Ted and I were up early today and on our way home from Colorado before sunrise. It was a cold, sunny day.

The good thing about getting up early is watching the sun rise.
The snow-covered mountains west of I-25 were spectacular in the early-morning sunlight.
We saw hoarfrost during most of our drive through Colorado.
The trees at the eastern CO rest stop were decorated with hoarfrost.
The cold, snow-covered ground produced heavy fog for more than 50 miles in Kansas.
The high winds and heavy snow two days ago in Kansas gave us some beautiful scenery after the morning fog cleared.

It was a long day’s drive after a wonderful family visit. Tomorrow we’ll take the winter clothes out of our suitcases and replace them with our shorts. We’ll be leaving for Hawai’i–and a big change in climate–early the following morning.

Last February, I posted this cartoon.

This year, we in the Midwest called it “Wednesday.” It was cold in St. Peters.

It was even colder at my brother Tom’s house in St. Charles, IL (west of Chicago).

From inside his house, where he said he was enjoying the furnace, Tom texted me this photo.

Anyone can throw a cup of boiling water into frigid air to watch it freeze instantly. This girl was more creative–she froze her hair.

All the local K-12 schools closed today because of the cold, but we’re Midwesterners, so Tom and JoEllen went to an appointment and Ted and I went to our morning Pilates class. The rest of the class was there too, so we all warmed up with a good workout. It’s practically summer!

Tonight’s super wolf blood moon eclipse was beautiful. After a cloudy day, the skies cleared in time for Ted and me to see the eclipse. It was only 10 degrees outside, so we just checked it about every half hour and then went back indoors to warm up. The reality was much better than my phone pictures.

We could see the beginning of the eclipse from the front porch. Nearly half of the moon is already in the earth’s shadow.
The moon is entering the umbra and is already turning red.
Here’s my photo of the total eclipse. With the moon in shadow, the stars were unusually bright and we could see more of them than usual, even in our suburban ambient light.
NASA’s telescopic camera takes better pictures than my phone does. Awesome! I’m looking forward to the next total lunar eclipse in 2021.

Oh, happy day! Today we had a snow day with a total of 11+ inches of snow. At 33 degrees, the snow was too deep and soft for sledding, it was too wet for snow angels, and it packed too hard to have a snowball fight (it made ice balls), so snowblowing was my choice of outdoor play.

This was the view from the kitchen window when we got up this morning.
The holly bushes were snow-covered.
It’s time for me to get to work.
Happiness is . . . . Notice that it’s still snowing.
Once I cut a path, we could use our official NWS “Snow? How Much?” ruler to measure it.
When I finished, it was still snowing. We had another inch+ before the storm moved east of us, but the temperature was above freezing, so the additional snow melted on the cleared concrete.
Then it was Ted’s turn to play. He took the snowblower across the street to clear our neighbor’s driveway. Jim has difficulty walking, so we’re glad to play in his yard too.
Meanwhile, the kids across the street built a giant snowman. There was plenty of snow for it!
I built a snowman too, but on a smaller scale.

This was the fifth heaviest snowfall in St. Louis weather history, and next weekend might include another snow day. Yea!

We better put an extra blanket on the bed. It looks like we’ll set a record low tonight.

We had some weather excitement today: a wake low. I wouldn’t have known a thing about it if I hadn’t watched the TV weather report while I ate my lunch.

I learned that a wake low is a very special meteorological phenomenon, because: (1) only modern weather technology has made it possible to detect wake lows; and (2) they have been observed only in the Mississippi River valley (us), Florida, and the Great Plains.

A wake low occurs when there is a small low pressure area behind (i.e., in the wake of) a squall line, which is under a higher pressure area. As the squall line passes over low-level warm air, the air behind it cools (rain-cooled air). A wake low forms as a result of a unique rate at which the rain warms and cools the air, combined with a unique pressure difference between the high and low pressure areas above and behind the squall line. An identifying characteristic of a wake low is strong winds.

For those who didn’t see the noon weather report and therefore didn’t know we had a wake low, that means we had strong winds gusting at 50+ mph this morning in St. Charles County (us) and northern St. Louis County (Lambert airport), resulting in flight delays, some downed trees, and minor property damage. We didn’t have downed trees or property damage at our house, but we did have property movement.

This is our normal winter placement of four lawn chairs that we leave outside for sunny afternoons and firebowl evenings.
This is the wake low placement of our chairs this morning. Three of them found new positions.

