S--- already?

It is the dreaded four letter word that actually can be said on TV. People feel dirty saying it though, and it makes a mess of everything in the end. What is it? Snow. And its already falling here. Global warming my left foot! Its not supposed to snow in October, let alone the middle part of October!

But then again, I have been up here for three years so I should expect it. Mind you I lived down South for a good chunk of my life, and wanted to see snow more often than once every 5-10 years. So, I moved. That first winter, I loved it! So what if I had to shovel my car out from being plowed in, it was snow! So what if a Ford Mustang couldn't handle it, I loved it!

Then came the second winter. By this time I was married, and where we live isn't ideal for our car in the winter. Its up a series of hills, down another series of hills, then one uphill climb that is easy in summer but feels like climbing Mt. Everest itself in winter! And that winter seemed never-ending! It started on my birthday, which was nice... never had snow on my birthday before. But then once April came along, I was sure it'd snow clean into July.

Now its another winter starting already. This time my wife and I are expecting our first child. Hopefully it won't be that bad, but it might be worse since we have to take a detour that goes up a hill that really IS like Mt. Everest. We may just stay around town all winter unless weather... and work... cooperate enough to permit travel elsewhere.

So yeah, my opinion on winter has changed. And a couple of my friends are moving out to a snowy area, and seem excited. I'll ask them in a few months if they still like snow.

Winter already!

So we've been getting snow where I live. Being that I've lived in an area that very rarely saw snow, I'm excited as hell! However, I know that I'm in for it this winter! I'll have all the snow I can handle and then some. I got a nice taste of it today when I drove into the higher elevations of this area. While it was nice to see the snow on the ground, I knew with the falling snow that I likely was in icy road conditions. This concerned me, as I was on the Interstate at the time. I've been told by roughly everybody that my car can't handle those conditions. I did fine.

And no, I didn't pull off to make snowballs! It was tempting, but I figured it was wiser to stay on the road than to pull off somewhere, and try to get back on the highway!

The Rain Song

OK, so maybe ol' Sonny is right, that there is a bigger drought problem in North GA than the rest of the state. But dude, the entire freakin' state is dry! I just got done comparing around 11 cities in GA, and here's what I found:

Three cities - Albany, Macon, and Savannah - have crossed 40 inches since a year ago.
Two cities - Dalton and Valdosta - haven't even hit 30 inches since a year ago

Additionally, Macon went the entire month of May with no rain whatsoever. I didn't break it down by month, as I rushed through it as fast as I could, but at points North GA was getting more rain than any part of the state from what I saw.

All data compiled courtesy of Weather Underground:

City Since 1/1/07 Since 10/21/06
Albany 30.61 40.00
Alma 33.94 39.03
Athens 23.03 32.19
Atlanta 24.75 33.97
Augusta 29.37 38.33
Columbus 29.91 39.81
Dalton 14.97 21.25
Macon 31.25 41.95
Rome 23.29 31.92
Savannah 38.89 44.04
Valdosta 21.58 28.08

So from what I can tell, places closer to the Atlantic Ocean are wetter, and places in North GA really are drier. Valdosta is basically an anomaly, and part of me thinks that Dalton's totals aren't accurate. Now bear in mind that these totals are all at least 10 inches below normal for this time of year.

And last thing I saw was somebody from GA saying it was stupid for them to protect mussels. I was just talking to a friend of mine, and he pointed out that every state does its part in channeling water somewhere to protect some wetland in another state. So yeah, Georgians are a selfish lot. Plus I find it funny that this drought has been ongoing, and each part of the state seems to take turns as to which part is drier at certain times, and its only because Sonny won't be able to bathe soon that he decides that NOW is the perfect time to call a state of emergency.

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