Epic Freeze

The evening of Friday, December 12, 2008 was the beginning of the coldest period of time I remember here in Seattle. While attending a performance at Kent Meridian High School the temperatures dropped and it snowed a couple of inches in an hour’s time. In most of the country, people wouldn’t think much of seeing snow in December, but this is Seattle. We don’t get much snow around here and usually not while it’s still technically Fall.

What made this weather even more unusual was that it was cold, really cold. For us to get snow we need moisture in the air, which usually comes to the region via southern air currents. Cold weather comes from the arctic, but that air is almost always very dry. This particular weather front had both, with enough cold air to cool off the warm southern air, and enough moisture in the air to blanket the region in snow. Both the huge quantities of snow that fell, and the cold temperatures lingered for several weeks. Snow was on the ground at my house for almost 3 weeks, other places had it longer. I noticed last night that there are still patches of snow at church that have not melted yet, 5 weeks later.

So far this has been a rather typical January. It’s a few degrees cooler than usual, but still above freezing most of the time. January and November usually fight it out for the title of “Wettest Month of the Year” and this January is getting a strong head start. Combine that with the tons of melting snow and many parts of the region are seeing dangerous flooding. But if we didn’t have Al Gore’s global warming invention to protect us from the extreme cold, we would probably be frozen solid right now.

Merry Christmas

I just got home from dropping Brenda off at her house. It has been snowing most of the evening, so only a freak warm front that brings hot air and lots of rain in the next few hours will prevent me from having a white Christmas this year.

Merry Christmas!

White Christmas Update

So one party is cancelled today, while the other is on, so that should make my day slightly less hectic. It’s snowing outside and there’s currently 11 inches on the deck. Our igloo is fairing quite nicely with the added snow. Zach hates it but I did manage to get him to stay in the opening long enough to snap a few pics.


Click on either of the images to see the really big versions if you wish.

Seattle has taken it upon themselves once again to be the sole “defenders of the environment.” They are doing this by refusing to use salt on any of the icy roads because of the environmental impact that may pose. Apparently anything that gets spread onto the roads in Seattle eventually gets washed into Puget Sound and they haven’t yet done a multi-year, multi-million dollar study to determine if washing a few extra tons of sea-salt into the ocean will harm marine life or not. As Seattle is one of the hilliest (I didn’t know that was a real word, but spell check and the dictionary tell me it is) large cities in the country, not salting the roads is very dangerous. But then again this is Seattle and they look for any excuse to keep people from driving their cars anywhere, even if that reason is because it’s life-threatening to try to drive some of these roads that are sheets of ice.
Thank you Al Gore once again for giving us your global warming, otherwise we would surely be dead from what’s already likely to be the coldest December of my lifetime so far.

A White Christmas?

It might actually happen this year! Or at least a Christmas with some traces of snow left on the ground in varying shades of white, gray, and brown. It's been snowing/slushing all week and therefore most of our accumulated snow from the last week and a half hasn't melted yet. It started snowing the evening of the 12th and some of that was still around when it resumed snowing a few days later. From recent memory I recall traces of snow on the ground for 16 days in a row 2 years ago. We might have that beat if there’s still snow on Saturday.

I’m going to be all Christmas partied out by the end of this week. Our party that got snowed out last Saturday due to our nonexistent blizzard is rescheduled for Friday. There are two parties today (overlapping a bit) as well as another one on Saturday. I'm gonna try to make both tonight. I still haven’t decided if I want to go shopping later today before these parties start. I enjoy going out on Christmas Eve so I can make fun of the panicked people who need their last minute gifts for people. Not that I don’t often wait until the last minute, I’m just not panicked about it. And I've had all my shopping done for quite a few hours now anyway.

Global Warming is Once Again Saving My Life

Thanks to Al Gore’s more useful invention, global warming, I am not dead right now. We are currently experiencing some of the coldest and nastiest conditions I can recall in my lifetime of living here in Seattle. With highs squeaking into the 20s and lows flirting with single digits (all Fahrenheit) and blizzard conditions over most of the region, I am warmly sitting in front of the raging woodstove with my laptop. We’ve got about 6 inches of snow on the ground at the moment, which is amazing; 6 inches of snow in a year is pretty good here, not to mention all at once.
I was actually stranded at home a good chunk of Friday and Saturday since I happen to be the only one in the house with a vehicle that has 4 wheel drive, therefore both of my parents took it upon themselves to borrow it several times to run errands and stuff like that. The weather people also claim that there will be 90mph gusts of wind from about midnight to early this afternoon, but I’ll believe that when I see it.

Now that I'm up and ready to leave for church, I just got a call from the Don that all services are canceled and that I can sleep in. As this morning is the first time all week that I've been out of bed before 11am (yay Christmas break) I really wish someone would have made that decision and let me know before I went to bed. Oh well I guess I'll read for a bit then nap for a few hours.

April Update

April Snowfall Brings May Floods? It doesn’t rhyme but that’s life. After having the coldest end of March in Seattle’s recorded history, we’re probably having the coldest April too, and most places around here have had snowfall in the last 24 hours, as well as several times during the past three weeks. How is it that when we have unusually cold weather in spring they weather people say it’s just a freak weather pattern? Yet when we have an unusually hot period in the summer it can only be global warming! I’m contemplating building a fire in the wood stove tonight so I don’t freeze, since it gets cold at night (33F at the moment and falling).

