Good morning!!!!

[deerseeker001]

12 degrees this morning warming to 18 today with light snow 1-3 predicted.

 

[daugen]

Thomas: the skin I left with that mailbox promptly convinced me...
update, at 9:23am EST the first snow flake has arrived.

it might be fun to drive by the local Acme and just watch the human zoo. It's bedlam, people around here go wacko before a storm. Three inches of snow friend isn't likely to require the ten gallons of water in your cart. Six loaves of bread? you must have been running awfully low...

Though so far this winter it's acting like an "old time" winter, where we actually got two or three nice snowstorms before Christmas. At seven inches(?) of snow to an inch of rain, I'll take a nice six inch snow every two weeks. And those guys who spent all that money on snow plows down here will finally be happy. Most of them look brand new...
It's funny, the trucks with plows start patrolling the day before, almost like a little advertising run.

Lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with you is playing on the stereo. The fireplace is blazing, after I lugged a lot of wood in. All is well here.

Yo Frosty! over this way!

 

[jinman]

The wood splitter spent the night in Tennessee on it's trip from California.
It needs to quit gallivanting around and do some work here.

Don, I ordered some gift cards from Amazon that were supposed to be here yesterday morning. This morning I get notices that all my orders are delayed due to weather causing delivery snafus. So, it's not only your splitter. Deliveries just can't be made when the trucks are parked on the freeways.

Yesterday, there was still a lot of ice left from the week-old sleet storm. We got about 4" of sleet and it was not going anywhere fast. We had several rain showers that dropped 15/100" of rain and did a lot of ice melt due to the temperature being in the mid-40s. Last night the fog was so thick I could hardly see off my deck. However, a gusty breeze started about midnight and the fog cleared out so that this morning we are at 37 F and you have to really look to see any ice out there. It seems our storm is clearing about the time others are getting walloped. Good luck to all of you across the northern tier states and the east coast. Our next storm is due in about next weekend, but typically, they are not that strong here until mid-Jan and Feb. Of course, nothing has been typical this year.

Everyone hunker down and keep warm. Stay off icy roads if you can and enjoy the Christmas season.

 

[dave1949]

The temperature bottomed out at -7*F before sunrise. 3*F now, calm and sunny with hazy cloud cover.

It is funny how people put off preparing to the last minute. Add to those, the people that planned to get or do something on the storm days, and figure they better get whatever before to avoid bad roads. It's easy to get a bunch of people out and about.

TXDon needs a new delivery status acronym: YGIAGAO (your guess is as good as ours :laughing

 

[Larro Darro]

Good Morning. 1000, overcast, 66* with 91% humidity. Forecast high of 72* with 90% chance of rain. Cold front pushing through behind the rain. Lows in the 30's for a few nights after that.

Larro

 

[sodamo]

67F .03 inches since midnight, .11 inches yesterday - just enough to keep me from working outside.

Hoping for an outside work day today

Have a great day everyone.

David Sent from my iPad using TractorByNet

 

[sodamo]

You guys stay warm and safe out there.

David Sent from my iPad using TractorByNet

 

[daugen]

Jim, four inches of sleet would utterly wreck my property line arbor vitaes, or at least try to, I tied them up pretty well after the last time. But that ice is heavy and dangerous to anything beneath it. Or on top of it.
I hope you get a nice melt without an arroyo buster.

 

[sixdogs]

Jim, four inches of sleet would utterly wreck my property line arbor vitaes, or at least try to, I tied them up pretty well after the last time. But that ice is heavy and dangerous to anything beneath it. Or on top of it.
I hope you get a nice melt without an arroyo buster.

On the assumption those are American Arborvitae as in Northern White Cedar, I have experience with them and ice storms. I have about 150 at my place now and our last house was in New England with thousands of them. In my view, the best way to deal with these trees and ice storms is to let it happen and then prune off the damage. The ones I tied up did OK until the next ice storm when they were not tied up and split all over the place. The weak branches didn't get any stronger from me trying to help them. Then I wound up with dozens damaged and all at the same time.

What has worked is to leave them alone and just prune off whatever bends over. This way, the remaining tree and limbs remains stronger and whatever didn't bend in this ice storm is not likely to bend in the next storm. The area I trimmed off will grow in faster than you think. depending on water and fertilizer. These things can grow like crazy and it was unusual for even severely pruned trees to stay bare looking for more that a couple years.

Just my two cents on the above. it may or not be what you want to do but it's what I learned to do for my situation.

 

[jinman]

Jim, four inches of sleet would utterly wreck my property line arbor vitaes, or at least try to, I tied them up pretty well after the last time. But that ice is heavy and dangerous to anything beneath it. Or on top of it.
I hope you get a nice melt without an arroyo buster.

This sleet did not stick to vegetation, but it crumpled several carports and, livestock barns, and one riding arena that were never designed for 4" of solid pack sleet type ice. Most of these structures had very little pitch. My steel roof shed almost all of the sleet because of the light breeze and the good insulation that kept it from melting the sleet so it would stick. Our local newspaper published an article titled "Sleet Science" that said when the temperature is 26 F or below, sleet will not stick to trees or power lines. That's why we were able to dodge the bullet. Also it had been below freezing for several hours when the sleet came. That kept any residual heat from being in the trees limbs or power lines.

In Dallas, the news showed high rise apt buildings with metal roofs that held onto the combination of ice/sleet/snow there for several days. Then, the metal roofs starting shedding huge sheets of ice. Cars parked along the streets were pummeled with giant ice blocks and crushed under their weight. If you don't have comprehensive insurance coverage, you are just SOL.