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Oh, second Winter, you utter bastard

Oh, I am so tired of this. Ohhhhhh, I am so tired of this. The long range forecast? Wetter and colder.

I have generally liked the weather in Britain. Our little corner of the island is drier and sunnier than the rest. But this year, Summer ended early for us and it’s been this — that there up there in the picture — for months and months.

The chickens are filthy and miserable, the garden is a muckhole, the chicken lady isn’t hatching any interesting chicks until it warms up and I’m wearing wellies everywhere.

Enough. Stahp. Go away.

It’s the weekend, I haven’t anything in particular to say for myself, so…how’s the weather?

Comments


Comment from AliceH
Time: March 22, 2013, 11:59 pm

It’s been awful here in the Midwest USA also. We usually have forsythia blooming by first week of March, dogwoods in a week, hummingbirds in 2 or 3 weeks. This year, though, winter just will not go away. The forecasts have been useless. Every day, the warm weather days are moved further out by one more day that never ever seems to arrive.


Comment from JeffS
Time: March 23, 2013, 12:01 am

Last week, temperatures around eastern Washington were in the 60s.

Tuesday, the temps dropped.

Wednesday, we had heavy sleet around town, a tornado (unconfirmed by the weather service, but I trust my source) touched down about 10 miles south of home, and took out a stand of large trees. My power was off for a few hours.

Thursday and last night, snow fell in the mountains.

Today, more sleet, just not as hard. And more snow in the mountains.

Yeah, it must be spring.

🙂


Comment from kilroy182
Time: March 23, 2013, 12:11 am

Ch-ch-chilly, here in the corn patch, snow expected on Sunday.
Word is, an Ohio prosecutor wants “Punxsutawny Phil” to get the ax.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/03/22/ohio-prosecutor-reportedly-seeking-death-penalty-for-punxsutawney-phil/


Comment from Paula Douglas
Time: March 23, 2013, 12:11 am

In February the cats and I said go suck to northern Illinois with its taxes and anti-gun sentiment and crappy grey miserable overcast wet cold snowy bullshit weather, and installed ourselves in Texas, a bit northeast of DFW. Even when it’s cool it’s at least sunny and clear. I’ve always sucked at math, but now it’s fun to find the difference between the current Dallas and Chicago temperatures.


Comment from Scubafreak
Time: March 23, 2013, 12:13 am

Yeah, it dropped from the Mid 50s to OH FUCK ME IT’S COLD in about 3 hours, here in Colorado. And I completely forgot. I brought the little red car instead of my Explorer…

Whups. Dang snow storms…


Comment from thefritz
Time: March 23, 2013, 12:26 am

don’t hate me because I’m beautiful…hate me because I live in south Florida…78F and sunny.


Comment from AliceH
Time: March 23, 2013, 12:30 am

I don’t hate you, thefritz. You have palmetto bugs and such to deal with.


Comment from Rich Rostrom
Time: March 23, 2013, 12:53 am

In Chicago: below freezing with snow on the ground.

OK, the high today was 36, but there are a few small drifts left. It’s supposed to drop back below freezing overnight. There will be overnight frosts for another week.

This is spring?


Comment from Gromulin
Time: March 23, 2013, 1:01 am

I’ll let you know what the weather in Las Vegas is like for spring break next week. With kids. Wish me luck. Supposed to be in the high 70’s. Hope to shoot (sub)machine guns with my Son for his 11th birthday. He’ll be telling his grand kids about that, if I can pull it off.

America, Fuck Yeah.

“Daddy, what’s a V.I.P. room?”


Comment from Armybrat
Time: March 23, 2013, 1:41 am

It snowed yesterday….the day after the first day of spring. Their forecasting snow for the start of this next week. WHAT PART OF SPRING DOES THAT EFFING GROUNDHOG NOT UNDERSTAND!!!


Comment from Stark Dickflüssig
Time: March 23, 2013, 2:04 am

Bath salts & palmetto bugs are what makes Flor’duh the greatest trailer park in the world.


Comment from Mrs Compton
Time: March 23, 2013, 2:12 am

Hey now, I haven’t seen a palmetto bug since I moved here.