In November, when the St. Louis area was hit by a 4-7″ snowfall (depending on where you live), I posted a front-page St. Louis Post-Dispatch photo of Mr. Burst , shoveling his driveway in his bathrobe.  I was surprised Mr. Burst didn’t even take time to put on his pants before going out into the cold.

I was even more surprised to see today’s paper.  In a special section titled “The Year in Pictures,” Mr. Burst made the front page again.  The November photo of Mr. Burst was used as the cover shot for the special section.  What a guy!

 

This picture accompanied the headline on the front page of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch the day after our big snow storm.  Apparently, Mr. Burst was in such a hurry to get his driveway cleared, he didn’t even take time to put on his pants.  Maybe he couldn’t wait to try out his kind of neat two-handled pusher shovel.

Today, the NWS had a winter storm warning out for the St. Louis metro area, predicting snowfalls from 4-7 inches, and we had about 4 inches at our house.  All the K-12 schools announced their closings on the 10:00 p.m. news last night.  The snow stopped around 3:00 p.m., the sun came out, and the temperature shot up to 46 degrees.  The melting has begun.

The snow looks like a soft cushion on the lawn chairs.  In spite of that, no one is sitting in them.

Finally!  After three years, I had a chance to use my new snowblower for a snowblower-worthy event.  The snow was melting almost as fast as I was clearing it, but I had to play with my new (?) toy.

The weird part?  This is so early for snow in St. Louis that the trees still have most of their fall-colored leaves.

We have six inches of snow in our forecast for tonight and tomorrow.  Ted and I went out to dinner tonight and our waitress told us her mother would call this “french toast weather.”  Why?  Because everyone goes to the store to buy milk, bread, and eggs–the ingredients for french toast.

Snow accumulations in the St. Louis metro area today ranged from 1-3 inches.  We had about two inches of snow at our house.  This was the earliest one-inch snowfall in St. Louis in 27 years–since 1991.

Check the upper right center of the photo to see Ted getting the mail.

Our new trees look pretty with snow on their branches.

 

One of my friends recently told me that persimmon seeds can forecast winter conditions.  The Farmer’s Almanac agrees, and includes the forecast guidelines.

In Jefferson County, about 30 miles south of us in the metro area, the Jefferson County Extension office has been collecting persimmon seeds from the county and found the persimmon forecast to be accurate for 15 of the last 19 years.  Last year, they collected seeds from three areas of Jefferson County.  The seeds varied by area and so did the winter.  Amazing!

Persimmon seeds in our area have a spoon-shaped kernel this year, indicating a snowy winter.  Since we’ve already had two back-to-back snowfalls and a unusually heavy snowfall early in this season, maybe Ted and I will have a chance to use our three-year-old snowblower this winter.  So far, we’ve only used it for two very light snowfalls–just to make sure it worked before the warranty expired–so it’s still shiny and clean.

We had our first snow of the season last night, . . .

 

. . . and our second snow of the season tonight.

While Ted and I were Christmas shopping today, a brief shower passed over and treated us to a double rainbow.

Apparently, living in a valley (we have steep hills in front and in back of our house) protects us from the wind.  Our weather forecast for today included a wind advisory, warning us of wind gusts up to 40 mph.

 

This is what our anemometer recorded for the day.  Our peak wind gust was only 1 mph over the minimum advisory level of the sustained winds.

 

We had leaves blown down and Ted cleaned a lot of them out of the pool, but that happens in fall whether or not we have a wind advisory.  I hope we’re as well protected when a tornado comes our way!

There was a pretty sunset today and it was reflected in our pool.  In real life, the sky was pink like the reflection, not yellow, but my camera was apparently thinking more “sun” than “set” when it focused on the sky.

Ted is probably one of a small minority of people (99% of whom are probably meteorologists) who notice and photograph clouds.  I’ve learned a lot about clouds from him over the years, and that knowledge has become deeply imbedded in my brain.  As a result, I’m surprised when I make a casual comment about incoming weather by looking at a cloud and my friends (not meteorologists) ask, “How can you tell?”  Isn’t it obvious?  I guess not, unless you spend time with a meteorologist.

Ted saw this interesting and unusual fair weather cloud on his way home earlier this week.  Naturally, he had to stop to take a picture.

Today, Ted and I drove to Kirksville to visit with Kathy and Annette.  We started the day with a dense fog advisory.  This is how I-70 westbound and the surrounding countryside looked as we drove.

