Arctic dipping south

[Wasp]

Usually winter in Vancouver BC is really wet. Most winter days here are dark damp and gloomy. This stretch of warm sunny weather has been such a treat. Today it was around 10c. We have been out on the bikes every day this past week taking advantage of the warm sunny weather. It's going to suck once the rain returns, on the bright side you don't shovel rain.
We used to live in northern BC and one winter we were shovelling snow up off the roof (the snow banks were higher than our house) it felt like living in an igloo. I hated it. We moved south soon after that winter experience.
Hopefully warmer weather is on its way soon.
Stay warm
Stay safe

[Crankin]

Zoom, I hate to tell you that living in the desert SW might make your asthma and allergies WORSE. Most people don't know this. Yes, back in the day (the 40s- 50s) when the air was clean and there wasn't too much overdevelopment, it did help. Now you have 3 things that make it worse. Overdevelopment that holds the heat in, as well as increases the particulates in the air. Think LA. People who move there and want to recreate their "home environment." Hence, they plant non-indigenous tress, grasses, and plants which provide all kinds of allergens that shouldn't be in the desert. Third, there are mold spores that exist in the SW that don't exist anywhere else in the US. Look up Valley Fever. Then you also have the giant gene pool of people of people with asthma and allergies who moved there. They all met, got married, had kids, and there's a huge population of people with asthma!
When I left AZ, I was on a nebulizer every 4-6 hours, had bout after bout of bronchitis, and was always sick. My older son was also in the same boat. In the past 24 years, I have become increasingly healthier. I get a bronchial thing maybe once a year, and not every year. My son, after an initial adjustment, was an extremely healthy kid, and now is a healthy adult. No more nebulizer. For us, I think the constant breezes, lack of air pollution, and lack of weird mold were the trick.

[zoom-zoom]

That makes sense. My allergies and asthma were great in Death Valley and Tahoe, where people aren't planting crazy stuff. In Vegas all of the planting and smoke about kill me.

[SheFly]

We're in Maine right now. This morning, the air temp was 2.5 F, with a wind chill reading of -67 . So we went and raced bikes (I'll post about that adventure in a separate thread).

SheFly

[skhill]

Saturday afternoon I was down to a tshirt (with hat and mittens) when shoveling snow, it was so warm! 32F or so, with 5" of snow to clear. Sunday was a heat wave, up to 48F, but not enough to melt all the snow. Still, it was wonderful to walk the dog wearing unlined jeans with no long-johns, and a hoodie instead of a coat.

It's all changing today, 25F when I woke up and dropping today. We might hit -10 tonight; there's a concerted effort going on to make sure all our homeless and heatless are in safe places by sundown. Several churches in my urban neighborhood are planning on opening overnight as refuges. We're totally not used to winter like this; in recent years we've tended to get down to 0ish just once or twice a season.

And yesterday at church us middle-aged folks had fun scaring kids with our tales of the schools having to make up snow days on Saturdays in April and May back in 1978. They suddenly were a lot more eager for schools to open up again!

[Grits]

Today the high in central NC is supposed to hit high 50s, and then tomorrow back to below freezing with a chance of ice/snow. There have been so many huge swings of temperature in a short amount of time lately. I'm going to take advantage of today, though, and squeeze in a bike ride. The first since a New Year's Day Resolution Ride.

[Kathi]

It's currently -5 here in the mountains, Silverthorne, Co. We had about 8" of snow yesterday. Total snow for the year about 200". Schools are open, no raid on the grocery stores. High todays in the 20's. Winter storm watch for Wed. and Thurs. with accumulations of 20-30". If it materializes the mountain passes will be closed, maybe schools will close but we'll still be able to make it to the ski resorts. Life goes on here and we smile when we hear about the rest of the country moaning about normal for us, winter weather.