Comment from Skandia Recluse
Time: March 23, 2013, 2:32 am

Snow every day, about an inch in twelve hours, unless it’s heavier. Snowpack ranges from 30-40 inches. The long range prediction is for afternoon temperatures above freezing starting next weekend (we hope). I’m sick of the gloomy grey overcast. We still had below zero (F) overnight temperatures just last week. (This comment is a take off on the country and western hit ‘poor, poor, pitiful me’. )

The skiing is still great!
I should post a picture. .
https://plus.google.com/u/0/117660567155542956096/posts/ecjF19hhgSw


Comment from PatAZ
Time: March 23, 2013, 2:45 am

Was in the 90s all week, but only got to 82 today, with a slight breeze. Beautiful here in far SW Arizona. Great time of the year.


Comment from p2
Time: March 23, 2013, 3:12 am

Skandia, that looks like my corner of the world… -25 lows all week, mid teens highs….. at least its not -60 like it was six weeks ago…..


Comment from Scubafreak
Time: March 23, 2013, 3:26 am

Started sunny and warm, not freezing with heavy horizontal snow..


Comment from tomfrompv
Time: March 23, 2013, 3:56 am

No change here in SoCal. Sunny and warm during the day, Breeze in late afternoon. Drop into 60s after dark. We had rain couple weeks ago.


Comment from catnip
Time: March 23, 2013, 4:46 am

I must live somewhere in the vicinity of JeffS, but at a much lower elevation. We’ve had partly sunny skies all week, temps 50’s, hoping for some sort of precipitation. It’s been a mild, dry winter.

Wednesday, high winds, lost our DSL connection.
Thursday, a few brief rain showers.
Today, sun alternating with graupel, a novelty.

Daffodils, violets are in bloom, but moisture is sorely needed.


Comment from Nina
Time: March 23, 2013, 5:09 am

Being here in CA, I’d rather not say. It did rain a couple of days ths week, though.

If its any consolation, I’ll be in Ireland next week and maybe the weather will suck.

🙂


Comment from Mike C.
Time: March 23, 2013, 7:59 am

I have always loved that name “palmetto bug.” Who came up with that, the state board of tourism? It’s a cockroach, folks. A huge tropical cockroach, just like you see everywhere else in the world where it’s too damned hot.

Palm trees and tropical cockroaches are nature’s way of telling you you need to move north, ASAP. Or futher south, if you’re on that side of the equator.


Comment from Deborah
Time: March 23, 2013, 1:35 pm

My theory: for every one hundred miles you move south, the variety and quantity of bugs increases exponentially. It doesn’t matter where you start. Palmetto bugs are nothing. Scorpions—crap I hate scorpions, and I live in rock central. I kill about three a year, but I am on constant—nervous—alert.

The weather in the Texas hill country has been uneven. High 80s last week, and today we are shivering. Bah. Could use some rain, as usual. The pollen is high; my white car is covered in a pale yellowish-green haze of sticky pollen. Encino verde.


Comment from AltBBrown
Time: March 23, 2013, 1:55 pm

I am starting to hate peeps in FL.
Relative in the Keys. Big joke when I call from sub-zero location: “Can you turn down the air conditioner so I can hear?”
According to the Conchs, chickens are good for scorpions.
‘Course scorpions don’t screech @ 5 AM on a weekend to wake you up.


Comment from Some Vegetable
Time: March 23, 2013, 2:09 pm

Mike- I’ll provide ancedotal evidence for your theory, although I think it should be “as you get closer to the equator” rather than just the gringo-centric term “South”.

I lived in Panama for a couple of years and it was bug-central, altbough admittedly our place in the suburbs of Panama City was on the edge of the Jungle. We counted as many as five different kinds of ants in the house at one time, inluding the leaf-cutter ants that would come through in patrols of a hundred or two and the tiny brown ones that would magically appear in little rings around any drop of spilled food. To this day we retain the habit of keeping everything that isn’t in the fridge in tins, tupper, or glass bottles. The most fun to watch were the ones who lived in the ceiling and who fell into the glass cover over the bathroom light. They would literally drop in to visit, and every week or two I had to remove the cover to clean out the cooked ants. Then there was the evening when the scorpion came casually walking across the tile living room floor. By this time, I was used to living in jungle and so I just waited till it came close, and then I simply smacked it with a slipper and we went back to our drinks without comment.