 

We had a great time with Kathy and Annette.  Kirksville was cool and rainy and, as we were approaching Kathy’s house for lunch, I found myself hoping she and Annette had decided to make baked potato soup for lunch.  What a happy surprise when we arrived and saw baked potato soup on the stove.  An apple crisp was heading for the oven to round out a perfect comfort meal for a day of dismal weather.  We all enjoyed the soup and apple crisp so much, we decided to have the same for dinner instead of going out to a restaurant.  It was a meal so nice, we had it twice.

Kathy and Annette have been working on remodeling their bathroom.  The house is vintage (sounds better than old), and some of the floor joists beneath the bathroom were rotted.  The girls ripped up the floor and replaced the rotten joists.  They previously replaced their shower stall with tile walls and put in a tank water heater.  Instead of storing 40 or more gallons of hot water, the tank heater heats water as it is used.  The house has no basement–only a crawl space–so the water heater is in the bathroom.  The tank heater takes up much less space than their old 40-gallon tank.  Below, Annette is standing on two of the new floor joists.

 

Here’s Annette in front of the tank water heater.  The girls are almost ready to begin replacing the bathroom floor.

 

We had a great day together and were sorry it had to end.  We took a group picture that looked fine on the camera, but it was actually blurred.  Oh well, we all know who we are and how much fun we had together.

 

Ted and I went to our motel with another dense fog advisory in effect.  It was a fall day filled with fun and book-ended with fog.

One of the things I planned to do after my July 26, 2012 retirement was to stay up as late as necessary to watch the Perseid meteor shower, which peaks during the second week of August.  So far, there has been an obstacle to doing that every year–usually clouds, rain, or too much moonlight to see all but the brightest meteors.  Last year, Ted and I agreed we should drive to rural Kansas to watch the Perseids in the dark.  This year’s Perseids were predicted to be amazing, with up to 70-100 meteors visible per hour, clear skies, and only a new moon which set early in the evening, leaving a dark sky.  When we found out the peak viewing time was over the weekend, we asked Kathy if she’d like to have us visit her in Kirksville (no nearby major cities) for the event.  She’s an avid star-gazer, so she told us to come on up.

We arrived in Kirksville in the late afternoon and spent some time with Kathy and Annette at the house before dinner.

There’s a new look in the dining room.  It was very welcoming with the afternoon sun shining through the window.  Ignore any out-of-place objects.  Kathy and Annette are updating their bathroom now and needed to shift some things around.

The girls store their winter stove wood in the back yard.  Does that make this a wooded lot?  The big trees provide a shady setting for outdoor meals at the picnic table.

An interesting mushroom is growing on one of the firewood logs.

 

There was no rush to eat dinner or to leave the not-busy restaurant (it was Sunday night), because we couldn’t see meteors until after dark.  We had a good time visiting together and catching up with each other until we decided it was dark enough to begin searching for a viewing point in the dark country north of Kirksville.  It took us about 30 minutes to leave the Kirksville lights behind and another 15 minutes to find a place off the road, without lights, where we wouldn’t bother anyone or get arrested.  It was about 10:30 p.m. when we settled on the parking lot of some sort of large equipment storage area.

To get to our viewing spot, we took the Prius Kathy bought from Ted.  This gave Ted his first-ever opportunity to ride in the back seat of his former car.

We brought lawn chairs, but lying on the ground was more comfortable for looking upward.  You can see my vacant spot.

We were surrounded by large storage sheds, 18-wheelers, a caterpillar, a dump truck, and who knows what else.  It was too dark to identify everything around us, but we had a great view of the sky.

 

Unfortunately, the Perseid show didn’t match its hype.  After two hours, we had seen 19 meteors.  Only 19!!!  It was still a very enjoyable evening.  The outdoor temperature was in the low 80s, and it was so dark and clear that we could see the Milky Way.  We spent our viewing time identifying constellations, chatting about all kinds of things, and wondering how much longer it would be before we saw another meteor.  We saw quite a few spectacular meteors with very long tails and we had a good time together, so the evening was a success.

This afternoon, Ted and I went to a theater in St. Louis County to see Generation Wealth, a just-released movie.  I’d give it three stars out of five.  Mostly, it made me sad because the people featured in the movie seemed to have no feelings of self-worth, so they tried to validate themselves with lots of money and conspicuous consumption.  I’m much happier than any of them seemed to be.

