How cold is it where you are?

[Karen]

Wow, sounds nice! It is 26°F here, at the base of the mountain, so much warmer than yesterday, but still below freezing!

[Felicia's Mom]

Here it is snowing and it is supposed to snow Thursday and Friday too.

[Karen]

This has been a storm with something for everyone - it started as sleet, then ice, then rain, then torrential rain, then within an hour switched back to snow, and has been snowing heavily. We have not budged today, after I slid across busy Route 30 yesterday, and the road conditions have continued to deteriorate.

(I am fine, Ruby the car is fine. There was no traffic coming from the right, and the person coming from my left saw me and turned up Windham Hill Road (which is what I slid down) and avoided hitting me, and I was able to make it safely into the parking lot across the street - which was my destination anyway.)

It has gotten progressively colder over the course of the storm, and tomorrow night is supposed to go down to -4° F, even though the current temperature of 20°F feels cold enough.

[Karen]

Today has been a pretty remarkable day weatherwise - the day began at 40°+ F, and with torrential rain. Then it changed to heavy snow, but as the ground was frozen the rain had had nowhere to go, so then when it changed to sleet and rain again, it was all several inches of slush on the ground. The road I live on is a dirt road, so the last unseasonably warm days had turned the frozen road into an inch of mud over frozen ground, so add three inches or so of slush on top of that, and it makes for challenging, treacherous driving. Even the paved roads were slush covered and slick. Then it changed back to rain, then sun, and now gale-force winds and dropping temperatures! I probably went through three different "climate zones" on the way to work, and am in another one entirely now! It is down to 26°F now, and so well below freezing, even without factoring in the wind chill, which is considerable.

One of the elders came in to the Post Office and said this is the craziest winter he has ever seen in the over 50 years he has lived in Vermont. He knows whereof he speaks, and is north on 90, age wise. He worries climate change will destroy Vermont's ski areas, and this winter is a sign of things to come.