Of course for every bad thing there is a good, and in this case it was the house geckos. They seemed to eat about everything but the ants (and I guess, the scorpions). They were friendly and unobtrusive. Our cats, unhappily brought from the states with us, considered geckos both a cat toy, and a cat treat, good for hours of entertainment. On a final note, our cats, who had liked to escape from the house in Virginia and roam about, never, ever, tried to leave our place in Pamana. Opinions on the intelligence of cats varies, but they were definitely smart emough to know it was a jungle out there.


Comment from thefritz
Time: March 23, 2013, 4:49 pm

Some Veg is right, house geckos or chameleons keep the crawly critters in check. They don’t do ants though…weird. Anyway, it’s fun to be watching TV at night and see one boogie across the ceiling. When their poop starts piling up we know we have too many in the house at one time and we catch ’em and let them find their way back in. And Stark Dickflüssig, I’m damn proud of my doublewide thankyouverymuch.


Comment from AliceH
Time: March 23, 2013, 4:54 pm

I’m finding renewed appreciation for crappy weather.


Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: March 23, 2013, 9:52 pm

Amen to that, AliceH!


Comment from Stark Dickflüssig
Time: March 23, 2013, 10:52 pm

I hope you ain’t Rum & Cathlick,
Cos I’m pretty sure
Pride in a doublewide
Is a mortal sin.


Comment from ed
Time: March 23, 2013, 10:55 pm

“It’s the weekend, I haven’t anything in particular to say for myself, so…how’s the weather?”

It sucks.


Comment from Can’t hark my cry
Time: March 23, 2013, 11:35 pm

Cold, cloudy, windy. But at least, despite the high winds, nothing is falling out of the sky, so I’m counting my blessings. Did I mention that it is windy?


Comment from Frit
Time: March 23, 2013, 11:50 pm

In my corner of Down Under, it’s been stuttering between late summer & mid-winter weather here. Some days nearly too hot to go outside, other days cold and raining horizontally – enough that the windows under the veranda were getting wet! Occasionally we get a properly mild autumn day, but I do believe Mother Nature is going through menopause. 😉


Comment from Timothy S. Carlson
Time: March 24, 2013, 12:54 am

Hot, humid and occasionally rainy here in Manila. Welcome to the monsoon season!

At least it’s nice today (Sunday) – the entire family is out to Batangas to the beach. I didn’t feel up to leaving at 4am, hanging at the beach until 5pm, then heading home – so I have the whole place to myself. Those jeepneys are bouncy and I end up feeling like my kidneys are in my throat at the end of a 3-4 hour trip. There’s another beach trip planned for after Easter, to a unvisited beach (at least for me) and for a long duration. I’ll bring my big foam cushion for that ride.

We had a cold spell earlier this winter – dropped into the low ’70s. Had to sleep with a top sheet. That sucked.


Comment from Deborah
Time: March 24, 2013, 2:36 am

How cold can the chickens go? Can you heat the coop? Give them hot food and a heating pad?


Comment from Mrs. Peel
Time: March 24, 2013, 3:16 am

It was in the mid-70s today, and muggy. We took a load of trash to the dump and moved some of our gear into storage in preparation for putting our house on the market.

Bugs notwithstanding, I vow every winter to someday move closer to the equator. The winters here at 29 degrees north are far too cold for me. Sometimes it drops all the way to the 30s. 🙁


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: March 24, 2013, 8:22 pm

The chickens can take it pretty cold. If it gets way below freezing, I have a little ceramic thing I heat in the microwave that’s supposed to stay warm for eight hours. I put it in the henhouse and put their water on top of it. That’s mostly for the water’s sake, as I don’t suppose it warms the chickens much.

This, after the poor girls went for two days without water because dumbass here didn’t notice it was frozen solid.


Comment from Owen Kellogg
Time: March 24, 2013, 8:40 pm

Trend To Colder Winters Continues in UK: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/23/trend-to-colder-winters-continues-in-uk/


Comment from EZnSF
Time: March 24, 2013, 10:35 pm

I’m sooo tired. Worked out in the garden all weekend. Lettuce and spinach doing fine. Radishes in a week or two. But I think I got sunburnt.

