Zzzzz

[ellenmillion]

Cold weather (and stress) makes me want to curl up and sleep.

And cold it definitely is.

This is our forecast for the next few days:

.TONIGHT...CLEAR. LOCALLY DENSE ICE FOG. VISIBILITY ONE
QUARTER MILE OR LESS AT TIMES. LOWS 45 TO 55 BELOW IN
VALLEYS. LOWS 25 TO 35 BELOW IN THE HILLS. LIGHT WINDS...
EXCEPT LOCAL NORTHEAST WINDS AROUND 10 MPH GUSTING TO
20 MPH OVER HIGHER ELEVATIONS.
.WEDNESDAY...PARTLY CLOUDY. WIDESPREAD ICE FOG IN TOWN.
VISIBILITY ONE QUARTER MILE OR LESS AT TIMES. HIGHS 35
TO 45 BELOW...EXCEPT 10 TO 20 BELOW IN THE HILLS. LIGHT WINDS.
.WEDNESDAY NIGHT...PARTLY CLOUDY. AREAS OF ICE FOG. LOWS 40 TO
55 BELOW...EXCEPT 20 TO 25 BELOW IN THE HILLS. LIGHT WINDS.
.THURSDAY...PARTLY CLOUDY. AREAS OF ICE FOG. HIGHS 35 TO
45 BELOW. LIGHT WINDS.
.THURSDAY NIGHT...MOSTLY CLEAR. AREAS OF ICE FOG. LOWS 45
TO 55 BELOW. LIGHT WINDS.

Go inversion. I love living in the hills.

< naturegeek >

When it gets cold, there is a pocket of cold air that settles over the town and river - only about, oh, 20 feet high? Maybe 50. You don't have to drive far to get up out of it. In that pocket, it can be 30 degrees colder, and it traps all the water vapor and fumes coming out of cars and furnaces, so that there is this thick, super thick blanket of 'ice fog' over everything. I've never once had school canceled for temperature or snow, but I remember at LEAST once it was canceled for ice fog. Smoke comes out of stacks to that point and it's like someone chopped them off - it goes straight sideways once it hits the top of the inversion. Nasty air quality under the inversion, not to mention it's so cold that it hurts your lungs to breath.

I snapped some photos with my new Christmas phone, but we were driving, so they are fuzzy, and I am not yet sure how to download them. During the (few) hours of daylight, it is a fuzzy purplish misty driving hazard. Very surreal. Things sound weird, too.

< /naturegeek >

Debating going to dance class tonight. Should, but soooo lazy. And it's cold. And I'm not even sure my car will start - I haven't run it in 10 days or more and it's been 20-35 below (here) since then. But Jennie will mock me if I don't go.

I think I'll have some dinner and throw some more logs on the fire and then decide...

Comments

[hawkwolf.livejournal.com]

Dare I ask what Ice Fog is?

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

Hahahahaha! I figured someone would ask, so I was editing as you posted to explain the phenomenon. :)

[puffbird.livejournal.com]

We get inversions here, too... a product of living between two mountain ranges. Icky air quality and all. Mountain town temps are 20 degrees higher than the valley temps.

However...

Our lows are a bit higher than 50 below. D:

[faeryshaman.livejournal.com]

Good Gods, that's cold.

[ryokomusouka.livejournal.com]

I remember riding with my folks between Fairbanks and North Pole one night and running into a huge area of ice fog. Surreal isn't the word - it's like you've dropped from ordinary existence. The street lights actually made it worse, because the light refracted off the ice crystals in haphazard ways. Very strange - and scary.

[metasilk.livejournal.com]

I live in the hills now, but the inversions are fewer because ... I dunno, the shape of the valleys relative to the airflow? Champlain Valley is long and lake-filled... Still, sometimes my house gets to miss the ice storms because we're not too high and not too low.

I remember being able to climb up to the M in Missoula and look down on the inversions -- yrgh!