 inches.

broe jr got a sled for Christmas about 7 years ago. He's only gotten to use it once.

It's going to be very different here this time tomorrow. PC clock says 11.46am, News 8 Austin website says 78F/25.6. We've had some very brief showers already, and when I say brief, I mean in the order of a minute or less. Very heavy clouds pass over from time to time, followed by bright sunshine.

The cold front that's going to change things has made the news both on American NPR and the BBC. I was streaming Up All Night on Radio 5 last night and Rob McElwee was talking about this blast of cold air bringing freezing temperatures to much of the US including, he said, Dallas. He seemed to think that it's (and I quote) "Always blazing hot" in the Big D, but they'll be getting a high of only 5C/41F. He don't know Texas very well, do he. And this morning I was listening to KQED in San Francisico who were also talking about record-breaking cold temps for the area.

I guess that by the time it gets as far south as Austin it'll be comparatively weak because, while it's going to be at or below freezing point at night for a few days, our lowest forecast daytime maximum is 50F/10C on Thursday.

By the way broe, when they say 'rural cities', they're talking about small towns around central Texas, most of which have incorporated and have city status, even though they're relatively small. You only have to travel a few miles outside central Austin to the airport for instance, to find temperatures dropping considerably.

It was in the 60s when I left the house this morning and 46 when I got to Peanut's daycare only 10 minutes away. It's 34 now and not predicted to get any warmer until Friday. I'm hoping the office will be closed tomorrow.

Already??

Currently 71, supposed to drop like a rock overnight, with a high of about 35 tomorrow, 30 on Friday.

Tomorrow ~10am we're supposed to get rain, which will turn into freezing rain and sleet, and eventually to snow during an event that should last over 12 hours. Depending on how early it turns to snow, we're forcast (at the moment) anywhere from 1 to 5 inches.

There's the bark. I'll keep you posted on the bite.
(And watch, since I'm making an example of this we'll get clobbered with 6" to 8" )

We've been having bursts of rain all day since about 6am. The bridges will start to freeze as it gets dark and the roads will freeze once the ground temp drops a little more. The National Weather Service has changed our snow forecast from 1-3 inches to 4-8 inches and now back to 3-7 inches. With the freezing rain we're supposed to get, I'm sure we'll have power outages. "This little light of mine..."

7pm

Still 75/23.9 here, down from a high of 80/26.7, but that will be changing ere soon. The forecast is currently for overnight temps in the 60s, possibly with some thunderstorms, 50s by the morning and 40s during the day with plenty of wind, then 30s or upper 20s by Thursday night before a small bounce back, followed by another front on Saturday.

9.30pm

Still warm enough for me to go to the laundry room in nothing more than a t-shirt and a pair of shorts

Oh gorblimey - tornado watch until 2am

I just watched an online file of the local CBS weather. There's a 40°F difference in temperature either side of the front, and we'll be at least 40° colder tomorrow than we were today, perhaps 45-50°

At 7 last night I was driving into the front. When I left work I didn't need my jacket, by the time I stopped for gas a half hour later my rain jacket wasn't heavy enough. By the time I got home around 8 it was pouring rain in buckets.

The latest:
9pm last night they were predicting rain overnight, turning to sleet and freezing rain around 10 this morning, then to snow by 6 tonight. Total accumulation - 5" to 9".

5am - one radio station forecasting 3" to 5", another says 4" to 6". Reports of 12" in Kansas City overnight, Columbia is forecast around the same.

So... No more "scorchio"?

9am NE Oklahoma: It's 25F outside (I think that's a bit generous) and sleet and freezing rain are coming down like it's going out of style. The forecast has changed again. We're not supposed to see the happy side of 35F through at least Monday. Today's snow accumulations are supposed to be 4-8 inches during the day and 3-7 inches during the night. That's 7-15 inches total. I live in Oklahoma, *not* South Dakota.

I've woken up to something this morning which I don't think I've seen in all the seven years I've lived here in Texas but which was almost a daily winter occurrence in an Essex house with metal frame windows - condensation on the inside of the glass.

We caught a pretty good thunderstorm last night between about 12.30 and 1.00am - a real Texas storm with mucho thunder and lightning and about half an inch of rain. Then I went to bed.

At 8.51am yesterday the temperature at Camp Mabry was 73/22.8. Today it was 33/0.6. Last night my a/c kicked in at about 11.30. This morning I had to turn the heat on for about 20 minutes before I could get up and take a shower.

There's some rain in the area too so I'm gonna have to wrap up pretty good and take my brolly when I go grocery shopping in a few minutes.

Noon - at the office (downtown St Louis) it's just starting to turn to sleet. broe jr called about a half hour ago to let me know he was home from school, they released at 10:30. He said when he got home the entire house was covered in ice.

It will probably take me a couple of hours to get home tonight. Even though I usually miss the evening rush, I'm sure things will still be screwed up when I hit the road at 6:30. I'm trying to calculate how early I'll have to leave in the morning to get back to work on time.

On the forecast last night they predicted a possibility of sleet for us but there was none. It hasn't been below freezing today in Austin (close, mind you) but there has been light rain and drizzle. I'm pretty damn sure that once you get out of town it'll be in the 20s, and even downtown the wind chill is at 26F/-3.3.

Despite the lack of icy conditions I've heard many, many emergency vehicle sirens this morning. And there are people out there wrapped up like it's 40 below. Okay, it's chilly out there, but it's not face-rippingly cold like New York City in January. You really don't need to be bundled up like the kid in Christmas Story who had so many layers on that he couldn't put his arms down

I always say that we Texan's over dress in cold weather because it's our only chance to wear those nice winter coats we paid so much for and otherwise sit in the closet for the other 48 weeks of the year.