Tag: weather

Poverty and the polar vortex

Today I read two very different but still related stories about things that happened in Hammond, Indiana due to the polar vortex.  Both stories emphasize the plight of the working poor in the United States, and how extreme cold affects them in ways that many people may not have even considered.

The first was about a house fire that claimed the lives of three small children and put two others and their father in the hospital.  The second was about a warehouse where workers were forced to continue working – without heat – even after the state had declared an emergency.

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What we’re reading now – Nerd Edition

This is probably more like what I’m reading now as these are all my geeky contributions.  Either way, this post was inspired by this first link.  Enjoy.

I’m as interested in design and the engineering behind things as the next person.  I’m also interested in Star Trek and I think Wil Wheaton is a great writer.  That being said, I grew up watching Star Trek TNG and I’ve heard all sorts of stories about it over the years.  Somewhere I heard a story about how the uniforms on TNG required special Star Trek issued underpants.  I can’t find it ANYWHERE on the internets, but I remember reading it somewhere.  That’s why I found this article so interesting.

Continue reading “What we’re reading now – Nerd Edition”

The cat thermometer

There’s a joke somewhere on the internet about how you can use your cat to tell how cold it is.  At some point around freezing the cat gets friendly enough to let you pet him, below freezing he’ll actually cuddle with you, and at some point near zero the cat tears open your midsection while you sleep and warms himself in your viscera a la Luke on Hoth.

That’s not quite how it works in our house.

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Dachshund winter activities

I bet you are thinking I am going to talk about dachshunds in the snow and such.  Well, you don’t know much about our dachshunds, then.  When it’s ridiculously cold outside, like it is now, just getting the dogs out to do their business can be a trial, especially if precipitation is in progress.  So most of their winter activities consist of a) trying to stay warm, b) trying to get more food than they are normally allowed, and c) sleeping.  Frequently a) and c) are combined.

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So you can see for yourself

Here’s a screenshot of my Weatherbug from a few moments ago.

Forget about "winter is coming". It has arrived.
Forget about “winter is coming”. It has arrived.

So that is showing a temperature of minus 0.2 degrees Fahrenheit with a windchill of minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit.  I think this may actually be one of the coldest, if not the coldest, temperature I have ever experienced.  And I don’t think it’s stopped yet.

Sorry to keep going on and on, but weather (and weather history) fascinates me so I am just geeking out about all of this.   I am wondering if temperature records may be broken tonight or tomorrow.

-Geoff

Um, wow.

It’s not often that I will use the phrase “bitter cold” to describe the weather in Greater Boston.  But the temperature here has already fallen more than they thought it would tonight.  Currently it is 2 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5, to be precise) with a wind chill of -16 degrees.  That is bitter cold, at least for Cambridge or Boston.

And tomorrow was supposed to be the really cold night.

And that snow total just keeps on climbing, too.  In fact, I may just have to use another term that doesn’t get tossed around much… snowpocalypseageddon.

Cue the dramatic music.  Dun dun dun!

Maybe we need to worry about White Walkers after all.   Wonder how much snow we will have by tomorrow morning. Not looking forward to shoveling.

-Geoff

Ah, what a mess

The snow has begun, and we have already gotten a few inches, slowly and steadily, over the past 12 hours or so. I already shoveled the steps once this afternoon and already you can’t tell I ever did it.     Even early this morning when I got up to make breakfast before Kelly had to go to work, we already had enough snow to coat everything outside.

And now they are saying we may get even more than they originally thought.  I will get some pictures tomorrow once it has more or less finished.

In the meantime, I am doing some Portuguese home cooking.  Maybe I will do some pictures of that too.

-Geoff

Happy New Year, all

It is nice to not have anything to do today, except for dropping off our rent.  It is a cold day outside, about 25 degrees Fahrenheit,   and we have lots of cuddling animals following us around the house.  And it is going to get even colder, and we are going to get a foot of snow by Friday, maybe a little more.  A Nor’easter is coming our way and there may even be blizzard conditions for a while.  That’s ok, as long as there are no White Walkers or wights.

Goodbye, 2013.  May 2014 be a much better year for us all.

-Geoff

 

Tacloban, Samar Island, and two very different storms

After more than a week, many survivors of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines are still struggling to get basics like food, water and shelter.  And places like Samar, Leyte, and Tacloban are now getting mentioned in the news all over the world.  Samar and Leyte seem to have been hit the worst from the typhoon.

I know these place names.  Not because I have ever been there (I haven’t), but because of their famous place in history – specifically, in the fall of 1944, when the Allied invasion of the Japanese-occupied Philippines led to what was the largest naval battle in all of World War Two, and possibly the largest in recorded human history.

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