Sunday Slush-O-Rama

[dr_phil_physics]

Didn't We Do This Last Weekend?

And the weekend before? It's been raining since yesterday. Actually, a bit of sun poked out for a while this afternoon, but the rains are supposed to return and eventually turn into snow. Snow 1 to 3 inches on top of icy and slush. Another 1-3" of snow tomorrow. The driveway is a soggy and sloppy mess, with some parts open down to gravel and others with ruts six inches high.

Did I mention it was nearly 50degF outside?

The stuff last week came down too fast at times we were unable to completely scoop the whole 250-foot driveway. 4WD has helped keep a path open during the week, but it's going to bad in the morning. I did go up and down the driveway a couple of times to try to break through the ruts and help melting and drainage, but couldn't figure out why there seemed to be a hard jog go to the left and to the right while trying to go straight up by the road.

Damn You Kids, Stay Off Of My Lawn!

Oh, that's right. It's the snowmobilers. Somehow they interpret their right-of-way rights as extended fifty or more feet onto our properties and into our trees, without ever once asking, of course. Anyway, there are now two icy tracks across the driveway and both are causing the wheels to bounce as one tries to make it to the road. Back up at the house, looking down the driveway, you can clearly see the two different trails make ridges across the driveway.

Silly me. I always thought my driveway was for MY OWN FUCKING USE and not for the PLAYTIME OF ASSHOLES. (sigh)

O Joy

We'll see what the early morning road conditions are tomorrow. If the roads are bad, I'm canceling class again. Already told them on Friday to be careful on Monday. Never had problems like this in the U.P., where winter had the good sense to stay cold all during January and February.

Dr. Phil

Comments

[grndexter.livejournal.com]

Snowmobiles - good fences make good lawns.

Global Warming - If it's really happening, as opposed to weather shifts caused by factors we haven't figured out yet, we aren't causing it. The Sun's output has been increasing measurably for about 100 years +/-. This increase should peak in about 2011 or 2012 when the Sun's long cycle (1500 years) peaks, coincidentally at about the same time that the Sun's 11 year cycle peaks.

After that, I'm thinking that we'll see a gradual cooling as the Sun's output decreases and you may return your normally scheduled deep freeze, and once again we can say that you live in The Frozen Wastelands of the North (Unless the magnetic north pole shifts far enough that you become west or east or something.)

I remember WAAAAAY back BEFORE Al Gore, (I know - that's a really long time... or seems like it anyway). I was taught something in a class they called "Geography" (now a quaint legendary myth of classes taught and education being actually done). They taught us that the past 200 years of weather were NOT typical. That the weather in North America was uncharacteristically moist and warm, allowing farming where it hadn't been possible before, and crop yields that were not possible either, allowing people to eat well and suffer fewer diseases and live longer.

Of course, NOW we know that this was all caused by Anthropogenic Global Warming and is a BAD thing. We just didn't KNOW! Silly us.

[grndexter.livejournal.com]

I just had a thought... (Hey! It happens!)

Is there a correlation between the rise of wind mills in the US and Al Gore's fight against Global Warming? (Does he have a personal assistant named Sancho? And what was his wife's name again?)

[dr-phil-physics.livejournal.com]

The problem is that there are a lot of variables. When I was in college, we had a course in the Integrated Science Program on Geophysics, and one of the things we investigated was the Earth's net heat flow -- was it warming or cooling or equilibrium. The professor and his grad student were constructing a huge computer model of Earth weather, to assist with this. It was a complex problem in 1977-78 and it's still one now. As far as Al Gore and his pseudo-tilting campaign, one of the issues which is troubling is the speed of changes. Of course, we're rethinking that all the time -- how fast do climate changes occur -- but one wonders if there is a correlation with the rate and direction of changes with the volume of material expelled into the environment since the combination of Industrial Revolution and expanding populations. And of course, correlations aren't causes. Damn (grin), still no easy answers.

Yooper weather tends to stay below freezing, but further south we have to deal with freeze-thaw cycles. Now _I_ didn't bring up the bogeyman spectre of global warming in this post. (double-edged-grin) I merely was kvetching about being in a cycle of weather that has made three Mondays in a row an adventure in driving. Can't necessarily claim it's global warming, because weather cycles are bigger than just one group of ten counties in one season.

I can still be tired of the uncertainty as to whether (a) the roads will be passable tomorrow, (b) the schools and universities will be (or should be) closed tomorrow, and (c) if I do hit the road, will I lose and have it hit back. Definite kvetching material. (triple-word-score-grin)

Dr. Phil