we have reached 9 and going down! lol
hang on tight!

it's 74 this a.m. :-) breezy, humid, humid, humid....

tomorrow will be cold to us and mid 60's brrhhh....~ liz

It's warm here - mid 60s - but so much rain. We've now hit the highest recorded annual rainfall on record in Hampton Roads (Virginia).

We've had so much rain for one year that everything is a mess. I feel like I'm living in Washington state. It rains at night and in the morning and then it rains in the afternoon. You see the sun for a time and then you see the dark gray clouds on the horizon and it starts again.

And all because I got a puppy one year ago on 12/21/2008.

Go figger.

It was 14 this morning but wind chill was -1 ...

A balmy 19 degrees this morning..

7 degees again. supposed to be sunny too

this DRY cold air is bad on my hair. flatter, straighter (if that's possible! lol)

ROSEMARY!
I protest! LOL

Seattle Climate
Nearest Weather Stations

Notes:
Temp ranges are avg daily min and max for the month
Precipitation is rainfall (and rainfall equiv of snowfall)
Station SEATTLE URBAN SITE
Distance 3.3 miles
Jan Temp 36 to 47 F
Apr Temp 43 to 59 F
Jul Temp 56 to 75 F
Oct Temp 46 to 60 F
Annual Precip 38.2 inches

Station NORFOLK INTL AP
Distance 3.6 miles
Jan Temp 32 to 48 F
Apr Temp 48 to 67 F
Jul Temp 71 to 87 F
Oct Temp 53 to 69 F
Annual Precip 45.7 inches

from http://www.citytowninfo.com/places/virginia/norfolk

ttt for Rosemary!

mid 80's this afternoon and still breezy, been this way for a couple days. it will cool down tomorrow, mid 60's but right back to mid 70's for another week...this is why i live in orlando! we put up w/ 130+ days over 90 this summer, now is our glory time lol ~ liz

Oh swell. So we've bypassed the rainy pacific northwest!!!

Let me tell you about my day. At 4:30 am, I arose early to get some book-promoting work done. I went out to my sunporch and heard the plop, plop, plop of a leaky roof splashing raindrops onto my beige carpet. So then I had the husband run around and fetch plastic buckets and containers to catch the SEVEN places that were dripping water.

I ran upstairs and out to the sunporch ROOF (which is flat) and wearing my jammies, I went out on the roof (barefoot), got down on my hands and knees and bent over the edge of the sunporch roof in the POURING rain and cleaned out the gutters. When the gutters get too full, the water rises behind the flashing and then - thanks to that little miracle we call "gravity - flows merrily into the sunporch ceiling. The low spot on the sunporch ceiling is in the center, so that's where it drips.

While I was up above - traipsing to and fro on this black rubber roof - my bare feet hit a slick patch of black rubber roofing (at 4:30 am keep in mind) and that sent me slip-sliding across the roof. As the edge came closer and closer in that split second, I thought, "Great. This is how it all ends. The architectural historian slides off the flat sunroof of her own 1924-built center-hallway Colonial Revival at 4:30 in the morning, with green-handled salad tongs in one hand and a flashlight in the other, while trying to clean out her gutters."

However, I survived that event.

Then hubby came out and held the flashlight for me while I cleaned partially decomposed leaf matter and acorns and twigs and squiggly pink worms out of 40 linear feet of gutters in the pouring rain while wearing my jammies.

About 20 minutes later, I came back inside, drenched to the bone, and put on clean jammies and dry socks.

At 10:30 am, another torrential downpour clogged up the gutters again. This time, I went out with my drill motor and my hammer. I was going to fix those *^ gutters once and for all. I drilled about 129 half-inch holes in the gutters and then using the hammer, I *beat* the downspout off the gutter. I saw someone driving by on the street slow down to watch this amazing show. I am quite sure I looked like a mad woman. That's because I *felt* like a mad woman.

At this point, if I'd had access to 13 sticks of dynamite I would have used all of them to blow those sunporch gutters to aluminum-gutter hell, where they surely belonged.

As I did this, I cussed under my breath and said things like, "Bet you're not going to clog up my gutters NOW, you blankety-blank downspout."

Again, when I came back into the bedroom (where you access the sunporch roof) I was soaked through and through. As I walked toward the bathroom to peel off soaked clothes, I muttered, "Those gutters can't hurt anyone now."

I washed my hands in the bathroom and they burned from the death of a thousand cuts. Forcing my large hands into the downspouts' mouth again and again and again has left me with a right hand that resembles an uncooked rump roast. I focus on something other than pain and wonder if it's possible to go into shock from having 83 small slices on one hand.

So I get back to work (such as it is) and then I realize I need some boxes to ship books to people overseas. I go downstairs to my basement (where we store boxes) and as I descend the steps, I see one of my boxes gently floating by at the foot of the stairs, like a cardboard gondola (sans gondolier).

My basement has five inches of standing water and a POS sump pump with a lot of 'splaining to do. Remembering the MANY extension cords we'd draped throughout the basement floor (to run fans and humidifiers after the last GREAT FLOOD - two weeks ago), I decide to not step into the potentially electrically charged water.

Instead, I pause and don my husband's insulated rubber-sole boots and then step off the basement steps and into Lake Colonial Revival. Nothing sparks or zaps and if I have just died instantly from an electric shock, it just happened so fast I have no conscious memory of it, so it's all good. I don't see Mother anywhere nearby so I figure I'm still among the living and walk over to the sump pump.

Once at the sump pump, I give it a good swift kick in the float and it roars to life. Forty minutes later, we're down to 1/2" of water. Using my water-puddle-rapid-movement-device (something I used to call a broom), I sweep a little more recalcitrant water into the sump and then I notice that the formerly dry spots in the basement are wet again. The basement is refilling itself with an endless supply of flood water.

At this point, I call my husband and tell him, "I'm leaving. Don't know when or if I'm coming back, but I'm leaving. I'm off to find dry ground. If I come back with an olive branch, you'll know I was successful. If not, it's been nice knowing you."

Long day. And I just got back home. He reported that the basement refilled after I left.

It's nuts I tell you - just nuts. Our basement hasn't flooded since 1924. An old man built our house in 1924 and he built it on its own tall hill. And yet - we flooded. Second time in 87 years. And the first time was two weeks ago.

Anyone got a rubber room I can borrow for a few weeks? I might need it...

The only way I got to 72 degrees was by turning up the thermostat.
We are having a lovely -2 in southern colorado. Usually it's not so cold here though.

brrrrrrrr, 40 outside and blowing winds

OH Rosemary! I feel for you!

All of the sudden I am grateful that our temp tonight of -18 is too cold for water to do anything but snow! In fact it usually doesn't snow when its this cold. Maybe this bitter stuff is good for something after all!

Oww, Glenda, lets tell Kat and Rosemary that we have them both beat...
Birmingham, AL - average number of Days of Precipitation: 117 (this year it must've been twice that)

Average Rainfall: 52.16"
2009 year to date 67.32" and coming.

Or yeah... it suppose to dip below freezing here tonight

My basement is re-filling with water for the night...

Geege...you're 74 warmer than we are this morning....

We are now down to 12. It did drop for a bit to 10!

Sue

Wow... I'm sorry Rosemary! what a mess.

I hate to tell you, but you recieve more rainfall than Seattle on average every year. Not just this year! We get a bad rap! lol

Yep, Vetaal! Lots and lots of places get lots more rain than we do. But we get the rap! LOL

Nice that we don't have hurricane, tornado or dust storm seasons either!