I live just south of Tampa Bay in Bradenton Florida. Yes I'm wearing shorts atm.
I don't want to rub your nose in it so will leave well enough alone. This is the only time of year it is comfortable here and we have been averaging 10f above normal last month and 7 degrees above this month eg normal average is 70f. Sad thing is, the end of January is when the average daytime highs begin to increase. Last few nights have left my office window open so the AC doesn't kick on.
What I find funny about this place are the locals whining about temps in the 40-50 f range. It's so cold, several wearing freakin Parkas!
I laugh at them because they do not have a clue what cold is. Like most here I'm a transplant, I grew up in Ohio and lived in the U.P. of Michigan for three winters. I do know cold. One day a few years back stopped in at a convenience store, some dude came in all bundled up complaining about being "frozen". It was 42f, not even to ice point. I said laughing that it wasn't cold at all. His eyes bugged all out. The store clerk knows me well, he's one of the owners actually, and asked what I considered cold. I responded with "Hmmm lets see... 138 degrees colder than this is the worst I've worked outside in". They about wet themselves. heh
I will say once you become acclimated to the high temps here it is more difficult to deal with that one or two days of chilly. Luckily I still own flannel lined jeans, tho can't wear my ski jacket, it's down and must be worn open when it's above 32f or you'll sweat to death.
I don't want to rub your nose in it so will leave well enough alone. This is the only time of year it is comfortable here and we have been averaging 10f above normal last month and 7 degrees above this month eg normal average is 70f. Sad thing is, the end of January is when the average daytime highs begin to increase. Last few nights have left my office window open so the AC doesn't kick on.
What I find funny about this place are the locals whining about temps in the 40-50 f range. It's so cold, several wearing freakin Parkas!
I laugh at them because they do not have a clue what cold is. Like most here I'm a transplant, I grew up in Ohio and lived in the U.P. of Michigan for three winters. I do know cold. One day a few years back stopped in at a convenience store, some dude came in all bundled up complaining about being "frozen". It was 42f, not even to ice point. I said laughing that it wasn't cold at all. His eyes bugged all out. The store clerk knows me well, he's one of the owners actually, and asked what I considered cold. I responded with "Hmmm lets see... 138 degrees colder than this is the worst I've worked outside in". They about wet themselves. heh
I will say once you become acclimated to the high temps here it is more difficult to deal with that one or two days of chilly. Luckily I still own flannel lined jeans, tho can't wear my ski jacket, it's down and must be worn open when it's above 32f or you'll sweat to death.
Call me a hick, every time I see dirty snow I can not but revere the self-purging mechanism of locations with seasonal changes.
I'm flying to Curaçao again in 2 weeks time for the month of february, without snow and/or sufficient rain, everything always remains filthy.
If your mother in law would die on the street, her remains would still be present in a century.
I'm George. I spent the first 61 years of my life in Dade or Broward counties. I was born in Miami. It has snowed exactly once in recorded history. It has however been freakin cold several times. How cold, beer freezing cold, not lite beer either. There have been a few times in my life when I have been cold enough to uncontrollably shiver, they have all been in Florida.
So in a fashion contrary to most transplanted Floridians, when I retired, I moved north. I now live on the Ohio river where I-70 crosses it, due West of Columbus. People here think I'm the weird one, they are all bundled up, and I'm still wearing my flip flops and T-shirt. Come on, I just got back from Kroger. Everyone was bundled up like a mummy, and its 47 degrees outside and it quit raining.
Haven't needed a jacket yet this year, but the coldest that I have seen so far this winter is 9 degrees F. I'll get out my winter stuff when it gets to zero, or if I have to work outside in a windy or wet cold day. I wear a light windbreaker and running shoes to run the track each morning. Even in 20 degree weather it's usually off by my second lap unless it's snowing. My body's thermostat has been off for most of my life though, and its getting worse.
How's this for something rarely seen in Vancouver?
Compacted snow, rained on for one day, then re-frozen with new dump of snow come New Years eve? That's close to 15cm of slippery stuff under the snow.
Jumpin' Jimminy, next thing you're going to tell us is that George saw snow in Florida one time.
In my 54 years on this planet I never...
Reminds me of 2015 here. This photo was before the big storms.
A few weeks later that was still the bottom layer, but the top looked like this:
I ripped up my knee pretty bad that Feb when I slipped and fell, the streets were narrow and slippery with thick ice instead of pavement. Folks were traumatized. Then the rains came and everything flooded.
Hello George
Didn't you mean east of Columbus, just west of the Ohio R, across from West Virginia??? (I have family that teaches at WVU in Charleston). I'm from Tipp City, 5 miles north of I-70 and a half mile east of I-75. The Ohio is actually in Kentucky and WV and about 65miles south of where I grew up.
From what I understand it's alot warmer now than when I was a kid. Proof of that is the lakes stopped freezing over sometime after I left. Miss ice skating at the Levi. Still a big hockey fan, where a TB Lightning cap everyday.
My significant other asks me every year if I miss the cold. Nope, but I do miss the snow, the seasonal change, autumn colors, caroling and clothing appropriate for the season. One of my favorite past times is going for a drive on the night of the first decent snowfall and getting my snowshoes on eg taking the car out and doing doughnuts in parking lots, relearning how to control the car in slick icy/snowy conditions and have an absolute blast doing it
Here it's hard to get into the mindset of Thanksgiving and Christmas when everything is green and summer like temps eg your flip flops. Christmas is especially difficult when there isn't a thing called Silent Night, Holy Night. It's a LOUD FREAKING PARTY, set off every bloody firework you have in the arsenal til past 2 am! All to much gun fire too.
