This sudden, very unusually cold weather has caused the lakes to discharge a lot of mist since the water is so much warmer than the surrounding air. Some people have photographed mist spouts, but I haven’t been fortunate enough to see any of them.

One nice side effect of this cold weather is that’s it’s sunny, but I’ll be happy to say to good-bye to the sun as it begins to warm up (and consequently cloud up) tomorrow; thankfully, we are supposed to be at near seasonal temperatures by Friday.

This Arctic blast has been very hard on all the non-migrating birds and the animals that just aren’t used to these cold conditions; farmers are also very concerned about the tree fruit orchards and the wineries about their vines. As an indication of how unusual this weather is, a local environmental group just released instructions on how to help hummingbirds that are going into torpor because of the cold.

The eastern part of the country is now being walloped by a huge storm that has moved north from Texas. I don’t follow football but apparently a game has even been cancelled as a result!

Stay warm, everyone.