Snowstorm Pax packed a punch but didn't knock us out

We received snow, ice, freezing rain, sleet, wind, and more during the Pax storm of February 11-13. I laid in my supplies, which were milk and bread naturally, I made soup and muffins, drew water, readied the weather radio with batteries and got out the hurricane lantern.

And joy of joys, the power stayed on! I only had a two or three minute interruption and then it popped back on. I think some of that was because we didn't get the predicted ice they said we would, but they did say we were on the edge of the snow v. ice line so it could have gone either way. I'm glad it went this way! A quarter of a million people in Georgia lost power, the greatest amount of all the southern states affected by Pax. So...

And the other reason, I am convinced, is that people heeded directions and stayed off the roads. No one was crashing around into poles and transformers. As of yesterday afternoon at the height of the storm that had been going for 20 hours, Athens police had only responded to ONE road call for crash. Yay, people!

Here is a photo I love, posted at the height of the storm, by Madison County Sheriff on his Facebook page:

Icicles on my front porch had already started to melt at sunup

The neighbor's smoker looks like a hunched R2D2 trying to walk in the snow

I need to buy more bird seed.

 

 The candles were ready but the power stayed ON! Yay!

There is a lot of extreme weather this week. The news reported that Slovenia is "entombed" in ice. Their word, entombed. And since the nation is paralyzed and not moving then entombed seems like an apt description. Look at some of these pics:

Guy tries to figure out how to unearth his car and make it usable again.

The trains aren't going to run for at least two more weeks, they say.

Many people are attributing this extreme weather to global warming. Even my cats are worried about it. [Not]

Madison County Sheriff wrote,

"Road conditions are beginning to improve. We would still like everyone to stay put and let the snow crews catch up. Things should be much better by this afternoon. Thank you all for heeding the warnings and staying at home, it helped tremendously!!!"

It's official. I have to stay at home. Aw shucks, what a hardship. [Not]

Till next time!!

N. Korea: "All bets are off!"

I posted this on The End Time blog last night. I am still amazed that mainstream news outlets in the US have not picked this up yet. At last the BBC has published an article by now:

North Korea tears up agreements
"Communist North Korea has said it is scrapping all military and political agreements signed with the South, accusing Seoul of hostile intent."

So North Korea says 'all bets are off.' Remember, N. Korea's nukes are in the hands of a crazy dictator. Now, nothing happens in a vacuum, and on January 18th "South Korea said its military forces remained on alert Sunday a day after North Korea issued a statement pledging "an all-out confrontational posture."

I just wonder about the timing. Were they waiting for hard liner Bush to be out and talk 'em kiss kiss Obama is in?

Anyway, The End Time has a short list of why this is bad and scripture to ponder.

Warm sunny days are a joy!

Bloomin' October! A friend's garden in Comer.

Well, which is it... Global warming or global cooling?

Two news reports the same day--

Winter temperature in Finland hits record high

HELSINKI, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Finland this year has recorded its highest average temperature for a winter season since 1900, the Finnish Meteorological Institute said Thursday. The average temperature in the Finnish capital Helsinki in January was 0.6 degrees Celsius, which was 4.8 degrees higher than that of the period between 1971 and 2000, said the institute. Global warming and unusually constant warm currents from the south and the southwest may have contributed to the extraordinarily mild winter, the institute added.

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Sydney's weirdly cool summer

Searing heat, parched gardens and sunny skies - trademarks of an Australian summer - were replaced by cloudy days and lots of rain, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.Remarkably, not one day this summer pushed past 31 degrees.

"That's only happened three times in the past (in 149 years of the bureau's weather records), with the last being 1956 - it's quite significant," Ms Symons said.
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The Sun Does a Flip

NASA scientists who monitor the Sun say that our star's awesome magnetic field is flipping -- a sure sign that solar maximum is here.

Global meltdown sparks new tourism

Where to go in 2008: Or, "Aw, man, Greenland gets all the best global warming disasters!"

"For those who find that Discovery Channel documentaries and Al Gore's PowerPoint presentations don’t adequately capture the phenomenon of global warming, another option is now more readily available: pulling on a fur-lined parka and watching the ice melt in Greenland."



After that, can we watch a rainforest clearcut? Can we?

Graph data and story here. It's not good.