Complaining about the weather (and related), 2025

[robkelk]

I hope that folks in LA aren't being affected by the fire being driven by Santa Ana winds...

[Labster]

We are somewhat affected. It's not really a typical Santa Ana event, there's enough forcing to push winds over the San Gabriels, rather than through the canyons and passes. The winds are also more unpredictable and change direction. Which means that a lot of unusual places are burning, and the fires aren't moving in straight lines. The far end of Sunset Boulevard burned, leaving burned houses and only the Shell of a gas station.

I'm not in the same county as any of these fires, which means something in the west, unlike your puny East Coast counties. But we did lose out electricity for 16.5 hours here, which was really annoying -- especially when you can see that the people across the street have power the entire time. But they didn't fix it, the grocery store next door eventually fired up a generator. The stoplight flashed red most of the day, but by the time sunset fell the reserve power went out, and it just became a high-traffic, unmarked four-way stop in the complete darkness, where people would have to know there was a signal there to see it in time.

And then, a few minutes after the NWS wind advisory ended (but hours after the wind itself calmed down), someone pressed a button and our lights turned back on. I'm reasonably furious about the thing. Had to take a generator over to my recently widowed neighbor so her food wouldn't spoil.

[Dartz]

That's a lot of red warnings for Friday.

I'm sure it'll blow over by midday, but the Met office are kicking up a stink trying to get people to take it seriously.

Nobody will.

Annoyed the storm's not coming on Saturday because then I would've been able to go down the Lighthouse and watch the waves break.

[Bob Schroeck]

Ouch. Good luck with it, Dartz. And I thought we were having a bad time of it with the polar vortex deep-freeze here in New Jersey...

[classicdrogn]

Coldest day of the winter so far and the fucking heater breaks. Naturally. At least it didn't catch fire, I guess.

[Bob Schroeck]

That happened to us twelve years ago. We spent two weeks at Peg's mom's place waiting for a replacement part to arrive. (At least it was under warranty still.) Not fun.

[classicdrogn]

I remember you mentioning that at the time. It's not to bad as that here this time, as there's still a wood stove downstairs that transfers enough heat through the floor to keep it from getting actually dangerously cold inside, and a quickj trip to the Home Despot nabbed an electric heater to turn my computer stand into a kotatsu with a beach towel draped from the keyboard shelf to my knees and an extra hoodie. Now the problem is that it's a kotatsu and warm legs with a cooler upper body means I keep falling asleep

At least I can run a bunch of fansub downscale and transcode jobs I've been letting stack up without worrying about CPU temperatures going too high

[robkelk]

We're looking at a lot of snowfall tomorrow night and Thursday. 20-40cm (8-16") of snow forecast for Ottawa. Toronto and Montreal will be getting snow as well.

It could be worse. We aren't getting the extreme cold that the Prairies are getting.

[Bob Schroeck]

Last I checked, what I presume is the same storm is supposed to give us an inch or two today/tonight. Which I hope is the case, if we're not lucky enough to have it bypass us entirely, because I am still muscle-achy all over from having to clear an inch of packed sleet sheets off of two different driveways on Sunday and I'd really rather not shovel the 4-6" other parts of New Jersey are supposed to get.

[robkelk]

It could be worse. We aren't getting the extreme cold that the Prairies are getting.

We are, however, getting below 0°F temperatures tonight.

[classicdrogn]

It was actually below zero for a bit here (or at least at the airport one town line away) early this morning. Tuesday, I mean, still "this morning" for a couple hours by the clock, but perhaps already "yesterday" if you count by the sun. Far closer yo Bob than Rob regardless, and about 20G colder than predicted, though it seems to have been some kind of very small scale thing as weather goes, our own little dust devil off the polar vortex or something.

Gosh, aren't we lucky?

[Inquisitive Raven]

I'm not particularly inclined to complain about an inch or two of snow. Ice,OTOH...

[robkelk]

We're looking at a lot of snowfall tomorrow night and Thursday. 20-40cm (8-16") of snow forecast for Ottawa.

Environment Canada has revised those numbers. We're now looking at 30-40cm (12-16") of snow, starting around 9pm ET.

[Bob Schroeck]

Well, looking out the window this morning, it appears we only got about an inch (2.5 cm for those not stuck in the Middle Ages). I won't be able to shovel us out until after work, but it doesn't look like it will be too much trouble.

[classicdrogn]

Sounds like great weather to be inside with a quilt and a cup of something hit. Take all applicable precautions, ok?

[Bob Schroeck]

And someone came around at about 9 AM and dug us out -- not that it took much, but it saved me from having to do it in three hours, for which I'm grateful. That makes twice so far this winter we've had itinerant shovelers come to our door, after literally years of no one looking to make money by shifting snow.

[robkelk]

Well, we haven't finished digging ourselves out of that snowstorm yet... and today we're in the middle a second snowstorm. Were expecting "only" a foot of snow.

[robkelk]

Another "and related" - Magnitude 5.1 earthquake hits Vancouver.

No serious damage reported. No tsunami watch; the epicentre is inland.

Yeah, we don't get a lot of 'quakes in Canada.