No distinct subject–just rambling around–typical for me
* Kristie Calvin, 33/40 Skywatcher for North Pole, Alaska, reports: “44 below zero this morning and on our way to a “high” of 30 below zero today” She adds, “Someone please send me to Hawaii!”
* Bitter cold much of Alaska this morning. It was 56 below zero in Fort Yukon! When it gets that cold, even we weather people shake in our boots and run out of adjectives!
* It was 38 below in Fairbanks and 49 below in Northwest Canada!
* Back in the 70s, an engineer mailed an elaborate proposal to us at the National Weather Service, 11 West Oxmoor Road for the U.S government to build a row of huge windmills along the USA-Canada border to blow the bitter cold back into Canada. The proposal and line drawings covered about 100 pages. Not once did he mention that the Canadians might not like that! Also, he listed no return address. We filed his proposal in our “Crank File.!)
* NWS, Huntsville advised early today of some patches of black ice across the Tennessee Valley mainly on elevated road surfaces, bridges and overpasses.
* Have you ever seen a wide band of precipitation dwindle away and disappear so quickly last night as it pushed southward into Middle and east Alabama? A disappearing act!
* Coldest in the Lower 48 states this morning was 46 below at International Falls, Minn. That city is a household word for cold weather.
* 56% of the Lower 48 has a snow cover this morning, a nice increase since yesterday morning. Just two examples: At Cool Creek, in North Idaho, there is 244 inches of snow on the ground. There is 175 inches at the south entrance to Yellowstone National Park
* How is January treating Birmingham so far? Plenty cold. The first 20 days averaged four degrees colder than average. Counting today, 14 of the first 21 days colder than average. 13 mornings below freezing. During one six-day period, the average temperature was 14 degrees colder than average!
* Finally, have you ever heard the weather term, “Severe Clear?” You may hear us throw that out occasionally and James as been known to use it on TV. However, it is not a recognized weather term. It had its beginning at the USWB at Birmingham Airport in the late 1950s or early 1960s.I was on the midnight shift when it was first used by a pilot. I will write a separate story about that one day. It is comical.
Outta here!
