The Weather Thread

[SciFiFisher]

More rain. They are saying we still are not free of the drought. After almost 5 years of drought it will take a LOT of rain to bring us back up to normal. Flash flood warnings in selected areas around Sacramento.

[Thumper]

Flooding and mudslides in a certified drought region. Weee!

[vendic]

Crazy wind for another few days. Not sure how we're going to get the mil back on the boat. It will be interesting as she had trouble before the burns.

[Thumper]

Rain off an on most of the weekend. Only a few actual showers. It was just cold, grey, cloudy, damp, and muddy all time. Temps in the 50's most of this week. Maybe we'll see the sun sometime.

[vendic]

Wind still here but the clouds are going so there is more Sun out. Which is good as our batteries have been down a lot lately. We've been dialing the fridge temperature up and up so it doesn't just trip the low voltage cutouts.
Needless to say it has also seriously impacted computer usage.

[pumpkinpi]

It will get to the 40's at the end of the week. This is typically the coldest stretch of the year in MN!

MrPi lived here from about 1984-1991, and then for the past decade. He says the climate is completely different. We had rain on Christmas Day, and will again this week. The past few years, we've had a complete snowmelt in January/February. That never happened before!

[Thumper]

With the winds we've had, tons (almost literally) of wood has fallen to the ground from the trees. But it is much to wet to try to go out and pick all the limbs and branches up. So I peer out into the sea of mud with all the floating sticks from the relative safety of the drive or the walks and wonder when I'll get the opportunity to spend hours picking it all up. Also the big drain tile that goes under the drive up by the road is choked with debris and causing a backup flood. Sometime when it ever gets dry enough to tread around there, I'll have to try to clear that out too.

[Thumper]

Damp, dark, muddy.

[SciFiFisher]

Damp, dark, muddy.

Ditto!

[pumpkinpi]

41 and sunny today. Tomorrow might be my January day to bike to work, if the bike lane snow melts away. I've done so at least once every month since April 2014, except for January last year. But I did get a bike ride in that month, to a community event. So I hope to keep my streak going!

[code monkey]

we're having a heat wave here in mac. low 50s. the snow and ice are gone and it's raining.

[Thumper]

My Uncle in Happy Valley said they've been iced in and unable to leave the house since the 12th or 13th. Complaining about the salt that Seattle sent. Said it didn't do a thing.

[code monkey]

My Uncle in Happy Valley said they've been iced in and unable to leave the house since the 12th or 13th. Complaining about the salt that Seattle sent. Said it didn't do a thing.

your uncle should be able to get out soon if not now. it's in the 40's and raining and will be for the rest of the week.

here it was very cold and icy last week. I didn't get out weds - fri. had a rough time getting back up the driveway on Saturday. the deicer that I bought on sunday was quite a help. now why have I been in the house for the last 2 days? work yesterday, slept through the alarm today. I can't blame the roads; they're clear.

[vendic]

Started as a sunny morning but then became quite overcast. Batteries still not charged.

[Thumper]

This "sunny" thing. I'm confused.

[DimSum]

Went to class, yesterday morning, it was chilly, but relatively sunny.... came out of my third calss and you would think that Noah was hanging around looking for animals for the ark... And of COURSE where I was parked, there was at least 2 inches of standing water... and it was freaking COLD! Grabbed my jacket, the umbrella, and the notebook and went to the last class for the day... whick of COURSE was on the WINDWARD side of the building... because we can't make this easy....

It this rain keeps up, it will break the drought, which will be nice and all, but I swear to the Gods that I will have moss growing on my ass....

[vendic]

This "sunny" thing. I'm confused.

Right now the wind has died, the biggest clouds are contrails and the heat in this boat is over the 90's.
But the batteries are now charged so that's a win.

Winter in Florida reminds me of Summer in Australia.

[Thumper]

Well, I was walking around a couple of sites with my boss this morning in short sleeves....
But still no sun.

[vendic]

I'd like some wind again. Note I wasn't complaining about the wind before, just the inaccuracy of the forecasts and wind gauges. Wind cools things down. A nice 10 knot wind is wonderful.

[Thumper]

Earlier this week, the forecast was for just doom and gloom, by last night they broke it to us that it was going to rain. I woke up to a lake of a front yard. But Vendic's comments about boat batteries made me realize that I too have charging issues. I manage 200 stand alone ATR sites around the state. (They count, class, and sometimes weigh vehicles). I just purchased over $5000 of batteries to replace the 6 volters inside the counters themselves, and the 12 volters that are charged by the solar panels and keep the 6 volters charged. When there is 10 or more hours of sunshine a day and temps above 50, even weak batteries will do okay. When we haven't had a full day of sun yet this year, even my big@ss deep cycle dumbells used to power the radar sensors start dying off.

[vendic]

We don't need as much sunshine per day as you do Thumper, but we do need a consistent amount. We have 220ah batteries and just over 400W of solar power (practically it comes out to about 25 amps in winter sun peak so more like 340W peak). To (theoretically) fully charge both batteries would take just over 10 hours as the Sun can't provide full charge at sunrise and sunset.

We generally run our batteries from about 40% - 80% because that's all the Sun we could get to charge the batteries and run everything. Yesterday we got full charge. We'll probably get full charge again today and the days get about a minute longer every day so our power issues might be coming to an end. Cloudy and rainy days mess us up fast as the batteries can only do about 24 hours without a good charge. Which is pretty good considering we run three laptops, a water pump and a refrigerator. On those days the fridge and water pump get priority and the laptops are hardly used.

[vendic]

Sometimes I should just shut up. I asked for wind and we got it. It's blowing about 25-30 knots now (the weather stations show 5-6 with gusts to 9 mph, wft?). The boat was swinging so wildly that I had to make a bridal and use that to steady it. Tonight at 7pm or so there is a gale warning, up to 45 knot winds and thunderstorms. I love being in thunder storms on a boat. It's a gentle reminder of the fragility that is life with a big aluminium mast and you're one of the tallest things around in flat Florida. Beautiful.
Looking at the radar though it seems we're the lucky ones.

[SciFiFisher]

Sometimes I should just shut up. I asked for wind and we got it. It's blowing about 25-30 knots now (the weather stations show 5-6 with gusts to 9 mph, wft?). The boat was swinging so wildly that I had to make a bridal and use that to steady it. Tonight at 7pm or so there is a gale warning, up to 45 knot winds and thunderstorms. I love being in thunder storms on a boat. It's a gentle reminder of the fragility that is life with a big aluminium mast and you're one of the tallest things around in flat Florida. Beautiful.
Looking at the radar though it seems we're the lucky ones.

I strongly advise against daring any deities to prove they exist.

[Thumper]

I saw the sun!

It was so hot Saturday, when I went out to try to clear the front ditch, I kept having to peel off clothes as I was sweating my b@lls off. It was 60 in January. Went back out yesterday to try to clean my mess. It was close to 65. I was outside working in January in a T shirt. And sweating. But the ditch and the tile under my driveway are looking alot better. There's more backfilling with big gravel and broken up concrete I'd like to do to help stabilize the bank but that will go much better when it's colder and the ground is firmer.

[vendic]

How often do you see above 60 in January there?