The more interesting parts of the afternoon (for me) were the Goodyear blimp and the thunderstorms.  The 100th PGA Championship tournament is in St. Louis at the Bellerive Country Club this week.  Not only has traffic been heavy all week, but the Goodyear blimp is in town to provide all the aerial shots of the action.

See all those building cumulus clouds?  It’s almost time to get off the golf course and to bring down the blimp to avoid the heat-induced thunderstorms that are brewing.

 

We had to drive through some heavy thunderstorms on our way home from the movie.

There’s a bridge just ahead, but the rain is so heavy, you can’t see it.  Ted is driving at creeping speed.

We had to get this close to the bridge to see it.  On a clear day, it’s visible for several miles on the highway.

More thunderstorms are developing in every direction.

 

There was lots of rain and thunder all around us all the way home from the movie, but Ted is watering our new trees as I write this, because we didn’t get enough rain at our house to cover the bottom of the rain gauge.  Go figure!

My photographer friend, Bob, posted a gorgeous picture on Facebook this week.  Wow!  This was one of those “sunny by dark” days when the western sky cleared just before sunset, leaving lots of clouds to produce a beautiful scene.

It’s been seven days since our last frost advisory and since our low temperatures have gone below freezing.  Before we get too happy about the possible arrival of spring, however, we had another cold night.  Yesterday’s normal temperatures are 71/51 degrees.  We had a high of 62 and a low of 37.

This is what I saw on our thermometer this morning.

 

Until it gets warm for real, I agree with this guy.

At least it’s not sleeting here.

I’m not the only one wondering if winter will ever end.  Ted saw this on Facebook.

It’s a dated post.  Today is the 106th of January.

I’m not imagining it.  It’s true.  We’ve had so many cold, gray, and rainy days since February, that we’re a month behind on spring.  The normal high and low temperatures for today are 67 and 47 degrees, but we had a high of 43, with snow flurries and a freeze warning forecast for tonight.

After snow last Sunday, we had two days in the upper 70s last week.  That was just enough to convince our magnolia trees that they should open their long-ready buds–a month late.  The blooms, however, are proof that spring is late and that the weather has truly been as crummy and as cold as it seemed.

Normal spring

This is one of our magnolia trees on March 16, 2016.

 

2018 spring

This is the same magnolia tree today, April 15, 2018.  The outer petals of the buds froze several weeks ago.  By staying closed, the frozen outer petals protected the blooms, but the color suffered.  They’ll freeze completely tonight.  Note also the rain-wet streets–again.  (But the grass looks good.)

“April is the cruellest month.”

                     The Waste Land, by T. S. Eliot

 

Yesterday:  High temperature of 66 degrees; sunshine; warm breeze; birds singing; sitting outdoors and enjoying a good read.  Spring!

 

Today:  Temperature going down from a morning high of 51 to a predicted low of 24 degrees; currently 38 degrees with a wind chill of 30; cloudy; wind gusting at 25 mph; birds hunkering down in their nests; rain on the way (formerly expected to be snow, but we’re catching a break); no one sitting outdoors.  Back to winter.

 

Note:  Eliot had insider information about the capricious nature of April weather.  He was from St. Louis.

Temperature:  25 degrees

Precipitation:  rain, freezing rain, sleet, and snow

Bonus:  thunder!

Road conditions:  improving–the snowplow just went by our house.

So much for all the flowering buds that were almost ready to open.  April Fool!

Today, Ted and I went shopping for groceries and had the opportunity to observe Channel 4’s “Weather Radio Wednesday.”  In early spring (pre-tornado season), Channel 4’s weather team visits a different metro area location each Wednesday from 3:30-6:30 pm.  This Wednesday, they were at our local St. Peters grocery store.  They had weather radios for sale, and were also available to program weather radios to sound alerts for the metro area county of the user’s choice.

The line to reach the Weather Radio Wednesday team stretched the length of the store aisle, and then curved another 8-10 people around the corner.

Two weather team members (blue shirts) covered the weather radio sales and programming.

Channel 4’s chief meteorologist (on the right in a blue shirt with a Channel 4 logo patch) did public relations duties with the crowd and also broadcast his 5:00 pm and 6:00 pm weathercasts from this location.

 

This was a popular event.  I heard the store manager say it was like Christmas, with people cruising the parking lot, looking for a place to park.  Ted and I can verify this, as we needed to park on the perimeter of the parking lot.  Thankfully for us, the grocery-purchase lines were much shorter than the weather radio line.

This gorgeous photo was taken by Malcolm Denmark, a Florida Today photographer.  It shows the launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at Cape Canaveral early this morning.  Ooh, aah.

