Snow and Ice and Rain, Oh My!

As you've probably been hearing all week, a dangerous winter storm bringing every form of precipitation known to humankind has been marching across the 48 contiguous United States.  The storm, which The Weather Channel inexplicably decided to name after Paul Simon's eldest son (weather forecasters who don't work for The Weather Channel don't name winter storms, and they go  to great lengths not to use the names The Weather Channel assigns to them), is bringing snow, rain,. sleet, and freezing rain to just about anywhere. California got hit with rain and snow already.  The Great Plains have been walloped with snow and the Midwest has gotten snow and ice as well.  In the Northeast, we've been awaiting our turn, which is coming some time after I publish this. 

Ice has been the main concern for my immediate area, with threats of significant icing in parts of New Jersey north and west of New York City.  Icing occurs when warm air aloft causes snow to melt into raindrops over frozen ground and then refreeze on contact - freezing rain.  That's different from sleet, where melted snow refreezes into pellets before it hits the ground.  Earlier forecasts for my area called for snow to change to rain and for ground-level temperatures to be cold enough to allow rain to freeze on the ground and create ice heavy enough to bring down trees . . . and power lines.  This in an area where I have had to endure no fewer than 48 outages in the past decade.  At this writing, however, more recent forecasts call for snow to change to rain where I live and not freeze on the ground, as temperatures will be rising through the night and in the overnight hours.  So I think my neighborhood will be spared icing.    

I think we will be spared icing because after the precipitation ends by midday tomorrow, the temperature will start to fall, falling to 32 degrees Fahrenheit around 3 P.M., falling to about 24 after sunset, falling to 13 by midnight and finally bottoming out at 6 at 9 A.M. Monday.  And another forecast says that freezing rain in my area is still a possibility for tonight.  But the falling temperatures throughout Sunday afternoon and evening are the primary concerns here, because they will cause a flash freezing of any collected water that hasn't evaporated from the winds, which will also be picking up.  High wind speed plus freezing water on power lines and trees equal disaster.  

While I'm a little more confident than I was yesterday that my block will be speared a power outage, I'm not taking any chances as far as my blogs are concerned.  I have written a blog entry and scheduled it to be published on Tuesday, January 22, but I don't expect to write anything else here if a blackout occurs.  Maybe not even if a blackout doesn't occur; I have other and more important things to do online this coming week.  Also, I have rescheduled posts on my beautiful-women picture blog so that, after a post today,  there will not be a new post there until Friday.

As for my non-online life, I have plans to encase food in Styrofoam boxes and store them in a cold place if my power does go out, and I may have to leave the water running to prevent freezing pipes.  But whatever happens, it's actually supposed to get up to the mid-forties by Wednesday.

I hope to be back in a timely matter.  Stay tuned.