I never got to my Sakura-Con update so I guess I’ll give a brief summary now. It was AWSOME! We went all three days and managed to go to the opening and closing ceremonies. They were very cool, but too loud for comfort, which is why I was very thankful for earplugs.
Brenda and I spent most of the time watching AMVs in the AMV theater and a few anime episodes in one of the anime theaters. There were also thousands of cosplayers dressed as their favorite characters from dozens of different series. The whole experience was very fun, equally exhausting, and I’m going to preorder tickets for next year as soon as they’re available. Also, I’m designing my Syaoran costume for next year as well.

In the political news, I really dislike the presidential candidates, but hate McCain the least so he’ll probably get my vote. Not sure if there’s a point in voting for a Republican candidate in Washington since we’re probably the largest Socialist stronghold in the country. Unlike the rest of the country, candidates don’t even have to pretend to me remotely conservative here to get elected. “Elect me and I’ll raise the taxes of everyone who makes more than you to pay for social programs that benefit you” is all a candidate needs to say to get elected around here.

In more important news, our Bible Quiz team got a wildcard invitation to the Regional finals in Spokane. This is the first time we’ve sent a team since I got involved in 1997. They have a long was to go if they hope to go to Nationals but now they at least have a shot.

I still like my classes this quarter and they’re not very hard. The hardest part is the leaving at 07:30 to make it to the first one.

That’s it, nothing else is really going on that I can think of at the moment. I should have my ads fixed soon so that they show up instead of the public service announcements. Then I’ll get my three cents every time someone visits my blog, which adds up over time.

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow...

It snowed last Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and we got an inch of a snow/hail/slush mix this afternoon. This is probably going to be one of the coldest last weeks of March on record. State law forbids the use of studded tires starting April 1, but they've announced that they will not be enforcing this law until it stops snowing. The passes have tons of fresh snow and I hear skiing is good.

School starts tomorrow but I'll probably skip the first day since all we typically do is receive our syllabuses and go over them. Since Trebonte is still out west in Hawaii I have little desire to drive the 60 mile trip to school without using the carpool lanes.

I did my taxes early this year and finished them about 45 minutes ago. I realized that if I don't count sales tax (8.8% at the moment) I paid 19.3% of my income to the government in some form of fees or taxes. As over half of my income pays for college, tax is my second largest expense, slightly beating out gasoline in third place. I'm not holding my breath that whatever loser wins the presidential election will do anything to reduce my taxes since they seem to think that they can spend my money better than me. Lies!

Let it Snow?

It's snowing outside right now, with some areas within 20 miles of here expecting 5-6 inches.  It's been snowing for the past few hours and sticking in many places.  Sadly I have no snow at my house (like usual).  Good thing we have 'global warming' or we would have frozen to death long ago.  I wish I had 6 inches of snow right now, I haven't seen that much snow in my yard since I was little.

We're All Going to Die (Again)

With just enough snow to cause everyone in the area to go into a panicked frenzy (about an inch in my neighborhood) we set out for our third Bible Quiz meet of the year on Saturday. My team did relatively well but still not as great as they should have been. Oh well. Afterward we had a party up in the hills, where there was a pleasant 3-4 inches of snow. It was enough to sled for a while, and more than enough to make going up and down the 20% grade driveway much more interesting than normal. Then it rained that night and melted all the snow.

It kept raining to the point where a few cities have now broken the record for most rain ever in December; Bremerton got 12.5 inches of rain in the last 48 hours. School went into emergency closure this afternoon after we got there because the roads in the area were deemed too dangerous due to flooding; therefore they told everyone to leave campus by 3:30.

We'd Still Have Snow if it wasn't for Global Warming

The snow finally melted. This is the first time in my life that snow has remained on the ground in Seattle for 10 days straight. Today the rain melted the remainder.
   On a related note, the Weather Channel has a show dedicated exclusively to "global warming" where the host, Heidi Cullen, now argues and any meteorologist or climatologist who denies human pollution as the cause of global warming should be stripped of their credentials by the American Meteorological Society. Obviously the planet has never warmed up before and we would still be living in an ice age if humans hadn't started burning things, releasing environmentally harmful gases into the atmosphere.
I still don't know a group more dogmatic than mainstream scientists. If a scientist proposes an alternate theory to anything mainstream, that still fits in with all data available, it most likely will not be published in any journals because it is different. For example, New Scientist had an article claiming that the only reason that the Big Bang is the predominant theory in cosmology is because no one is willing to fund the research of scientists who argue otherwise.
   On an unrelated topic, Congress is trying to raise the minimum wage in a few parts of the country, except in territories where Pelosi's constituents have large manufacturing facilities.
   I guess that's it for my random update.

Random Quote of the Moment:
   Yeah, well what you plan and what takes place ain't ever exactly been similar.
      -Jayne in Serenity

*EDIT*
I lied, there's still some ice and snow around here, the warmish rain hasn't melted it all quite yet.