Kevin Standlee: Fandom Is My Way of Life

Despite my having rekindled the fireplace last night, it was still cold this morning (around 15°C), and with Kayla having run me off my feet over the past few days, I had to call an audible and take an extra day of time off to get more sleep. Instead of my usual 4:30 AM wake-up call, I slept until about 10:30 AM.

( Snow Time in the Pah Rahs )

I collected mail from the post office (I had a call slip for an oversize item) and bought a small amount of groceries. I also had breakfast at the Black Bear Diner (for a bit of a change). I spent some time today doing catch-up like entering last week's paycheck into Quicken, but there is a whole lot more to do, complicated by having to work in two different currencies. I'll get it done; it just will take a couple of days, and my mind is not working at 100% right now.

This morning, when I looked out the front door, I got a surprise.

( Snow in March? )

By the end of the work day, all of the snow had melted, and the day continued chilly, but otherwise dry. I'm glad we still have plenty of firewood.

It was cold last night, but I did not realize how cold until I ran out to do an errand this morning.

( Sign of Things to Come )

There was light rain last night locally. It won't be long before I need to restart the fireplace.

Although we didn't get any rain or snow here in Fernley, it wasn't far away.

( More Spring Snow )

I-80 over Donner Summit was closed most of last night. Snow reached the western edge of Reno. Here in Fernley, all we got was wind and a lot of it. It was pretty cold wind as well. Temperatures got to near freezing, and between the wind and cold, neither Lisa nor I felt like tackling more of the yard work.

The wind did slacken off just enough this morning that I could run over to get some milk and other perishables without feeling like the Rolling Stone was going to be blown off the road. Also, for a short time this afternoon, Lisa and I could sit on the (slightly sheltered) front porch watching birds making their way back to the feeder. However, it was not long before the cold drove us back indoors. If it stays this cold any longer, I'm going to have the restart the fireplace again.

Yesterday, as predicted, temperatures tumbled off a cliff and went below freezing overnight. We even got some snow, although it didn't stick; it just turned to slush. Fortunately, I got most of it off the porch before it froze overnight.

I was able to restart the fireplace yesterday morning and stave off the cold. There was also a lot of wind, which meant that when Lisa and I tried to do a few walks around the block after dinner, we faced bitterly cold wind blowing little pebbly snow. We only achieved two laps before we gave up and went back inside to thaw out.

Tomorrow looks more promising. Maybe we can get back to Reno and do the rest of the shopping we had planned. If we are there during the right hours, we might try to try playing Who Wants to be a Billionaire again, too. But I won't drive farther west than Gold Ranch. When the snow hits the Sierra, they sometimes end up closing I-80 westbound at Gold Ranch. While that's Nevada Exit 1, in order for it to show up in California's road conditions system correctly, Caltrans calls it California Exit 205.

The storm that came through overnight was forecast to have a fair bit of rain and a slight chance of snow at our level (4000 ft / 1220 m) and that's exactly what we got.

( Slush and Snow )

This is certainly a spring-like weather pattern. It's rarely getting below freezing, but it's still chilly enough for me to the keep the fireplace burning on most days. We may have a few days' break this coming week, with another storm behind that. Except for that one large storm (which we think was the largest snow accumulation we've had in one 24 hour period since we moved here in 2011), it's been a fairly mild winter here in Fernley. Fortunately, lots of snow has fallen in the mountains, which is good for our water supply.

As predicted, we got snow here in Fernley, in two waves: one on Saturday and one on Sunday. Neither were very large, especially compared to the hammering that they got in the Sierra Nevada.

( Snow Days )

Aside from the brief trip to the shops and walking over to the Wigwam, I stayed home this weekend, kept the fireplace well stoked, and otherwise didn't do very much. Given how stressed I've been for the past few weeks, not having a lot to do was a good thing.

We continue to try and claw our way back to a once-a-month schedule with an episode about how the railways handle snow.



Appropriately, as I was editing this episode this afternoon and evening, it started snowing, dropping wet snow, but again only 3-4 cm. The weather forecast is such is that I expect that most of it will melt tomorrow.

No disclaimers on this post. As far as I know, Worldcon Intellectual Property has not asserted any right to control my railroad videos or to punish me for talking about rotary snowplows.

Temperatures are now staying above freezing for longer. Yesterday evening we had some cold rain, but that just accelerated the snow melting from the roof of the house and garage. This made quite a racket for a while, but by today, the rooftop snow was gone.

( The Retreating Snow )

The current forecast shows no snow expected until next weekend at the earliest. I don't expect all of our snow here to be gone by then, because sheltered areas and places where we shoveled snow to get it out of the way will not have had time to melt, but most of it should be gone by the time more arrives.

The weather forecast I saw online predicted that we would get about 4 cm of snow last night.

( How About more like 40? )

I'm not sure, but I think that this is the second-largest snowfall we've had in a single storm since we moved here in 2011. There was one storm that dropped more, and it was followed by several more storms without a warm spell, so the snow accumulated quite a bit. Yes, this is still nothing compared to people in the Midwest or Northeast who get really big storms, but 40 cm of snow in one night is quite a bit by our standards.