Thursday, February 25 2010 @ 01:59 PM GMT+4 Contributed by: Mr. Buddy Love
I know we have had a lot of snow in the USA (all 48 states) this year, and I know we had a "January thaw" with rain late in that month. But are we supposed to have rain in February too?? When do we get the winter?
And here's another question:
If Brattleboro's Winter Carnival planners of 50-plus years ago planned for their event in February, didn't they know that rain late in the month could ruin the events? Or was it colder and snowier back then, on average? Because it seems irrational to have winter snow events in the rain.
Authored by: Maus Anon E on Thursday, February 25 2010 @ 04:01 PM GMT+4
We usually get walloped with a good snowstorm around the end of February. My sisters were born in a blizzard on February 24, 1969. Most years, they've seen some kind of snowstorm within days of their birthday. This year, it was dead-on, two-and-a-half feet of heavy, sticky snow, just like the day they were born.
Authored by: Mr. Buddy Love on Thursday, February 25 2010 @ 06:12 PM GMT+4
Hey tinyman,
Aside from your Fox News "no worries" it's boring stuff:
What does your almanac say about late ice formation and early ice outs,
as well as maple sugaring that sometimes now comes in January and
February?
Authored by: Maus Anon E on Thursday, February 25 2010 @ 04:41 PM GMT+4
No, no rain. After the blizzard we had a couple warm, sunny days and it turned everything to a slushy sloppy mess. I remember my father swearing up a storm when, even after shoveling for hours, he couldn't get our Ford Galaxie out of the driveway to go pick my mother and new sisters up from the hospital. A neighbor eventually pulled us onto the road with his jeep.
Authored by: Mr. Buddy Love on Thursday, February 25 2010 @ 06:10 PM GMT+4
My dad had a '66 Ford Galaxy. That thing had an engine in it that kicked
ass! We used to take ours out to our mountain property, as it easily
drove up on our overgrown road and over the creek that crossed the road
at one point. Your dad probably didn't have good snow tires.
Authored by: Maus Anon E on Thursday, February 25 2010 @ 07:04 PM GMT+4
Oh, I think it was more likely that the problem was slush on top of ice and a rear-wheel drive car trying to get up an inclined driveway.
While I'd love to have that car now, it really wasn't a very good car. It could pass just about anything except a gas station, or a muffler shop. Six years old and it was already starting to rust through. He traded it a year later for a new Volvo, which he drove well into the 1990s.
Authored by: Mr. Buddy Love on Thursday, February 25 2010 @ 07:24 PM GMT+4
heh heh heh...
We rust-proofed ours so we didn't have that problem.
My dad kept his well into the seventies, and didn't get rid of it until
1977, keeping it a total of eleven years. Then it went to my older
brother, who let me drive it a few times. He put power brakes in it
and overhauled the engine. He sold it in 1981 to a friend, and we lost
track of it.
I have to agree with you that Volvos, SAABs (when they were
Swedish), and Mercedes Benzes, were all superior cars, because those
were built with Quality in mind, whereas American cars were built for
power and expendability.
Authored by: pjmelton on Thursday, February 25 2010 @ 07:19 PM GMT+4
I would have loved to see UP on the big screen, but we just saw it on DVD, so we opted for G-Force. I have been very spoiled by Pixar-level scrrenwriting. Script-wise, G-Force is not even minor league - more like Little League - by comparison. BUT, the physical humor is hilarious, if you're just looking to laugh your butt off.
---
"Economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings." -- FDR
Authored by: Mr. Buddy Love on Thursday, February 25 2010 @ 07:39 PM GMT+4
Like those anti-nuke protesters, I'm sure my global warming rants can
get to be pretty annoying (the truth hurts). People don't like to hear
bad news. People don't want to face facts. Tough. As Lou Grant used
to say to Mary Tyler Moore when she complained: "Deal with it!"
For those of you who CAN deal with reality, you might find this
interesting.
Marshall Heaven of Greenwich, Connecticut got tired of waiting for the
snow to fall, so he bought two Backyard Blizzard snowmakers and can
now promise 15-foot drifts as early as late November….Even though
it’s late January in Mason Township, Maine, Steve Crone of New
England Dogsledding tethers his eager canines to a golf cart. “We’d
rather have snow,” he says with some embarrassment…Fifteen-year-
old Cameron Sonley of Peterborough, Ontario, where the winter was
two degrees warmer than usual in the 2006-2007 season, complained
last March that because of high temperatures he was only able to go
snowboarding four or five times, instead of his usual dozen….In Staten
Island, New York, skaters have been thwarted for three straight years
as pond ice failed to thicken…Janisse Ray, an outdoor recreation
enthusiast in Danville, Vermont, got so frustrated whenthe West River
hadn’t frozen by last January that she donned a wetsuit and floated
downstream in an inner tube, holding aloft a sign that said “Where’s
winter?”
Where indeed? Since 1970, average winter temperatures in New
England have increased 4.4 degrees Fahrenheit. In the U.S., 2006 was
the warmest year on record, and 1998 is number two. The last eight
five-year periods were the warmest since we began taking national
records 112 years ago. During the past 25 to 30 years, says the
National Climatic Data Center, the warming trend has accelerated,
from just over a tenth of one degree Fahrenheit per decade to almost
a third of a degree.
