Chill Bill!

Well, we're well and truly experiencing winter now. After having very similar temps to Tassie in Summer (aside from the cooler nights) it has suddenly turned on us and we're seeing some real American cold weather. We're under a 'winter storm watch' at the moment which seems to mean we are either going to get an ice storm or snow at some point over the next day or so. At the moment it's just below zero (in the middle of the day) and all the puddles from the rain last night have frozen over.

Texas goes a little nuts when it gets this cold, but it's mostly because people don't know how to drive sensibly. There's already been a few horrific accidents and that was before the ice really kicked in. The national guard have been mobilised and gravel laden trucks have been distributed at strategic points along all the roads. They warn that the bridges and overpasses are the ones that freeze first. To make it worse we had a lot of rain last night, so there's plenty of water on the 'drainage free' roads. More rain is due today and tomorrow, hence the warning. Here's hoping it delivers!! Jo is very excited by the potential for snow and has already started experiments with containers of water on the deck, to see how long it takes them to freeze. I was surprised that the first was iced up within half an hour o_0

I left work at lunch time to come home and I'm planning to work home tomorrow as well. The foundation will probably be officially closed anyhow, but better to stay off the roads at the moment anyway. We went to the supermarket and stocked up on ingredients for beef stew and hot apple cider :) It's actually a lot of fun to experience these seasons, because they're so much more extreme than tassie. I kept waking up all night last night to check if the pelting rain had turned to sleet, which was dumb because it's almost impossible to tell in the dark!!


Ice on our apartment stairs...at lunch time!

Our local weather (for all you BOM addicts)