Morning Undulatus

Normally I would do Artist of the week, but this week it's all about clouds.

Today during the morning dog walk I noticed the sky was filled with the most amazing clouds. Shyly peeking out were all sorts of striated patterns. I think this is called Altostratus Undulatus, but I could be wrong. It is not very easy to get a clear cut description of cloud types. Wrong or right I was just happy I had my cell phone in my pocket. I happily snapped pictures along the walk whenever the dogs stopped to read their p-mail.

And it was a good thing that I did. By mid-morning the clouds were all gone. We had a brilliantly sunny day with a cloudless sky. A nice change of pace from the endless cycles of rain/snow/slush with gloomy clouds. It was starting to feel like Spring and it's attendant warmer weather would never come.

So here are a few of the pictures I took this morning.

The top picture was just after I turned out of our driveway and first noticed the sky. It looks all dramatic with the darker clouds lower down on the horizon. As I walked along the clouds thinned out and you could see more and more of the wavy pattern.

In the middle picture, taken just ten minutes later you can see the sky has brightened quiet a bit. I think the three parallel lines in the lower left are old contrails. Maybe.

The last picture is my favorite.The sun is higher up and is providing some wonderful light that really shows off the pattern. I'm so glad I had grabbed my phone on the way out this morning.

Dancing in the Rain, Dec 2013

And here is proof on how warm it is here in Virginia.

Enough with the Rain

Wet, a photo by Teckelcar on Flickr.

This has been an all too common sight this past few months. Thankfully I did not have to go out and fetch someone in the rain tonight, but that's only because we are nearing winter break. The winter part being an abstract idea since around these parts there has been precious little winter weather. We did get some ice on the trees and the temperatures have dipped down for a little bit, but no snow.

Right now it's pouring outside and the temperature is at a solid 42 and has not budged. I wish it was snow instead. This rainy weather is a bore.

Frosty

Frosty, a photo by Teckelcar on Flickr.

We haven't had any of the severe weather that has been sweeping up the coast. The most we have had is some icing on the trees. Mind you there were power outages, but it wasn't nearly as bad as predicted.

Heck we haven't had any snow days or even a two hour delay.

This picture was from Monday. The upper branches have a thin coating of ice while the roads remain clear. Pretty much the ideal ice storm, pretty trees without dangerous road conditions. However I would have enjoyed to sleep in even more.

First Frost

First Frost, a photo by Teckelcar on Flickr.

This weekend we had our first frost and it was a killing one for the tomato plants and the basil. Which, considering how weedy they all looked, was not a bit surprising. The parsley, on the other hand, shook off the cold weather and is as green and vibrant as ever.

Interestingly the second of our two black swallowtail caterpillars has yet to form a chrysalis/pupa and I thought it was a goner from the cold. It warmed up enough today that the caterpillar was once again moving, just very slowly. I wonder if it will ever move on to the next stage or did it wait too long.

Just 19 Days Later

October Beach, a photo by Teckelcar on Flickr.

I can't believe a mere 19 days ago I was at he beach and happily frolicking in the waves. It was a perfect day for the beach and we were able to go out and enjoy the last day of summer weather.

Now it is sock weather and I'm wearing a sweater as I write this post. I can't imagine willingly stepping into the ocean now. Yesterday the upstairs' heating system kicked on for the first time with the annual burning off of the dust on the heater coil and thus setting off the smoke detectors. The summer weather is clearly over here in central Virginia.

Rain, Rain, Go Away

Rainbow in Vermont, a photo by Teckelcar on Flickr.

I am so sick of rain.

It has rained almost every day this summer with the added bonus of some sort of thunderstorm rolling in every couple of days. Last night's storm was particularly notable. The thunderclaps shook the house numerous times and at one point is was almost like the fourth of July.

It even rained during our grand tour of up north. The rivers were running high and fast with no hope of their going down in the near future. Once again we missed out on fireworks.

On the upside we have seen plenty of rainbows. I caught this one up at my cousin's house in VT. It stretched all across the sky and lingered for quite some time. The only other benefit is that I have yet to turn on our sprinkler system. With all the rain we are getting the lawn is just fine, thank you very much.

It' Beginning to Look a lot like Pesach

three inches, a photo by Teckelcar on Flickr.

Title shamelessly stolen from Meryl Yourish.

Yes, that is a ruler in the snow and it really is measuring out 3 inches. I knew we were going to get some sort of big weather today, but this is far beyond what I expected.

This morning was my turn to drive the car pool to Sunday school. As I waited outside with the other parents for our children to be released the weather was the hot topic of conversation. There was a cold biting wind that smelled of snow, and my elbow had been bothering me this morning. 30 years ago I broke it, just knocked the end off the ulna and there is, literally, a three inch wood screw in there. When big storm systems are moving into the area I get twinges of pain in my elbow.

