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

I've never heard of her

Yes, the Texas Panhandle can get pretty damn cold in the winter - much colder than London for instance, maybe even colder on occasions than Perthshire. I'll keep you updated as the winter prgresses.

Annie Proulx...

http://www.annieproulx.com/

From the previous site: (about "Why is this site so boring looking") "This website in particular, being a site about words, is an inappropriate place for distracting crap that goes boing."

Annie Proulx, by the by, wrote "The Shipping News" and "Accordion Crimes".

Thursday, November 26th 2003, 16.05

Much nicer today Currently 73ºF which is probably about as high as it's going to get. Last night wasn't anywhere as cold as it has been for the past two nights - I think it only went down to the upper 50s. It's been overcast almost the whole day, but curiously, the sun has finally come out just showers are starting to pop up to the near east of Austin. There's another cold front coming through soon which won't drop temperatures as much as the one earlier this week - it's forecast to be in the mid 60s tomorrow, hardly cold at all really, but thanks to some moisture coming up from the Gulf of Mexico there could be some thunderstorms later today.

Of course, I'm getting all this information from the tv and radio - I haven't stepped out of the front door all day Better go and check the mailbox I guess.

Thanksgiving Day tomorrow... laundry day too

Morning Gosho

Windy and wet in Perthshire. No frost (phew - no car-scraping). We need rain BADLY, so there should be no complaints about this weather.

What time are sunrise and sunset with you there? It's the short days that get me down about the Scottish winter - sunrise about 8:15am and sunset about 4pm at the moment


F/b

We're well behind on rainfall here too - we get about 30" a year on average, but so far this year we've had 20" with only one month to go. That means a very wet December if we're to catch up, and some of you reading this know what happened the last time we got 10" of rain in a very short space of time That was in 6 hours though - it wouldn't be so bad if it was spread out over a whole month

It's not as bad as it sounds though because there's something very odd about Austin and the rain - when there's rain over a large area of central Texas or when there's a line of thunderstorms, it often seems to fizzle out when it gets to Austin so that we get little but the surrounding areas get lots. So although the rainfall stations in Austin may record a deficit, plenty of rain falls around Austin and contributes to the water table.

Around this time of year the sun rises at about 7am and sets around 5.30pm. Our shortest day is only a little shorter than that, but our longest day is nowhere near as long as yours - on June 21st the sun rises at 6:30am and sets at 8:36pm. I really miss those light summer evenings I guess in Perthsire the night sky doesn't even go completely dark at that time of the year. I remember moving a woman to Glasgow one summer, and it was still almost broad daylight when I set off back for London at about 11pm Even as far south as London you can be sitting outside a pub at 10pm and it's still not completely dark

Here, the sun goes down very quickly - there's not much in the way of dusk.

Oh, and the weather report for today:
Currently 60ºF (up from a low of 52 last night), sky mostly clear but with high clouds in the northwest with a red sunrise glow to them foretelling the cold front which is coming through this afternoon. We should get up into the low 70s before the front drops the temperatures to the low 60s or upper 50s. Here's a link which shows up the cold front and the temps in front of and behind it http://www.news8austin.com/Content/Weather/Temperatures_and_Rain/Temps/Texas/Today-Highs/?TempImage=MS_TWEAN_00z_SC_HIGHS_Movie&SecID=101

The front may spark off a few thunderstorms since there's a good supply of moisture coming in from the Gulf, but most of the rainfall will be to our east in Louisiana and Arkansas. It'll be windy too! A forecast low of 38ºF tonight.

Of course, if you go to that link tomorrow it'll look completely different

It was a lovely frosty morning here. I wanted to take a photo. however, my poor wee camera is broken (i dropped it...). I am bereft.

It has to get sent back to Canon. The guy at the camera shop says "It probably won't cost as much as the camera to repair it...." Very comforting.

It was very cold here this morning. We have a cat who we really don't like due to some disgusting habits he has developed recently: we provide him with lots of food, veterinary care, but no shelter inside the house, and certainly not much in the way of TLC. You can tell how cold it's getting as he now has a winter coat that makes him look like a miniaturised black bear.

Friday:

We had an unexpected frost this morning and then the most spectacular sunrise, which covered the whole sky with salmon pink splodges .

Now it's driech: heavy drizzle, glowering skies, cool. Typical November weather for Perthshire


F/b

Perthshire?

Is that in Australia?

If so, wouldn't you be having your late Spring/early
Summer now?

Paul Where are you?????

Perth is in Australia - and is capital of Western Australia.

Perth is also in Scotland - and is the county town of Perthshire.

Guess which one I'm in?


Frenchbean

There is also Perth, Ontario, Canada....

Where am I, Frenchbean? In Boston, Massachusetts. But with all the rain we're getting, who knows where I'll be washed downstream to?



See, it's not easy to keep all the Perths straight...

All about Perth, Ontario:
http://www.urbanmarket.com/all-about-perth/perth.html
http://www.beautifulperth.com/

Hi Boston Paul

You just wash yourself across the Atlantic and visit the original Perth. It's a beautiful place, although just now it's hidden beneath mountains of cloud and rain.

I never knew there was a Perth Ontario, Mudhooks. More 18th Century Scots migrants I guess.

I was meant to be putting a fence up with my neighbour today - but we called it off when we saw the post holes were full of water - and rising!


F/b

No report yesterday - we got up very early (5.30am ) to leave for San Antonio, but it was pretty damn cold when we headed off at about 6.15.

Saturday, November 29th 2003, 08.20
Today - still pretty damn cold. Currently 41ºF (up from a minimum of 36 before dawn), clear sky, bright sunshine. Should get into the mid 60s by this afternoon. That's one of the things about Texas which is very different from the UK - during the winter it can get every bit as cold at night here as it does in London, but once the sun rises it warms things up very quickly to halfway pleasant temperatures, even up into the low 70s in January sometimes (although the January average is much lower than that).

The exception to that is when a cold front comes through and brings cold Polar or Canadian air with it. There have been a few instances since I've been here where the temperature didn't rise above freezing for two or three days staright. Before I came here I wouldn't have thought that was possible for anywhere so far south as Austin or San Antonio - we're only seven degrees of latitude away from the Tropics!

Very very wet and windy here in Nottingham, almost like the hurricane of 1987.

Hi Gosho

I guess the extremes of temperature are because you're in the middle of the American land mass, where the oceans can't equalise the conditions. It must get very hot in the summer with you?

How do you garden in those conditions? Or don't you?


Frenchbean

Which I somehow managed to sleep right through, even though a couple of trees came down less than 50 yards from my bedroom window, one of which fell onto a small building Normally I'm a very light sleeper.