We've had some remarkable winter weather recently with many days is the 40s & 50s F. This would be considered close to a normal winter for us - - which we hadn't had in a few years. Recently, its been a mix of sunny, & rainy days with many days that were sunny & nice, & dark or rainy all on the same day. Even a few 40s F nights. There used to always be a brief mid-winter thaw this time of the year.
But the warmer, & damper days, brought on higher humidity, wreaking havoc with my COPD. So I haven't been able to get around much without gasping for air, but I keep trying.
Usually every winter, within a couple weeks of the American Football's "Superbowl" game, we have something called an "Indian Summer, were we get a few days or weeks in a row of warmer weather in the 40s-60s F, but I don't know what the Indians have to do with it. It's just a warm blast of air from the south that we used to always get for a brief time, around this time of the year.
We hadn't had an Indian Summer in a few winters. Recent winters around now, it would just be unbearable arctic temperatures & wind chills, where Alaska or the north pole was actually a little warmer than Buffalo. When that nasty vortex blows that cold north air down to us, it's also blowing what should be our warmer air up to the poles, melting them, & causing polar bears to sweat their balls off. I'm sure vortexes around the south pole do a similar thing, But I don't know if Penguins have balls.
We had a little less snow than normal, but so did we last year, but last year just at the southern border of the city, the snow was almost as deep as some houses in the area. My city is located just between 2 great lakes. So when the winds sweep across them bringing snow, it's not unusual for most of it to barely miss the city, but bury everyone just south or north of us. We call them the "snow belt" regions, because they're directly downwind from the lakes so get the hardest of the lake-generated snow.
However if this is back to a normal winter, it probably means temperatures in the low 20s F or below soon, for the rest of Feb. with some snow on the ground in March. If it stays a little warmer though, I won't complain, as long as it don't get too damp & humid so I can breathe better. An unusually warm late winter usually means record-breaking heat in the summer... a scary thought at my age with COPD. If I have a power failure or my AC fails during a heat wave, it can kill me.
Ironically, if we were to have a power failure when it's 0F outside, I can actually survive good enough for about a month with no electricity or any outside goods/resources... as long as my heating gas, & water still runs. My gas heating system is convection type with no blower. It requires no electricity to run it manually without the thermostat. But without electricity, it only knows on & off, but not the temperature. It's a wall unit, probably was designed for a rural cabin or farm house to have the option to run without electricity rather than a city apartment.
I have dry & canned goods that will keep for years without refigeration. Mostly beans, rice, ramen, & dry cat food, but you can survive on it.
I stock up on those items in bulk when they're on sale because they keep a long time without refrigeration. But not just for emergencies. I frequently run out of money. So when I'm broke, it's nice to still have something to eat in stock so I don't have to buy anything. I get a 12-pack of Ramen soup (in dry form) for under $2. If you buy big bags of rice, dry beans, peas, or noodles, it's quite cheap per pound. A dry pound of it, cooked up, makes 5-10 pounds of food. So as long as I can still boil water somehow, I can still eat something.
Betty's Pub 20.1
Topic: Sissy stuff to keep warm with during the "VORTEX"? (Read 98878 times)
