Cold morning at the Kennebec river

Small chunks of ice started floating down the Kennebec river overnight. A certain sign that winter is coming.

Let it snow

We enjoyed our first snow for 2006. Nothing major. About 3-4 inches.
Just enough to put everything under a nice white blanket again.

Road sign

The Kennebec river went several feet above flood stage here in Augusta, causing a considerable part of the riverside city park to be flooded and this sign (at the start of a walking trail by the access to the boat
ramp) to stand up to it’s shoulders in water.

Maybe it snowed a little the other night?

The neighbors still had to dig out a little after the plow guy carefully moved the bulk of the snow away from their cars. Our driveway was not too bad. It only took me a big hour to shovel the driveway clean.

>28 hours of snow. Heatwave requested

I have never moved that much snow on a continuous basis before. I don’t
mind a bit of snow, but we’ve had I don’t know how many inches now and it is
still snowing. Enough already! All that shoveling (and hanging some drywall
actually) made my arms feel like they’re two inches longer. LOL. And, where do
you put all this snow?

( little peek in the back yard, which
actually doesn’t look too bad )

After
a big half hour of digging around this morning (and several clearing sessions
yesterday (morning, noon, afternoon, night), I had cleared the driveway again.
The only question was how tough it would be to drive through the snow pack on
the street. It didn’t look like the city came around since yesterday afternoon.
Luckily there came one of the big trucks with two plows. Right on time! Oh, wait
a sec, … no, he’s not going to plow us right back in, right?! (happened every
time yesterday) I ran back to the street with my shovel and the driver was nice
enough to lift the side plow a little so we only got a quarter load of all the
snow that was on the street. The rest of the folks in our street were out of
luck, with a super-sized at least knee-deep 2 foot wide mound of packed snow all
along their driveway. Happy digging!

>28 hours of snow. Heatwave requested

I have never moved that much snow on a continuous basis before. I don’t
mind a bit of snow, but we’ve had I don’t know how many inches now and it is
still snowing. Enough already! All that shoveling (and hanging some drywall
actually) made my arms feel like they’re two inches longer. LOL. And, where do
you put all this snow?

( little peek in the back yard, which
actually doesn’t look too bad )

After
a big half hour of digging around this morning (and several clearing sessions
yesterday (morning, noon, afternoon, night), I had cleared the driveway again.
The only question was how tough it would be to drive through the snow pack on
the street. It didn’t look like the city came around since yesterday afternoon.
Luckily there came one of the big trucks with two plows. Right on time! Oh, wait
a sec, … no, he’s not going to plow us right back in, right?! (happened every
time yesterday) I ran back to the street with my shovel and the driver was nice
enough to lift the side plow a little so we only got a quarter load of all the
snow that was on the street. The rest of the folks in our street were out of
luck, with a super-sized at least knee-deep 2 foot wide mound of packed snow all
along their driveway. Happy digging!

Come blizzard, blizzard, blizzard

The buzz of the weekend is the snow storm of the year hitting the NE of
the country. Blizzard like conditions with 12-24″ of snow and locally even up to
48″. Our luck of course it’ll just be cold and we’ll get 1-2 inches, maybe.
Mother nature, please shift this thing North a little and bring us some snow.

Aurora II

Some more images from the Auroras / Northern Light last night:

Did you see the light?

It’s getting really late, but I’m so excited I wanted to post an image.
I saw my first Aurora Borealis / Northern Light tonight! No “Aurora chasing” trip into Canada without seeing anything . No, the Northern Light came all the way down to Maine right near our house:

Not the most spectacular presentation, but nonetheless a dream come true

NOAA NWS - Experimental Graphical Forecasts

Air travel tomorrow made me look closer at the weather conditions in the
Southern US. After going through some of my bookmarks, I discovered the CONUS
Area Experimental Graphical Forecast from NOAA - NWS. This may be
online for a while already without my knowledge (disadvantage of direct
bookmarks and watching the weather channel), but this is top of the line weather
viewing, imo.

Click on one of the national areas to load a regional map, hover over the
table on the left and instantly the data appears on the map. Scroll vertically
through the table and you get everything for a time slot. Horizontal scrolling
shows you trends. All of them for the next 5 days, including (!) wind speed
& direction + wave height forecasts. A straightforward detailed 5 day US
marine forecast has been on my request list for so long, it makes me jump up and
down in my chair. Thank you NWS!

Hopefully they get lots of positive
feedback. I’d like this thing to stay around

King winter’s last push?

After a really snow deprived winter and the official start of spring, we
received another inch of snow last night.

Snow
covered twigs in the river.

Better keep warm in the NE

Tomorrow morning we’re going back to -10F (-23C) with a
real feel of -27F (-33C). I think we’ll just stay inside I cross my fingers
that the building doesn’t run out of heating oil again the way it did last
week!

You may have noticed I said there has been no snow. Well, the
weatherman said last night we only had 0.5″ this January compared to over 12″ on
average. Small difference. Maybe king winter still packs a big punch, but right
now the lack of snow is a problem for the winter sports.

Arctic temperatures?

So, I walk to the car last Friday, thinking “it sure is
nippy this morning!!” Inside the car I stare at a can of Mountain Dew left
overnight in the cup holder - ready to explode. It expanded every possible mm,
bulging 10mm at the top & 15mm at the bottom. Wow! It must really be cold.
I fire up the engine, look at the overhead display and it’s a whopping
-24C (-12F)
!!

This
morning it’s “milder” with only -11C (13F) -
Right! - But, get this: Thursday & Friday we are looking at
daytime high
temperatures of -20C (-4F)! Yes, daytime high. Somebody left the door
open at the North Pole. Better keep warm!

Single digit temperatures ahead!

It’s 15F outside! Talk about a sudden drop in temperature The forecast reads 11F (-12C) tomorrow morning with a real feel of -4F
(-20C). Not too bad. But, get this: on Mount Washington, NH it is currently -12F
(-24C) with a real feel of -50F (-46C) because there’s 68 to 81 MPH (109 to 120
km/h) winds! I can’t imagine how cold that is

But it does remind me
of the movie The
Endurance. British explorer Sir Shackleton and his crew survived for
nearly 2 years through such unimaginable circumstances during their expedition
to the South Pole on which they departed in 1914. It really gives a new meaning
to exploring & adventure. Forget reality TV & survivor shows, 2 years on
Antarctica that’s survival!

No snow = 6th time on record

From the weather forecast: this year is the 6th time on
record that there has been no snow yet. There is still hope as long as we’re not
going for #1 this winter (hum hum), but eh, why o why is it that when we go
somewhere there are these weather extremes or abnormalities in some form or
another? Like the heat-wave that broke all records in Europe past summer -
without air-conditioning! And before that the …

[
Can't be coincidence! But then other people have this too so it must be
conspiracy! ]

… let it snow … let it snow … let it snow
…

First snow flurries

While we were in New Hampshire today we saw the first little
flurries of the season while it was 35-40F (2-4C) outside.
Sign that
winter looms on the horizon?

First snowball

Windy wet day.

So far we’ve enjoyed the very mild fall weather. Nothing
out of the ordinary. A few frosty mornings & rain showers early October but,
other than that, nice and sunny weather with 65-75F. Great for fall foliage
picture hunting
Today it’s a different story with a big weather-front
going through New England. Rain, rain, rain & wind, wind, wind. (where’s my
windsurf board!?) Unfortunately the wind is so strong (25-50 mph) that many
trees have lost a substantial amount of their beautiful coats … but, I cross
my fingers I’ll still be able to capture more of nature’s fall beauty.