So anyhoodle I knew we were in for it.

Front yard, a photo by Teckelcar on Flickr.

 The rain and sleet started around noon and the weather steadily worsened as the temperature dropped. By midafternoon it had switched to snow and was falling heavily. At around 5:30 pm this was the view of our front yard. This is the biggest snow fall we have gotten this year and of course school was declared closed for Monday around 7.

So yay! We get to reveal in our last bits of bread before Passover comes tomorrow night. I foresee a big pot of pasta for lunch.

The Perfect Southern Snow Storm

We had a wee bit of a storm yesterday and, at least by my house, it was the perfect southern snow storm. It snowed all day, shutting down schools and bringing things to a grinding halt.

snowy day, a photo by Teckelcar on Flickr.

By mid-morning a soft blanket of snow covered the house and yard. The flakes came down fast and furious, yet the snow peaked at 1 1/2 inches and never got any deeper. It was well above freezing and as the day wore on the new snow fall could not keep up with the snow melting.

This morning we awake to clear roads and a bare yard. Here and there you could find snow, mostly where it had been piled up. The schools had a two hour delayed start and then everything was back to normal in my neck of the woods.

Cloudy

cloudy, a photo by Teckelcar on Flickr.

I am heartily sick of all the cloudy weather this winter. Today was grey and dull with a couple of moments of brilliant sunshine between snow flurries.I am happy to report, however, that drivers around here are starting to be a bit less freaked out by things like the inconsequential smattering of snow today. I think the local inhabitants of where I lived might be just getting used to this whole winter weather thing.

Wishful Thinking

snowfall, a photo by Teckelcar on Flickr.

For the past few it has been nothing but rain, rain, rain.

I'm sick of the never ending gloomy weather and the complete lack of sunshine. It was fine when I was sick with the flu last week, I retreated to bed and didn't give a flying fig about the weather. But due to the miracle of modern medicine, aka Tamiflu (the best drug EVER), I'm fine now. I want sunshine to go with the warm weather of the past few days, not buckets of rain.

The sad thing is I just can't help thinking about how much snow we could have if the temperature dipped south of freezing, at least 7 inches of the white stuff. But noooo, it has been at least mid-forties  with forays into the 60s. Larry says the latest forecasts predict a few inches of snow later this week.I'm hoping it is not just wishful thinking.

Pup and Pumpkins

pup and pumpkins, a photo by Teckelcar on Flickr.

We weathered Sandy just fine. Central Virginia had, at worst, a glancing blow. We had rain, rain, and yet more rain. The promised high winds never really materialized and as a result there was no massive power outages or road blockages.

John, however, did have to deal with window blockages. The final step of my hurricane preparations was to bring in the pumpkins. I didn't want them smashed before they were even carved, so in they came. I set them just inside the door, no way was I going to lug them through the house to the garage.

And thus I got this lovely shot of one of the red boys by the pumpkins.

Nature's Fireworks

We fully intended to go watch fireworks this year. The plan was to see the show over Lake Morey in Vermont. We would spent the afternoon swimming and head to the house we were staying in for a quick dinner. The fireworks would be a nice capper to a lovely day.

Mother nature, however, had her own plan. As the afternoon wore on thunderheads piled up in the western sky. A few heavy rumbles of thunder chased us out of the water and to the car. I was hopeful that the storm would quickly roll through, but that was not the case. We watched the clouds roil and mas as we ate dinner. The storm hit at about 7:30 and kept on rumbling. By 9 it was clear that we would not be going out.

I was a bit disappointed, but not overly so. Driving back on unfamiliar dirt roads late at night is not exactly fun. Particularly when a third of the passengers are a bit storm phobic. So I settled of filming some the storm after it had moved east of us (pretty much over Lake Morey).

There is no audio as the storm was a fair distance off and my camera can be obnoxiously noisy during quite scenes.

A Wee Bit of Weather

puddle, a photo by Teckelcar on Flickr.

I found out today during my post bus morning walk with fellow stay at home parents that we were due for some weather. Fairly severe weather, along the lines of hail and strong winds. Which was news to me and a bit disconcerting since I had two events for this evening.

The first one was the informal "Becca's beirgarten" in my neighbor's backyard. If they are around and it is nice outside, neighbors are invited to stop by and visit. The second event was a bit of a cookout being held before services at my temple. So as you can see bad weather would pretty much put the kibosh on my whole evening's goal not to cook dinner.

At around 3 the first store blew in and dumped a ton of rain with an incredible clap of thunder. I was out doing errands and had just beat the rain. I was in my van when it all hit. Visibility was nil so I ended up entertaining myself by texting and calling friends until conditions improved. After about 15 minutes the rain stopped and I was able to carry on with my errands. By the time I got home Larry was already there, getting Nate together for his lacrosse tourney. I asked my husband if he had gotten caught in the storm. Not only was his answer a yes, but he went on to tell me he was in his car when it hailed..

