Currently 81º here in Daytona Beach, sunny and clear but a cold front is supposed to push through in the next few days with rain and cooler temp's so it looks like Florida will begin to feel a bit winterish ... no ice and snow though Thank You Very Much.

MariposaMaid said:wedwacker where does your 'cleared' snow go? Friends from little town in UP Mich say that if you don't have a second story on your house you don't see any sunfor the winter for all the piled up snow! Snow cleared from the streets has to be trucked to the park or the school athletic fields

LOL, it sounds like your friends might be from "up north," near Lake Superior -- I'm in the "south," near Lake Michigan (everything is relative!). We sometimes get a good bit of snow, but NOTHING like they do near Superior... fortunately. And we use a snowblower rather than plowing, so everything gets blown away from the house.

The winter of 2013-2014 was the biggest snowfall here that we had in a long time - L. Superior also froze completely over that year, which is VERY unusual!

A Coast Guard friend has some great stories about his duty on Lake Superior on an icebreaker!

Love those pics, just add another 3-4 feet in height and you have their winter runways. Deepest snowfall I've experienced was42 inches not counting drifts. I was raised southwest of Chicago. We didn't have to walk the mile up the road to catch the bus for school if it was below zero.

I try to remember my 'roots' as winter approaches here. I do know how to drive in snow but most around here do not. Had a supervisor that insisted we all show up for work even though snow was already 18" deep and my vehicle only cleared 15". Told her I'd wait up my hill for her to pick me up!

Wow, great photos Sandy! Having been born and raised in the south (and lived here my entire life) I've never experienced snow and ice like some of y'all get in the winter!! The amounts of snow in some places always amazes me and I love seeing the beautiful, snowy landscape pictures! It boggles my mind though to think that huge lakes like Superior, etc. can actually freeze! A few years ago we went to the Syracuse N.Y. area to visit my husbands elder brother and sister in law and we took a few days trip farther north to the St. Lawrence Waterway while we were up there. It was early June but rainy and rather chilly for this southerner and I was so shocked when someone told me that the waterway at times freezes over and that no ships can pass!! I really, really would love to have warm, heavy clothes and take a trip somewhere cold and snowy some winter ... just for a couple of days though.

Well, for the record, most meteorologists seem to attribute the warm December more to El Nino and sunspot activity and North Atlantic oscillation...
https://www.google.com/search?...

Yes, I'm a weather junkie. In fact, we have a current weather thread in Clint's Echinacea Cubit about the weather. It was started on July 8, 2012 and is still active. It's just a few folks but we post almost every day. The thread is now up to 186 pages, and has 3.713 replies!

Karen

We're holding at 29 here. My nephew and I went outside and sledded for awhile. Took several runs to get down to the ice and to slick up the sleds but we had fun.

"A Coast Guard friend has some great stories about his duty on Lake Superior on an icebreaker!" Wow -- I can just imagine . That winter of 2013-2014 was really horrible here, much colder than normal with extended periods below 0F. Whew, lots of broken water pipes everywhere, fortunately not ours, though. The upside was that with all the ice the levels of the Great Lakes actually rose (they have been decreasing in recent years), not only because of all the snow that year but because the evaporation was slowed by the ice cover.

Lin, my dad was raised in the Syracuse area; I never really knew his family, other than 2 aunts -- his parents had both passed away quite some time before I was born, and my mom had some kind of feud going with his entire family so... . But I'm hoping to take a little trip to that area next summer and maybe visit the cemetery where some of them are buried and -- I don't know, exactly, just sort of reconnect. They do seem to have pretty similar weather to what we have where I am now, must still be in my blood! Maybe you can find some warm clothes to rent for a cold-weather vacation!

Karen, I think all gardeners should be "weather junkies" ! Even if it does drive us crazy...

We are looking at sharpening our swimming skills if you guys keep getting rain and snow. It all flows down hill.

http://www.nola.com/weather/in...

http://theadvocate.com/news/14...

LOL, Jean -- unless it flows "uphill," as in that hurricane that was named after me....

I should have posted a link to the weather thread on Clint's Cubit
http://cubits.org/echinaceas/t...

Karen

kqcrna said:Well, for the record, most meteorologists seem to attribute the warm December more to El Nino and sunspot activity and North Atlantic oscillation...
https://www.google.com/search?...

Yes, I'm a weather junkie. In fact, we have a current weather thread in Clint's Echinacea Cubit about the weather. It was started on July 8, 2012 and is still active. It's just a few folks but we post almost every day. The thread is now up to 186 pages, and has 3.713 replies!

Karen

Karen. I was a member of the American Meterology Society for ~ 20 years. And having lived in Michigan and Massachusetts, I can tell you Winter horror stories. I made a good living from ~ 1981 - 1995 analyzing weather and serving as an Expert Witness in utility cases.

Yeah - all this crud is due to El Nino. This one will likely be considered worse than '97/'98. The flooding, snow & tornados pretty much lock up the weather side. We already broke the Sea Surface Temperatures set in '97. The tornados of this past week have been the worst of the year - far worse than the normal summer period. I live in Tornado Alley and we did not have one single Warning this year.

We had a few down here but not many. Nowhere near what we normally have though.

I live on the shore of Lake Superior and weather in this area is unreal .. can get as cold as -45F in winter, and, we all still function .. to highs in the low 100s WITH humidity in the summer .

On this last day of 2015 .. we will enjoy a temp of 20F with partial sun .. doubtless we will have the 3 dogs out for a run .. they LOVE the snow .. speaking of which .. we have had ONE snowfall with an accumulation of snow so far this winter season .. quite odd that .. we have usually had at least 3 or 4 BIG storms before NY Eve ..

HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone, all the best



~M~

Marilynne, I could NEVER live at your latitude. In fact Ohio is too far north for me. I hate the cold! So far I'm delighted with this winter weather. If only I could see an occasional ray of sunshine. I hate dreary!

Karen

My southern brain just cannot comprehend temperatures of minus 45ºF .... I'd have to hibernate for sure.

Me three!

Yikes. Worst I have ever personally experienced is 18 below zero. Two years ago with the Polar Vortex, we went > 40 days without the temps getting above freezing. We had day after day of lows ~ Minus 10 and highs in single digits.

The lowest I can remember it going here is -40F, but that was many years ago. Thankfully.
Not unusual for us to see -25, though.

Brr ... We sometimes drop to the 20'sF here but thankfully that is rare and when it does get that cold it only lasts for a couple of days! It's currently 83.3ºF here, sunny and warm. I was outside watering plants and pulling a few weeds earlier.