The party

Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Tick, tock, people. Time's slipping away.

No, this isn't about one of my favorite Stevie Ray Vaughan songs. It's about me and us and our region and the weather and our extremely mild winter weather.

Enjoy it now, bucko, because they are pulling the plug. Today, it was cloudy, but temperatures were warm enough to cause some melting icicles this noon. Tonight, snow is in the forecast--it's already snowing down in Wisconsin. Tomorrow, it's not going to be anywhere near as warm. No melting for quite a while, I'm afraid.

And it's not going to get any better. Winter, which has been AWOL from this area for all of January (and not really missed), finally got its GPS out or else called AAA or else finally caught the right bus. Whatever the story, it's on the way now. Next week is supposed to be "colder" (as in, close to normal). The week after that is supposed to be "still colder" (does "still colder"="frozen solid"?). They're talking about highs in the 10sF (about -10C) with lows about -5F (about -20C).

It was fun while it lasted, but the party is over. Time for bundling up again. Time to see our natural gas bills soar. Time for my wife to dig out the mid-winter recipes--chili is a favorite.

The weather had been changing already, as the snow had found us. We had no snow for a while, but in the last week and a half we have had a few snows--the 8-incher last weekend and several 2- and 3-inchers here and there lately, not including whatever we get overnight.

Ah, our generous friends from Canada, who so magnaminiously send down icy air mass after icy air mass to the States! In fact, the Canadian prairies--the main highway for our frigid air masses from the North Pole--have been enjoying nice winter weather too, as the really cold air has stayed up in the Arctic. But they are now getting a chill job, and that means it's in our future. I see that the temperatute in Winnipeg is down to +1F now, and it hasn't been that cold there for a long time.

Winnipeg has it now, so I guess it's on the way for us, too. Time to check the stockpile of kidney beans and crackers. It's going to be chilly chili season again really soon.