Fortunately that seemed to mark the end of the storm. 

The weather did look a bit dicey as the afternoon changed to evening, but nothing much happened. I was able to enjoy both events and, even better in my opinion, I got the night off from cooking dinner.

Cold Blossom

cold blossum, a photo by Teckelcar on Flickr.

My poor beleaguered daffodils, they don't know what hit them this week.

Sunday we had our big snowstorm that buried them in four and half inches of very wet snow. Some blossoms were knocked flat to the ground and all of them were tightly furled. The one here was pictured at just the start of the snow fall, the rain was just transitioning over to a more frozen form. You can just make out the crystals of ice in and amongst the water droplets.

Today the temperatures spiked all the way to 83. No that's not a typo, it was Eighty Three freak'n degrees outside. So of course we had a huge blow of a thunderstorm whip through tossing all the trees. Now the temps have dropped to 48 and the stars are out in their full brilliance.

This winter has been unbelievable.

January Blooms?

snow girl, a photo by Teckelcar on Flickr.

It's nigh on February and I feel that I should be taking and posting pictures like this one of Rebecca. You know something seasonally appropriate. This picture was from our grand trip up north. Admittedly there wasn't a whole heck of a lot of snow up there, but we were able to find some in sufficient quantities to go sledding.


Since then my mother has gotten a bit more snow. Nothing epic, but a goodly amount. There is a nice layer of snow and the temperatures have been fairly close normal.

January blooms, a photo by Teckelcar on Flickr.

Around here, however, we have daffodils in bloom an temps soaring into the 70s.

Seriously? 70s?

I joke about how lame Virginia winters are and that we have to go up north for real cold weather, but really this is too much. On the bright side I have been enjoying the impact on my heating bill.

Change in the Weather

frosty pansy, a photo by Teckelcar on Flickr.

After several bright sunny days in the 70s, the hammer came down today. It was much cooler, very wet, and very appropriate for late November.

I did enjoy the t-shirt weather and heaven knows the delay of the heating season, but it certainly did not feel like fall. It was odd riding the lawn tractor to mulch the leaves and be comfortable in a t-shirt and shorts.I knew it wasn't going to last, so I did make an effort to go outside as much as possible. Yesterday I espied mare's tails in the sky and told Meryl this would mean a change in the weather. She had never heard of the term and I had to tell her I was from a long line of sea captains and this was part of the folklore handed down. I had been taught what certain weather patterns would mean and by gum the weather changed just as I said it would. The temperature dropped and the fair weather turned wet.

I prefer the crisp fall weather, but you can keep the rain.

Fall Post Haste

What the heck happened?

We've been chugging along at the low eighties, albeit a rather soggy low eighties when suddenly a switch was flipped and now it's all fall like around here. Don't get me wrong, I prefer the cooler temps, I just like a little warning and a bit of a transition. Going from shorts all the time to slipper weather in a space of two days is a bit hard on the system.

I know we are warming back up again, I just hope we are not going to be yo-yoing back and forth on the temperatures. It's brutal on my semi-asthmatic respiratory system. Seasonal allergies coupled with just the right virus is my trigger and apparently that delightful cold I had two weeks ago was just the thing. I'm fine, I just hate having to deal with the meds.

Irene Goodnight

Irene, a photo by Teckelcar on Flickr.

Hi there!

After 3 days and 6 hours without electricity, I'm back with two very clean fridges and a whole lot of twigs and branches across the yard.

We got off very lightly. We only lost two and a half trees on our property (the half is a leaner we need to have cut down). One missed the shed by about ten feet and the other is parallel to the tree that was felled by Isabel in 2003, both missed the playsets in our backyard.

As for food, I'm very fortunate to have a good friend like Meryl. She never lost power and happily opened her fridge and kitchen to us. So the only things I tossed are the odd item that turns up when you empty out a fridge (that sour cream is how old?).

Add on top to this this, my mother flew in for a quick visit.

So needless to say I've been a wee bit busy and Artist of the Week has to wait until next week.

Hoping For Blue Skies

blue skies, a photo by Teckelcar on Flickr.

But preparing for the worst.

Irene shouldn't be too bad, mostly just rain. However it has been a good excuse to police the yard and put away things into our vast crawl space. Crawl space is such a misnomer for the area beneath our house. There are large areas where you can be almost upright. Anyway this means our canoe and deck furniture have a safe place to be stored during big weather.

Hopefully most of the hysteria surrounding Irene will be unfounded and just the result of the little 5.8 excitement from earlier this week.