Recently in Weather Category

Yesterday was one of the strangest days for weather I have seen here in a long time. The wind was very strong all day and resulted in a lot of brush fires and other wind related damage. The winds were gusting to over 50 mph into the evening. Coupled with the very dry conditions of the area there were a number of serious brush fires. One of the biggest of the fires was in North Carolina just south of the VA/NC border. That fire was still burning today. Another fire was only a few miles from our house and the smoke from it closed the Monitor-Merrimac bridge tunnel numerous times as the smoke obscured the highway. I was able to find an overpass over the Interstate and got a real good look at the fire. Luckily the fire was out today as I travel the Monitor-Merrimac to get to and from work every day. After have temperatures in the 50's and 60's all February, this morning the low was about 23 degrees with a high of only 34 degrees. The rest of the week is forecast to be back in the 50's again. Who knows, with crazy weather like this I am still holding out for a big snow storm before Spring.

Friday as I left work I was excited as the weatherman (yeah, I know I should say weather forecaster) was calling for snow Saturday night and Sunday. Predictions were for 4 to 7 inches depending on where you were. Knowing the past record for snow predictions in this area I had my fingers crossed but did not really expect to see much snow. Well, the weatherman lived up to his abysmal record for snow predictions once again. It did start snowing Saturday evening but I could tell by the intensity of the snowfall that we were never going to get 4 to 7 inches. But to make matters even worse, it stopped snowing altogether before I went to bed. Sure enough, in the morning there was only a dusting of snow on the ground. I should have know better than to expect any significant snow accumulation for this area. Thinking maybe there would be more snow to the west of us I took a drive to Smithfield. While there was more snow on the ground in Smithfield it was still nowhere near the predicted snow accumulation. As usual the weatherman was covering his ass, saying that Smithfield had received between 1 and 3 inches of snow. Three inches my ass, maybe 1/3 rd of an inch. I guess the only way we will get any snowfall around here is if the weatherman predicts that there is not a snowball's chance in hell of getting any snow. Then we will have a blizzard of epic proportions.