Rebecca Writes - Rebecca Writes

Sunday night we had snow and quite a bit of it. That’s a good thing, because before that there was just a piddly layer of snow and it looked like the ski hill might remain closed for the whole season.

The new snow meant I spent time yesterday shoveling. Don’t feel sorry for me; I feel the same way about shoveling as I do about mowing the lawn. It’s vigorous exercise, you do it in the fresh air, and it is, for the most part, a mindless, repetitive job, which means there’s opportunity for thinking deep thoughts. And compared to more southern snow, our snow is usually light and fluffy and kind to the back muscles.

I like to shovel in spurts throughout the day, half and hour or so at a time, because after a bit even my deep thoughts get a tad boring. I intended to finish up yesterday right before supper, but I got ten minutes in and had to stop. I was downright cold.

While I wasn’t watching the weather channel, the temperature had dropped to -27C. (Around -20F for backward thinkers.) Here’s a screen shot of the temperature throughout the past 24 hours, kindly sent to me by Chris, fellow Yukoner, but born and bred.

You’ll notice that the temperature was -18 (or 0F) at noon. That’s a little chilly, but if you dress for it, it’s not that bad, especially if you’re active. Throughout the day, however, the temperature was dropping, bottoming out at -32 at 1AM, and then rising, rising, rising to a balmy -25C by the time I woke up this morning and continuing to rise so far today, reaching -13C (9F) right now as I write this at 3PM. Chris tells me our lowest temps are usually around 9AM, right around sunrise, so this weather pattern is a little quirky.

When I drove up the hill into my little subdivision around 10PM last night, the furnace smoke was all flowing downhill toward me. Yep, the smoke was not rising from the chimneys, but flowing immediately downward. I’m guessing there was a temperature inversion and a shallow one, something that is a common winter weather phenomenon for us.

That would also explain why the midnight flight landed in my bedroom.

Other weather news:

Violet says the Vancouver area is rainy, rainy, rainy, as usual.
Islandsparrow commented yesterday that there was “[a]nother Nor’easter on the way to the east coast.” She promised to post pictures from PEI as soon as they recover from the blast. Update: Here are photos of Islandsparrow’s walk in the new snow with the pets.
Update: In the UK, Ann’s weather today (Wednesday) is bright and sunny.
Update: Jeanie experienced snow for the first time on “New Years day while I was in Ohio! I’m from Texas and we don’t get snow…at least I don’t call it snow! It’s more like freezing rain! I shoveled snow while I was in Ohio…just off the sidewalk!”

You can join in this month’s weather fun, too. You’ll find the details for participating here, and if you send me a link to your weather related post before tomorrow (Wednesday) morning, I’ll add it to this post. If you send it after that, expect to see it in this coming Friday’s weather report.