Samhain New (Winter) Moon
Not that much snow yet, but the pace may be picking up. The snow amounts up north are unusual for this time of year, already over 2 feet in some places. When I moved here in the early 1970’s, it was remarkable to me that the first snow of the season was on the ground still when spring came. That’s not as often true now, but it may happen this year. A good snow then a frigid polar plunge probably sets the table for a winter cold enough to retain this snow.
Samhain New (Winter) Moon
One Unpleasant White Spot. Here’s a graphic and comment I received from Dean DeHarpporte, a consulting meteorologist here in the Twin Cities: “Paul, I cant resist sharing with you this GFS 850mb prog for next Tuesday Dec. 10, at 12Z. I cant remember ever seeing a white color on this map, which is the coldest color classification available (- 30C). The fact that it is centered directly over Minnesota is quite astounding.” (map: College of DuPage). (from Paul Douglas Weather Blog)
Samhain New (Winter) Moon
This snowstorm has the slows. The Updraft blog says it’s on its way, but will show around midnight now, rather than 6 pm. There are some impressive numbers reported already for the northern part of the state: “Up north, some epic snowfall totals approaching 2 feet are already down near Two Harbors, and totals will likely exceed 30 inches to 3 feet along the North Shore ridges by Thursday.”
(High waves at the Duluth Lake Superior harbor)
Samhain New (Winter) Moon
Kate’s timing was ideal. She got home as the rain cum snow began. She accepted the greetings of a grateful doggy contingent and a happy husband. Good to have her back.
Snow’s coming down with some energy now. Big fat flakes which usually mean less accumulation, little snow big snow being Northern weather wisdom. We’ll see. As the temps cool down tonight, the snow could increase in volume going from fat wet clumps to smaller flakes that will collect in larger amounts.
A severe shock of below normal temps will hit western North Dakota meaning those poor bastards outside in the Bakken Oil Fields. It’ll be so fracking cold the workers will have a tough time staying limber.
Samhain Thanksgiving Moon
Found this on MPR’s updraft blog.
It’s called”Bomb Cyclogenesis.” That’s the weather geeky term given to rapidly 
intensifying east coast lows that spin up and deepen rapidly. East Coast bombs feed off of warm Atlantic and Gulf Stream waters, and cold air diving south from Canada. It’s a unique geographic situation. The following explanation from this website.
Simply put, bomb cyclogenesis is the formation of an “extratropical area of low pressure in which the central barometric pressure drops at least 24 millibars in 24 hours.” [1] However, it should be noted that this represents the most common case in areas that are north of 60 degrees latitude. Sanders and Gyakum, who coined the term “Bomb Cyclones” set the pressure falls needed to reach bomb status at 19 millibars in 24 hours at 45 degrees and 23 millibars in 24 hours at 55 degrees.
Samhain Thanksgiving Moon
This graphic heralds seasonal change here as much as holiday lights.
Samhain Thanksgiving Moon
A beautiful day outside. Cerulean sky dotted with torn off candy cotton chunks of cumulus. A bright sun. Now all we need is snow. As this winter bears down on us, even though slowly, I find myself occasionally feeling sad about the children of Minnesota future who will not know the onset of deep winter, cold that makes you stand up straight and say, Oh.
They will know, I realized, the long nights of winter still. Global warming has no effect on the tilt of the earth, but it seems strange to think of the Winter Solstice night coming in Minnesota and not needing a parka to be out celebrating it. They will not, of course, no any different, it will be for them the way things have always been. Who’s to say that will be bad? At least from an emotional perspective.
Then again the Holocene has encompassed the rise and rise of humans from veldt to the 
moon and it is only 11,000 plus years old. We take it as normal. Really, it’s just an interglacial, as geologists call the warm periods beyond the periodic advances of the ice sheets that define an ice age.
The last one is not completely over as this shot I took in the Chilean fjords shows.
It’s easy to forget that the interglacials are the exception and ice cover the rule over the last couple of million years . The normal interglacial lasts around 10,000 years and we’re overdue for a change.
Yes, global warming will put off the next ice age, but eventually fossil fuels will either all be burned or we will have stopped burning them. Then, the atmosphere will lose carbon by its reabsorption into the oceans and back into carbonate minerals. (T.C. Cook, MIT Technology Review, Global warming versus the next Ice Age) At that point the subtle effects of Jupiter and Saturn will elongate our orbit again and the sun’s energetic contribution to the northern climates will decrease. Then, the ice sheets will come creeping back. And too soon in my book.
Samhain Thanksgiving Moon
Yesterday I wandered into new territory with Dramatica Pro, a software program aid to writing fiction. It will help me do the kind of advanced planning that my work almost never gets: character development, plot sequencing, character roles, key scenes, creating throughlines and how characters and action play off against them.
Still in the midst of learning it, will take a while. It will take the spot of the MOOCs as my current learning experience.
I like these gray, rainy days but the brilliant flash of lightning and the roll of thunder yesterday afternoon brought a bit of seasonal displacement in its trail.
Samhain Thanksgiving Moon
“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”
Cicero
I’m set. The library surrounds me as I write this and the garden is two weeks into its winter slumber. Cicero and I agree about life’s necessities, books and a place to grow food and flowers. Between them they service the body and the mind.
It’s a dull, grey November day. Rain dribbles out of the sky, unwilling to commit. The temperature remains in a warmer trend, 45 today, a trend our weather forecaster says will remain until early December. I hope so since we’re headed out across the plains a week from tomorrow, exposing ourselves to the wind driven weather coming down, with no topographical resistance, from the Arctic.
Finishing up ModPo and getting off the Latin plateau I had inhabited for many weeks has left me in a satisfied Holiseason state of mind. Before them Modern and Post Modern ended and the garden got put to bed, the Samhain bonfire held. So this is a time of endings, as Samhain celebrates, and festival season beginnings. The unusual confluence of Hanukkah and Thanksgiving means the whole last week of November will be celebratory. In December then we can focus on Yule, the Winter Solstice and the pagan side of Christmas.
In the coming weeks I look forward to finishing Missing’s 5th revision and getting it off to the copy editor, learning Dramatic Pro and using it as I develop Loki’s Children while I continue to work in the new “in” the Latin style that Greg pushed me towards. This will also be a time when I consolidate my understanding of the Modern and the Post Modern and do some more writing around that, especially as it changes and informs my Reimagining My Faith project.
Reading poetry more regularly will also be part of the next few weeks, too. I want to continue my immersion in poetry. One of the ModPo teaching assistants, Amaris Cuchanski, said poetry is the leading edge of consciousness and I believe she’s right.