My brother Tom lives in a western suburb of Chicago.  With the heavy snow hitting Chicago this week, Tom sent some childhood pictures to family members.

That’s me, bundled up and sitting on the sled the horses are pulling.  I was three years old at the time.  Dad told Mom to take a picture because it would likely be the last time he ever drove a team.  As I recall, the horses and sled belonged to my great-uncle Phil, who lived about a mile from us, but Tom doesn’t remember Uncle Phil having horses, so I could be wrong.  On the other hand, Tom wasn’t born until two years after this photo was taken, so Uncle Phil might have sold the horses before Tom joined the family, making this the last time my dad could drive his team.

 

This is Tom at age 6, standing high in a front tractor scoop (tractor driven by my dad).  In those days, we got a lot of snow in the Wisconsin winters–look at those snowbanks!–so this wasn’t overkill when the driveway needed to be cleared.  Note:  Dad could drive (and fix) just about anything!

During the past week, St. Peters has has three winter weather advisories for snow (0.5-1.0 inches each time) and sleet/freezing rain (up to 0.1 inch each time).  In spite of the advisories, the snow went north of us and the freezing rain went south.  This is what we accumulated on the ground.

After the first advisory, the forecast <1 inch of snow fell, but the ground was so warm, the snow didn’t even stick to concrete surfaces.

Yesterday’s advisory brought us about a half-inch of sleet–which stuck only to the concrete surfaces.  Check the road.  Luckily (insert sarcasm here), the streets were treated to the point of being white and the plow went over them several times.

 

The snow that went north of us made it to my brother Tom’s house in the western Chicago suburbs.

Not only local weather alerts, but this snow made headline news on CNN and elsewhere.

 

The forecast “verified,” as Ted would say, and Tom emailed the following information to me:

[Saturday, Feb. 10]  We pushed about 8″ of snow since Thursday.  A little more may be coming tonight – or maybe not.

[Sunday, Feb. 11]  We got about another 4″ of snow.  The weather guy said we tied a record with 9 consecutive days of accumulating snow.  The last date was in 1905 or something like that.

 

This reminded me of a cartoon I saw during the January “bomb cyclone” on the East Coast.

Today in St. Peters, Missouri.

Bundling up and hunkering down.

 

Today in Honolulu, Hawai’i.

Wearing shorts and sandals while eating dinner in a restaurant with no exterior walls.

We’re under another wind chill advisory in the St. Louis area through tomorrow morning.  Tonight’s low is forecast to be about one degree.  We are expecting one more day of temperatures below freezing before our thermometer hits a forecast high of 34 degrees on Sunday.  Before the temperature goes above freezing, however, the forecast says there is an 80 percent chance that Sunday morning will bring “snow, sleet, and rain, possibly mixed with freezing rain.”

As Ted and I were driving this afternoon, we were amazed to see that, in spite of the fact that the temperature hasn’t been above freezing in the past 12 days, a fountain is still spewing water upward.  When plumbers drive by this ice cone, do they flinch?

The top of the cone is liquid water, still spouting upward.

I can’t help mentioning that, right now, it’s 15 degrees in St. Peters, with a wind chill effect of -7 degrees.  In Honolulu, it’s 75 degrees.  No wind chill.  Let me add that our boarding passes are already printed.

The TV weather guy told me that our area has already had ten days in which temperatures have not risen above freezing.  He added that we’ve got at least another four days of below freezing temperatures in the forecast and a possible ice/snow mix coming up early next week.  Over the New Year’s weekend–Saturday evening through Tuesday noon–we were under a wind chill advisory.  The danger was frostbite in as little as 30 minutes, leading to possible hypothermia.  Residents were cautioned to cover all exposed skin if they went outdoors.

 

Hawai’i also had weather warnings out for part of the holiday weekend–Monday afternoon through Wednesday morning.  In Hawai’i, however, it was a high surf advisory.  While we St. Peters residents were covering all exposed skin, those poor beach goers in their swimsuits had to be cautious on the beach.

 

I’m counting the hours until our flight leaves at 8:00 am Friday!

It’s rare for St. Louis to have a white Christmas, but we had about 2.5 inches of very wet snow this morning and the forecast is calling for another inch tomorrow–Christmas Eve.  We were in the 50s and 60s all week, so the ground is warm.  The roads were wet, not snow-covered, and the snow is melting quickly.  Still, white is white.  Merry Christmas.