Ahh, Spring!

 

After an early snowstorm, with bitter cold, high winds, and lots of snow, packed into ice, we've had a few warm and rainy days, causing the snow to go away. Ok, bye bye snow.

 

Winter and some Shellac.

Contrary to my previous post, spring seems far away, while the flowers from a few posts back, are almost buried.

Shellac buttons; on the left is Dark Jethwa, right Kusmi #1. The seal impressed into the Kusmi buttons reads: 

ASF

KUSMI

SONAR

BANGLA

SPECIAL

Holding any of the buttons to the light shows the large amount of impurities present, which I find one of the charms of Button-Lac. The colors are concentrated as are the buttons; in use the color is much more subtle. More on shellac, and a picture of Kusmi #2 buttons, here.

Pauvre Petits

Todays special, slush. Poor Bears. The great blizzard of February 26-27 seems to have sidled on by leaving a thin layer of slush. Not much frame posting, though I am working, slowly, on a post about sharpening. Mostly, I've been spending extra time wrestling with my main website, and a very buggy email program, both of which have had problems. I've abandoned Apples Mail for Postbox, and so far it works the way it should. The Apple program kept losing not only my settings, but also being sulky about connecting properly, even when the settings were reinstalled. PFUI. I've used both Windows and Apple, and like Apple products, but .... they too, fall down.

Slush and fog. Our weather alternates from slushy meltdowns, to frigid fluffy snow, then back.

And a photo of the Saint Joseph river from our downtown South Bend Convention and Museum of Art building. The structures in the foreground are part of the race and dam complex, upstream to the right, originally providing power.

Snow

Ginger, Snow Dog of the Frozen North, forges a path through the vast, white wasteland, of swirling frozen precipitation. Yesterday, the 1st., it started snowing, and it is still snowing, and blowing, and ... cold. Photo from this morning, the 2nd.

Taken with an iPhone, for which I have a new app, called 6x6, which does one thing; it shoots and saves in square format. I've fooled with square, but for some reason, I'm finding it quite interesting this time. It may have to do with the simplicity of this app. Previously I've found square to be inhibiting, but I'm seeing in the format now, so, some other squares from the last few days:

Holiday table. The Start of Snow. Giant Mulberry.

None of these is of any great importance, but the change from 3:2, 4:3, to 1:1 aspect is  ... interesting.

Clearing alleys?

In an unprecedented action, the city has sent in an end loader to clear alleys so the garbage trucks can get through. This is the alley behind my house. This has never happened before, never!

Small Blessings

At about 4:00 PM Saturday afternoon, the wind shifted slightly, from NW to N, the skies cleared, and the lake effect "snow monster" ceased here in South Bend. Total snow was 38.6 inches from late Thursday morning to Sat. afternoon. For the final 24 hour period, a new record was set, 25 inches. More snow than the famous 'Blizzard of 78", which was a systemic snow, and hit much of the mid-west.

 

Chicago, summertime.

More of the Snow Monster

 

The Studio

 

The walk to the street.

 

My mini-van?

It's about 2:30 in the afternoon, in one of the brief lulls in the ongoing snow. Lake effect snow is predicted to continue until 7:00 AM, Sunday morning, a little more than 16 hours from now. If the snow continues at the rate it has fallen for the last 20 hours, we will get our average, yearly snowfall in one 50 some hour period; approximately 80 inches. Even for South Bend, this is an unusual "Snow Monster".

At the end of December, we had a mid-winter thaw, that produced temps in the 50s, which melted all of our previous snow. We started a new snow layer on Thursday; Friday night, the monster really kicked in. Ahh, winter.

Snow Monster Redux

The snow monster drops 20-30 inches, depending on where you are in the bands, which are holding steady as in the radar shot. The monster has another 20 hours to work its magic, with snow of 1-2 inches per hour expected. The bottom is an image of what a snow squall looks like; sometimes these produce zero visibility. Now, back to trying to clear some paths.

Ongoing Snow Monster

 

The above, taken at 10:00 AM, day four of the Snow Monster; and lo, is that a pale hint of blue sky, and some actual sunlight? The Snow Monster has a few hours to run; wind is still out of the NW from the lake. In the summer, those same winds out of the NW, bring absolutely delightful weather, so in theory, it balances. Day four, another 4-5 inches, though it has snowed every day in December.

It is December 7th. by the way, Pearl Harbor day, 69 years ago.

Bron

Drat!

 

More Snow Monster. 

Looking from the studio door, through our little forest to the front street.

Lake Effect Snow Monster

It's here, the dreaded "Lake Effect Snow Monster".

 

From the back window of my studio, and that is not fog, but snow. A few minutes before I took this, it was sunny.

 

Here, a screen grab showing the bands that are common with lake effect snow. Cold air out of the Northwest,  crosses the relatively warm lake waters, picks up moisture, and dumps it as snow. The snow squall bands can and often do, produce intense snow falls where visibility is just a few feet. This makes driving very dangerous, especially when it is cold enough for roads to ice over. Last winter, driving into Chicago on the Toll Road, that green line just above the red dot that is South Bend, after a Snow Monster event, I counted 42 vehicles either still in the ditches or indications that one had been pulled out. I could only see 2/3rds of the ditches. This was an approximately 40 mile stretch of road; skid offs were clumped into groups, probably due to the banding of snow squalls.

Slip sliding, and shoveling are Olympic events here in Northern Indiana. It is not uncommon to spend a sunny day in Chicago, then drive into a whiteout on the way home as I enter the line of NW wind off of the lake. The seven day forecast shows snow, unending snow, every day, snow ...

Off Topic

We had a very pleasant autumn, then the month turned to December, and it started snowing ... not a lot, but a general, consistent snow, that the weather reports say is going to turn into the dreaded "lake effect" snow later today, the 4th. of December. When it ends on Tuesday, the 7th., some spots will likely have 20 inches of the monstrous stuff. Pfui!

Here, the Bears ...

Poor Bears.