Early Freeze

[HiTemp]

I'm reading in the news about some kind of cold thing happening in the area from WY to MT. Possible SNOW??? In AUGUST?? What's up with that? I did see another article about "global warming" being on hiatus for maybe ten years because of the Atlantic Ocean, but I didn't read it so I'm not sure what the Atlantic is doing to cause it, nor do I know if it's related to the WY - MT heat deficit.

Yesterday, when I read it, I'd just come in from doing a little (emphasis on little) yard work and the temp was 97°F with 99% hum-a-didity. I was a ball of sweat after about 5 minutes, and I guess we just get used to it somehow. Even reading about the temps cooling off somewhere else seems a relief from the heat this time of year.

So, Honcho, is this as bad as the news says? Are you turning into Popsicles out there or what?

On a related note, why is there such a mood of panic when global warming seems to slow, even reverse itself? For the last 30 years we've been told all these things we had to give up were to save the planet from baking itself to death. Things like a car engine that you don't need a PhD in electronics or computer engineering to work on in the garage; things like spray deodorant in a can; things like gasoline around a buck a gallon.

So I'm wondering if the planet is cooling so drastically, why don't we simply resurrect those things we believe caused it to cool down? Why not start making Right Guard in the tan spray cans again and start making engines with exhausts piped straight to a muffler in order to get that heat back up to where someone thinks it ought to be?

Maybe this unpredictable weather will have an impact on golf courses and attract the attention of our duffer in chief. I'm sure he can fix it.

[Grug - American Neanderthal]

Well WY varies, I do have to say its not unheard of in the mountain areas to have snow any month of the year. Usually nothing below 9000', although down in the 6000' areas it will on odd occasion. But no, I am not wearing mukluks. It was nice and cool today, about 80 for a high partly cloudy, variable from strong breeze to calm. hard to complain. They were calling for up to to inches of rain for us yesterday, we got 1/10. I would like to say its been a cool summer, but we go from cool to frickin hot, at least right here, Cheyenne has been cooler than normal which is cool anyway compared to us.

But not to fear, fraking has ignited a volcano under the Iceland glacier again, so we can thank big oil for the cooling that's coming...or warming if that's what happens.

[Stetto, man...]

Frontier Days, Cheyenne WY, late July 1990: At noon the temperature was mid seventies, light breeze. My new bride & I (married in March of that year) had friends down from CO Springs to see the rodeo and drunk cowboy parade, and were in the stands waiting for the wild horse races to begin. We were in tank-tops & shorts.

It took what seemed like only a half hour: A well defined purple line of what I can only describe as Arctic Evil raced over us at cartoon velocity from the northwest, the temperature dropped to 29 degrees and light snow flurries commenced to pelt us in the 20-30 mph WY breeze. Us in shorts and tank-tops. Last week of July. I seem to remember Cheyenne resting at something like 6200 ft.

I lived there a total of three years, and this is the clearest memory I have of the place...

[HiTemp]

I've mentioned before my only time passing through Cheyenne being in late Jan and it was much colder than even J.D. Salinger's famous witch's teat. Couple of degrees above absolute zero I think. At least it felt that way. Prior to that the coldest I've ever been is when I was standing in formation in November outside a building right on the shore of Lake Michigan while icicles were forming on the bill of my hat and on my eyebrows. That was cold, but Cheyenne was much colder. If I was to ever go there again, even in July, I'd have a wool jacket, gloves, and a hat in my backpack. Maybe one of those chemical heater packs too.

As for fraking, if using that method to extract oil causes temperatures drop causing global cooling, then why isn't Cheyenne injecting oil back INTO the ground to gain a few degrees average temperature?

Just poked my head outside and it's partly cloudy today, at least some clouds to keep the temps down. More yard work to do today so I guess I'll be at it before the mid-day solar laser beams come out.

[Grug - American Neanderthal]

Well it was a balmy 52 this morning when I went out to set water. I don't really recall missing freezing my fingers on the ride back to the house the last few months. Just last week we were hitting highs like 103. I do like the 80 degree highs after that, the bottomed out near 40s for lows I can live without for as long as possible.

[Stetto, man...]

50s here this morning too, forecasting mid-40s for tomorrow. And me with an eighth acre of corn, brussels, peppers, chiles, onions, limas, cukes & carrots to harvest. The taters are fine with a frost, but an early one I don't need.