Oh another thing I miss about living up north, car insurance is half the price. 20% of the drivers on the road do not have a valid license and I thought people just liked to ride bikes. That was until I discovered the reason, they have a half dozen or so DUI's. Locals do not stop at red before turning right, be it at the light or a stop sign. Snowbirds that congest traffic it doubles your travel time getting to and from work. Everywhere is a damn U turn. Parking on the wrong side of the street, I have a list somewhere... lol
Don't pull that sheit in Ohio!
You should have been cast for the part of Silver Surfer in the Fantastic Four*, George.
(* I went broke on comic books stock by age 12)
Yes. It comes from living on the East coast of Florida for so long.....Everything was West of us.
Just East of the river in West Virginia.
I know where that is. I go to the Dayton hamfest every year, and have stayed in Troy a couple of times to get a cheap hotel rate.
I have been coming here every winter and summer for almost 30 years. Every winter (and summer) is different. Two years ago I got up one morning to -12 degrees F, but there wasn't much snow.
Last year the coldest day I remember flirted with 0F, but we had a couple of days where is snowed over a foot each day, and several days with over 6 inches.
So far this year the coldest I have seen is 9 degrees, but the average for December and January has run about 10 degrees colder than normal. It has snowed several times, but never more than two inches. We have had two periods of several days each where the temperature never went above freezing. One was last week after some snow. Each day last week I went to the park and ran the snow covered frozen mud on the paved trail. There was nobody else there. Monday started the big thaw out, with yesterday hitting 60+ degrees. Today the entire park is "closed due to conditions." Our yard is a muddy mess too.
I never got into comics, or the comic book related movies, so I had to Google that one. I don't know, metallic silver.......not really, surfer....... maybe 45 years ago, crazy idiot......probably.
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In the previously posted picture you can see a power pole with a street light on it. It had been lit for years lighting up an abandoned mobile home and an empty condemned house. We bought the property, tore down the house, and proceeded to build our new house on the property. After we had moved in the power company came and told us that the pole would be turned off unless we paid $10 per month plus the fees that should have been collected for the past several years on the pole. We had already been stuck with some back taxes on the property, so I told them where to stick their pole.
We have an elderly couple next door that liked the light and offered to pay part of the extortion. Instead I bought one of those Chinese "100 Watt" LED floodlights on Ebay, mounted it on the side of the mobile home, and ran a cord from our house over to it. Every night I go out and plug it in, every morning I unplug it. These pictures were taken when I got up in the morning and went to unplug the light. Note that the "100 Watt" light is made by the same people who bring you 100 watt computer speakers, because it only draws 70 watts from the wall outlet. It does however light up our front yard, and the neighbors better that the street light did.
The pictures I post here have been compressed to fit size requirements, so I went back and looked at the original from the camera. It's not clear what if anything was on my feet in that photo. It was just over a year ago so I don't remember. I know that I put shoes on to go out and shovel that stuff, because it kept coming down the whole day long.
I did find these pictures from about 10 days later. Much earlier in the morning, and less snow fall.
I have at least 2 pair of shoes that will keep my feet sufficiently warm if I am outside for an extended period of time. I keep one pair, and a reasonably thick (by my standards) leather jacket in my vehicle just in case something bad happens. I got my Honda stuck in the ice real good one day two years ago within sight of my destination (a cop's house). It was 29 degrees F outside and I still chose to walk the half mile to his place in flip flops and a T-shirt. I did put on the shoes and jacket when we returned to dig out the car.
I think that I have 3 or 4 long sleeve shirts. I don't like them because my arms will sweat when I come inside.
I have been known to do some Obstacle Course Races like the Tough Mudder. There is a local race here run up and down some rather steep hill sides under whatever conditions are present in mid February. The first picture is at race start. It is 28 degrees and the ground is semi frozen mud. I have the thin Old Navy windbreaker over a T-shirt and 3 millimeter thick Vibram shoes on. After a half hour or so the jacket is open. By the end of the 3 hour race it was off.
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You know, I do have to wonder. . . Electric heat, which is of identical efficiency for all of it, does also happen to vary in effectiveness, rather extremely. When it is less effective, we crank it up higher, resulting in higher bills, aka poorer cost-efficiency. Paying more for the heater doesn't help (paying more results in a much more stylish looking a far less effective heater that costs most on the bills too). Placement, temp&time programs, and variable wattage, does seem to help.
This all does give me questions.
The matter seems exactly like audio: Either there's tight controls for just-right output or else there's inappropriately huge expense for inappropriate output. Likewise, placement also seems to be a necessary factor, because placement affects effectiveness (for both the audio and the heaters). Room size scaled to wattage also seems to be very close, only in proportion, for both items.
This all does give me questions.
The matter seems exactly like audio: Either there's tight controls for just-right output or else there's inappropriately huge expense for inappropriate output. Likewise, placement also seems to be a necessary factor, because placement affects effectiveness (for both the audio and the heaters). Room size scaled to wattage also seems to be very close, only in proportion, for both items.
Same same for electric cool.
Last couple of years I've examined ways of making domestic cooling in the tropics less costly, more efficient and more effective.
For my home on Curaçao it meant skipping the Carnot cycle, compression and expansion, go to pumping 40F ocean water and distribute the flow through the house. (in the late '90s I already had a home with distributed floor heating, that could be switched to cooling for the summer season by means of a manual valve that enganged a heat-exchanger reservoir which I buried in the backyard)
Sometimes the answer is all too obvious.
Also goes for audio and the watts/spl bill.
(Imo, George's left foot has turned black from permafrost years ago, just hasn't fallen off yet for some reason. Duct tape ?)
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