(ducking the flying plates)


Comment from Deborah
Time: March 25, 2013, 1:25 am

Re: gardening. Stoaty—you showed us a picture once—a lovely clutch of carrots that Uncle Badger had grown in a pot. Was the pot kept in his greenhouse, or out it the open? Perhaps started in the greenhouse then moved outside? What else does he grow in pots? Inquiring minds want to know. I am so lonesome for my own vegetables. But I live in a rented house on top of rocks, and the deer eat everything except the lantana and rosemary.


Comment from unkawill
Time: March 25, 2013, 6:11 am

Looks like assad has assumed room temp.


Comment from Wolfus Aurelius
Time: March 25, 2013, 12:59 pm

Armybrat wrote, “WHAT PART OF SPRING DOES THAT EFFING GROUNDHOG NOT UNDERSTAND!!!”

In Da Swamp, instead of the groundhog (who would drown if he burrowed underground here), we have Big Cockroach. He comes out, and if he sees his shadow before somebody steps on him, we’ll have six more weeks of summer!

Saturday was foul, 80 F. and humid, like grease on your skin. It’s cooled to more what it should be now, about 60 as a high. But this is probably the last decent week. Next week we’ll be back up above 80 again, stewing in a nasty sticky brew of thick air, polluted water, and Gawd knows what else; and it’ll only get worse until maybe December. Stoaty, I’d trade you right now.


Comment from Timothy S. Carlson
Time: March 25, 2013, 2:28 pm

A short photo essay on why I moved to the islands:

http://timothyscarlson.blogspot.com/2013/03/compare-and-contrast.html


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: March 25, 2013, 3:04 pm

I’ll see if I can prod Uncle B into answering, Deborah. He started as a gardener in an upstairs flat in central London, not far from Victoria Station. It was all in pots on the balcony.


Comment from stina
Time: March 25, 2013, 4:00 pm

(belated weather report)

Blechhh. We’re stuck on overcast and low 30s here in southern Michigan. I don’t mind the cold (better than big scary bugs–I have a bug phobia) but the lack of sunshine is getting to me. Don’t care if it’s 20 below, I just wanna see some of that great big old halogen light in the sky.

We had five minutes of above-40 weather last week and the crocuses in the front yard got over-excited and sprouted about two inches.

Now they’ve stopped growing and are just sitting there in a frozen mud slurry looking offended. I know the feeling…


Comment from mojo
Time: March 25, 2013, 5:24 pm

Mid-70’s (F) and partly cloudy.

Don’t be a hater.


Comment from Mitchell TAFKAEY
Time: March 25, 2013, 5:52 pm

We had a wonderful spring weekend here in the Land of Milk and Honey (aka Las Vegas), high 60’s to low 70’s. That’s my perfect temperature range. I had my windows open and there was a nice breeze. Moments to savor before The Great Bake begins.


Comment from AltBBrown
Time: March 25, 2013, 8:07 pm

Geez, TS Carlson. I spent a karmic cycle in southern Chester County and used to get up to Ephrata and the surrounds. Pretty w/ good food. Treacherous MoFo in the winter on those old Amish roads.


Comment from mojo
Time: March 25, 2013, 9:15 pm

Heh:
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.”
– Sir Ernest Benn, 2nd Baronet


Comment from Oh Hell
Time: March 25, 2013, 11:36 pm

Spring means horizontal white stuff. It’s spring.


Pingback from That’s Cold | Daily Pundit
Time: March 26, 2013, 6:30 am

[…] isn’t amused, either: Oh, second Winter, you utter bastard…. Share this:FacebookTwitterGoogle +1Pinterest This entry was posted in Global Warming, Junk […]


Comment from David Gillies
Time: March 26, 2013, 7:01 pm

Weather’s been all over the place here in CR. It’s 31 degrees today according to the weather website, but it’s getting overcast in the afternoons when it’s meant to be wall-to-wall sunshine. Humidity is only 35% but it’s still a bit sweaty wandering around at lunchtime. We had a cold episode last week when it dropped to low 20s by day and maybe 15-16 at night.

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