Gales of November, Storms of December

[noelH]

Must be December. Storm warning out on the Big Lake. Gusting to 60kts forecasted along with freezing rain.  Surface water temps is still in the low 40'sF.  NW. Long fetch and real cold air moving across real warm water. Mid 20'sF this AM. Dropped to mid teens. And dropping. First real cold night of meteorological winter of the season. At least the forecast is for double digits above 0F. The good is we have more snow on the ground right now than the max depth of last year.  Couple weeks ago. Still harvesting garden veggies. Today, buried under a blanket of snow. Watch out for big snow from MI and eastward.

[Doug SC]

The lows here in the Piedmont of SC have been in the 20s. Last night down to 17F. However, the highs have been in the high 40s and low 50s. We are planning on racing the Flying Scots this Saturday for the last time in 2024. At the moment the winds look too light that day so it's debatable if we will. The high is forecast to be 54F.

[Norm L.]

This is not scary to others, but not cheery to me. 67 this morning at 7. Scheduled 37 and high winds tomorrow at 7.

[Riley Smith]

As things looked primed for a huge rain, I decided to try and get one more fishing expedition in before the salinity went down. Tide was high at midnight and thereafter it would be falling, which is what you want. I woke without an alarm, so I must have been wanting to fish  There is a big tidal range right now....maybe 3-4 ft depending on the wind.  I finally got the lure in the water about 1am, with sporadic sprinkles. There are not nearly as many fish to see under the lights and the white trout have left it seems. They're a nuisance mostly, and you can hardly fish for them on occasion. After a few casts I had a big speck hit at the lure, spit it out, and then take it again. Nice one too! It's pretty neat to see the action under the lights. I caught a few small ones and then another decent fish.

The wind was out of the SW and that tends to make the tide/current act weird. The fish were NOT hungry but I did catch a few and probably the biggest of the year. I saw several big fish but they get finicky and will not bite on these up and down barometers. Whoever made the Voodoo shrimp lures got it almost perfect though, and it'll entice a hit on a finicky fish. Once it really started raining, the fish went to sleep and I figured that was my cue. I fileted the fish, washed up, and let Waffle House make me some coffee and a waffle. My wife KNOWS how to cook those specks!

I don't think it rained enough to mess the fishing up. Maybe it did upstream. The temp is heading down and it looked gray and cold, with low rolling clouds coming from the north. I'll have to do pool prep to get it ready for the freeze. We've spent a lot of time on the beach lately with Thanksgiving and a baby shower coming for my daughter. That nap I took after I got back from breakfast was AMAZING. I sat on the porch for a while and glassed way out on the gulf with the scope when I got back up. It was very nice and serene. Warm and very little wind at that moment.

[noelH]

Yesterday was a real beautiful day. Just a gentle breeze.  Clear deep blue sky and even deeper than deep blue water.   Haven't fired up the tractor or attached the back blade.  Initial snow removal if light is gently floating the blade or plow gravel into the ditches.  Ground is still not frozen.  Snowblower sitting on the pallet. Where it sat all of last winter. Over two decades old. Last "winter" was the first time I've not needed it.  Once the snowbanks get to a certain height it becomes way too much an effort to plow.  For now it is just drive over the snow packing it down and hopefully enhancing the freeze rate of the driveway surface. 

Could be the UP.  Rumors are the first dump of the season dropped ~20"/0.5 meters. The Keweenaw Peninsula record snowfall was set prior to our warming trend. +390 inches one season. Copper Harbor gets hit by Lake Effect from all points of the compass. Maybe why instead of snowplows their trucks have gigantic snowblowers.

[Norm L.]

Lake Effect is interesting. The shoreline on Lake Erie trends NE starting near Cleveland. West Cleveland and suburbs are fine. East of Cleveland to Niagra Falls the land acts like a dam making the air and water temperatures meet somewhat nastily. What fell west of Cleveland was nothing. New Orleans has had that several times (in 20 years and lasting on the ground at best 48 hours). This current dump on Buffalo is nasty.
When winter arrives, I think of the stories I have read about the trappers that spent winters in the Sierras. Months on a limited diet under conditions that can kill.

I remember an early fiction story written by...? Conrad? A man takes shelter in a snowstorm under the heavy drooping limbs of a large evergreen tree. He tries to start a fire with a limited supply of matches. With his last match he gets a good warming fire started. The heat warms under the tree, melting the branches snow coverage and causing the melted snow water to start falling upon him.

[Charles Brennan]

Norm, It was Jack London's "To Build a Fire" a story I read in school that convinced me that south Florida was a far more sensible place to live.

https://www.online-literature.com/london/101/

Charles Brennan

[Doug SC]

Yes, I also read that one in school when living in FL. MY takeaway was the dog was smarter than the man. Also, to know your survival skills. Learned how to make a fire in the rain and where to find dry wood. Four of us spent 5-6 days backpacking on the high ridges of the Great Smokey Mountains and the Appalachian Trail for 45 years in a row after Christmas each year. We thought it was fun...go figure!

[Norm L.]

I never went that long but I do remember some fall nights in mountains during road trip vacations with the temps under 32.  I guess I was knowledgeable about cold weather and that is why, in New Orleans, bought a sub-32 sleeping bag.
On one trip on the mountain above Taos I got some of the dead branches off the ground and started a fire to cook dinner. I learned do not cook anything over a cedar fire unless you want everything to taste like a cedar chest. That was part one. Part 2 was the temperature in the mid 20's and part 3 there was a porn magazine in the National Forest trash can. The previous two quenched any interest in the latter one. If I had found it before I started the fire it would have been more useful as tinder. 

[Wayne Howard]

I remember one year going camping with my mom and dad. We stayed two nights at Slumgullion Pass, Colorado over Fourth of July weekend. Mom and dad stayed in the truck camper while I slept in a tent. Both mornings, I woke up to ice on the rain fly of my tent. I was glad I had a decent sleeping bag. Elevation around 11,800 feet IIRC. The trout tasted good anyway.

[Doug SC]

In September for a number of years some close friends and I would spend 2-3 weeks at elevations from 9 to 12,000' feet backpacked into a wilderness area to bowhunter elk. Many mornings would be in the low 20sF. The dry cold at those temps didn't really feel colder then 35F and 90% humidity here in SC. The worst weather is freezing rain at 32-33F. You really need to be prepared to deal with that. Snow is cold but drier.

[Brian N.]

All the above reminds me of the years I was a Scout leader. We had monthly winter campouts some colder than others, some with significant snow. The most harsh and coldest were when we had a freezing rain/snow mix. One Scout Master had great advice for winter camping - "There is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing and poor preparation". I've seen video clips of the yacht races in the Southern Ocean and to me that has to be the pinnacle of tough going.

[Wolverine]

Last week temps dropped into the mid 20s overnight. Today it hit 71°. Had to change into shorts and a t-shirt to work on the boat. What will next week bring?

[Captain Kidd]

I've done a bit of cold weather camping. Over the last 10 years or so it's been in two varieties: with the men of our church in late Oct/early Nov up on the mountain in a state forest. We've had a few cold ones. Two: up on lake Ocoee in the Cherokee National Forest by myself. I row across the lake and enjoy the solitude. In earlier days I've backpacked with friends or my younger daughter. The pics below were taken about 30 years ago on the AT in MD. The only time I ever camped in snow. It was 🥶. (This is the same daughter that went with me to Pensacola in Oct and who ran the marathon in September.) I'm planning on more though I don't tolerate the cold like I used to.

I'm still using the same tent, had that orange mummy bag til a couple years ago, and still have the pack.

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