Weird weather in the Northeast

I was listening to my brother's 12/07 radio show yesterday, cracking up as he talked about how cold it was (I had checked the weather--it was 35 in Clemson that morning) and how his friend Tony wished there were "coats for your legs." Now, I realize that anything below 40 is quite frigid in Clemson, just as anything above 85 is broiling here in Ithaca, but you have to realize that we had record lows throughout the Finger Lakes yesterday. When I woke up and went in to campus, it was -8 or -9 (that would be -22 C). The day before, the high was around zero, and for the last week or so, I'm not sure whether we even made it to 25. At these temperatures, you definitely want coats for your pants (which exist, incidentally--we call them snow pants, and we don't wear them around town because they look silly). You learn when you've been in this area long enough that if it's nice and sunny, you should be worried. Clear skies at night mean that it'll be brutally cold the next day. You want it to be sunny all day, and for thick clouds to cover the area as soon as night falls.

Today, it's a balmy 26, but we're having an ice storm. Now, I don't know much meteorology, but I still think it's weird that it can be sleeting at such a low temperature. I don't know what's going on above us, but it would be nice if those warm temperatures would either descend to our level or move off to some other location. Oh, I just checked the weather. It's not sleeting. It's a "freezing drizzle." I think the weather.com people need to work out their terms. "Drizzle" does not have the same connotation as "steady rainfall," which is what it's actually doing. Anyhow, this freezing drizzle will be soon be replaced with heavy snowfall and later with sleet. Finally, we're getting snow again starting around noon tomorrow. We're far enough north that we aren't supposed to get significant ice accumulations. We are supposed to get 3-6 inches of snow in the next day or so and more later, which bodes well for my skiing plans, assuming they can get the roads clear. I'm pretty sure they pre-salted. It'll be interesting to find out whether that works.

The good news is that tomorrow, the high is 32.