How's your weather?

About 4 inches of snow this morning, but temps above freezing.

I'm not liking it. Oh yeah, it's mild – but it's supposed to be cold. Lots of plants haven't gone dormant. Raccoons are still active – raiding bird feeders instead of holing up in a hollow tree for the winter. But the storms are the worst thing. Used to be we'd get Northeasters which dumped a foot and a half of snow on us, followed by a week of brilliant clean blue skies and days when it never got warmer than 10ºF. This winter we've been hit with these huge ocean Southeasters that barrel all the way up the East Coast pushing huge tides and dumping heavy rains. We're connected to the mainland by a narrow causeway and a rickety 75 year old bridge – both of which are in danger of getting washed away by crashing surf or blown apart by pummeling winds. All the rain has made the ground really soft and the unusual direction of the wind has blown down lots of trees. I was without power all of yesterday and another big one's supposed to hit on Friday night and extend into Saturday. I'm stocking up on Bourbon.

On vacation in St. Marten (French side) at the moment with my significant other and a family member. It rained for 10 minutes. So we added another drink to our after lunchtime meal. I tell you that it’s a tough life.

At home in Sarasota, I hear that it’s been raining quite a bit. Prior to that, it has been drought conditions.

My maternal grandmother is from French St. Marten. I visited there in the '60s. I imagine it's very different now!

It's (very) cold here in the morning and late at night - around 4ºC and it "heats" up to 13ºC during the day. Yes, it's summer temperatures in some parts of the world, but us SoCal residents are sissy and we suffer. The minute a snow flake hits us, we're all going to die!!! Not to mention that our cardboard boxes/houses are not built to sustain the cold.
We did not book this kind of weather!!

Right now it's 58 degrees, it usually stays cool near the Pacific this time of the year.

You know I've never lived anywhere where it snowed. Sometimes I would go up to Tahoe or Big Bear for the weekend when it snowed but never had snow in my front yard.

I visited here once around 2002 and loved it. Now it’s quite pleasant and not inexpensive. Food is great and varied. Gourmet food is as expensive as as back at home. Not that we eat that way often. We are able to cook at home and made a paella meal. 🥘

Back to the weather, we get these rain popup showers once or twice per day. Oddly, we had a power failure occurring overnight and lasted through about noon that made things interesting.

Whoa - it's a weird year, for sure. I planted my garlic in late October, then got two months of mild weather. I covered them in straw, then a frost blanket and have no idea if they've sprouted.

I'm worried about your bridge. And your heavy rains. Drink your Bourbon!

Everybody's drinking in this thread! lol Whatever it was, have another one - why not?

Heh, heh, CJ - you ARE sissies We call them snowflakes. On the Nextdoor app, people here have been showing us the insides of their windows covered in frost! We had to tape our sliding window frame - and it's still drafty. And these windows are fairly new! I had to put my bread in the oven to proof, the kitchen's that nippy.

A year ago in December we had two chillingly chilly weeks where really nobody went out - it was mainly the wind chill. We're about that same temp now. No wind chill at the moment so people are still going out. The main thing we have to worry about is ice. When we get a Chinook (which happens frequently during the winter), the snow melts, then when it freezes, it's layers upon layers of ice. One particularly bad winter (2013?), the ice buildup in our street was so bad that we all had to help push people to the end of the block and beyond. Seriously, the ice ruts were that high.

Oh, I remember these cold winters with lots of snow and ice. Rain that came down as ice since the temperatures changed so fast. Or one New Years Eve
when we celebrated and had fun and never noticed the amount of snow that came down. At 1:00 am when guests wanted to go home, we opened the front door and the snow was over 5 ft. high. Everyone had to stay at the house.

I also remember when the car doors were frozen and they key wouldn't get into they lock and you had to work with a lighter to heat the key up.

That's precisely the reason why I live in SoCal. :-)

My older cat, Milo, loves to go out - these last few days I have to laugh... I tell him, No, you won't like it, but he doesn't believe me. I open the door, he dashes out, then dashes right back in again, lol. Total of 5 seconds, ha ha.

You know my big dog Frankie that recently passed away hated to get wet, if it was raining I had to take him outside with an umbrella.

In winter, our beagle, Kennedy (also passed) would go out into the yard, tiptoe around in the snow, holding first one, then another paw up. Then she'd sit on her tail. Brandon, meanwhile, would dive into the snow and roll around in it. He was a Giant Pomeranian and looked like a mini muskox. He was small and often the snow was higher than he was.

Our Californian pooches are spoiled! Mine doesn't like the rain either and tries to go back home right away, then does her business in a jiffy so she can get back inside. Then she's waiting to be dried off with a towel.

Currently -7c with wind chills taking it to -17c but it's been really warm here up until today. Bit of a nasty storm on Friday night that brought a line down at the end of the street leaving us without power until about 3:30 a.m. It was long enough to spoil cream and to go through the decision making process of what to pitch and what to keep which was a sonofabitch.

I've been following the news out your way Mame. You guys are getting hammered! That's the kind of cold that makes your nostrils stick together

Yeah, it's snot-freezing weather. Milo goes out and comes right back in in under 15 seconds He does NOT like being cooped up here with the kitties. Coco has taken to chasing him around the house and he's getting hissed and swatted at for his troubles.

Yesterday in the NYT they had a map of the US weather. All but four states were shrouded in white. They're having a terrible time of it.