Today is a snow day in Billerica as well as in many other towns. I do love the fact thats there's no school and my dad got to leave work early. It's been snowing all day though. Mostly light and fluffy textured flakes. I'm really sick of all the snow. I miss the sunny days we had but they now seem like a such a distant memory. I hate be a downer, but, ya know, a lot of us -like me- can't wait for winter but then when it actually comes, you realize it isn't near as nice as you expected it to be and you just want it to be nice and sunny again. Be able see the grass, to take a walk outside, and  best of all- go to the beach! Dang- I miss those days! The lesson here? Don't take sunshine for granted! <3

This is my 13th year here.  I'm originally from colorado.  I have never in my life seen so much airtime dedicated to  bad weather, specifically snow!!  Just this morning, the today show was delayed so we could all look at wet, and I mean just wet, streets in worcester and a dusting of snow on the sidewalks.  Schools closed, mass panic ensuing!!  I won't take the obvious and cheap route of  "when we were kids, we walked........." but seriously, come on people!

Every winter we are reminded how to drive, how to shovel...etc.  If this were Brownsville Texas I'd understand, but it's NEW ENGLAND!!!!  it snows here in the winter.

After burying my head in computer models this morning trying to figure out what our storm was going to do on Wednesday... I checked some e-mail and found this.  One of our viewers, Andy in Fitchburg sent it to me.

He writes:

Hi Cindy,
This Haiku popped into my head today. I guess this winter is starting to feel long...

Winter Haiku

Much snow on the ground
Many cold days will abound
Long winter we wait

We also wait for the snow (and then sleet, freezing rain and rain).  Thanks Andy!
What about you... feeling tiered of winter yet- or do you still say- bring it on?

-Cindy

I'll be there today... my car is FILTHY!  How's yours?  Our expected stretch of dry weather through at least early next week is a great opportunity to get all that salt and sand off my poor car... without the fear of subjecting it to more for at least a few days. 

Do you wash your car much in the winter?  I admit- I'm guilty of 'car neglect' in the winter months.  I realized it was especially bad yesterday when my 3yr old commented that our car looked 'white' (it's not!)

So... on my to do list today- get the car washed!  And I'll be singing that little disco era tune as well- it's Friday after all.

Happy storm free weekend!
-Cindy

Are you as fed up w/the snow as I am?  Last weekend I shoveled, shoveled and shoveled some more!  I tried to put a positive spin on it .. look at all the exercise I was getting, ya riiiiight! I was none too happy!

Well today instead of getting down looking at all this cold, icy, white stuff I decided to join it!  I packed up my 2 kids and their 2 friends and we headed to what we call "snowy mountain" in waltham. 

All the parents lined up warmly in their cars watching their children sledding. Not me!  I geared up for the elements and I wanted IN!

I rushed up the hill and raced down it.  I outran the kids to the top and raced down again.  It took me back to the day when snow wasn't this hassle it is to us adults!

To top the night .. I bought a round of Happy Meals for all .. me included!  It was fun to be a kid for a day ...

"life is fun, get out and play"

Smiley............

Did you read about the rare bird sighting in Gloucester?

Check out this story...

While many people were inside trying to keep warm Saturday morning, birdwatcher Jeremiah Trimble was stepping out of his car at the Eastern Point lighthouse in Gloucester to take a look at the line of gulls perching on the breakwater. It was "absolutely freezing," he said. But what he saw through his binoculars at about 11:30 a.m. was well worth the pain.

"The tenth bird I saw was a small, pure white gull. It was a long ways off, but I was pretty confident in what it was," said Trimble, 30, of Cambridge. "I thought, 'Wow, this is an ivory gull!'"

It was the first sighting of the bird, which usually makes its home in the high Arctic, in more than two decades in Massachusetts, according to officials at the Massachusetts Audubon Society, and hundreds of birdwatchers, including some from hundreds of miles away, have been flocking to Gloucester since then to see it. A second ivory gull was also spotted today in Plymouth, stirring even more excitement among birders.

Ivory gulls grow to be 16 to 17 inches long, with a wingspan of 43 to 47 inches. Their feathers are white, their feet are black, their eyes are black and their bills are bluish at the base, turning grayish green, with a yellow or red tip, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology website. The bird only rarely comes south of the Bering Sea or Canada's Maritime Provinces and typically spends the winter on the ice north of Newfoundland, the website said.

"The ivory gull is about as northern a bird as you can imagine. They really are associated with pack ice and Arctic oceans," said Wayne Petersen, director of the Massachusetts Important Bird Areas program at the society.

Petersen said the birds are a magnet for birdwatchers and in the past few days people from Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Maryland have traveled to Gloucester to get a glimpse of a bird they would normally have to travel to the top of the world to see. Scientists believe that the species is declining so that makes it even more of an attraction, he said.

He said it wasn't clear what brought the two gulls to Massachusetts, but it was probably something in their normal habitat, such as possibly bad weather or a food shortage, that had driven them to wander southwards.

Trimble, whose day job is managing the bird collection at Harvard University, said it was an unusual experience to see a bird that normally lives so far away and has been known to scavenge the scraps from polar bear kills.

"They're pretty amazing birds when you think of it, how they survive that way," he said.

Trimble said he went back to Gloucester Monday and hundreds of people had come to the same parking lot for a glimpse of the bird.

Petersen said there was no telling how long the ivory gulls would stay in the area. "If the living is easy, they may stick around," he said.

Any thoughts as to why they are here?  There are plenty of polar bears, so don't tell me the bears are dying and not killing enough.  What could it be...?

Ever heard of it?... me either until this morning.

Check out our picture of the day this morning from 8:15am sent in by David from Amesbury

He took this on Sunday after the fresh snowfall on the bridge between Newburyport  and Amesbury.

Cool huh!  I love when we get creative pictures in like this.  Enjoy!
-Cindy

Global warming is a theory.  We come from apes is a theory.  The moon is made of green cheese was a theory. The Earth is Flat was a theory.  The best and most well known minds at the time came up with these theories.

This is FACT.

The University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center released conclusive satellite photos showing that Arctic ice is back to 1979 levels.

The earth's temperature peaked in 1998. It's been falling ever since; it dropped dramatically in 2007 and got worse in 2008, when temperatures touched 1980 levels.

Do you remember when the hole in the ozone layer was going to melt Antarctica? We’re safe now.  That was a theory in the nineties.

At December's U.N. Global Warming conference in Poznan, Poland, 650 of the world's top climatologists stood up and said man-made global warming is a media generated myth without basis. Said climatologist Dr. David Gee, Chairman of the International Geological Congress, "For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming?"

http://www.mlive.com/opinion/flint/index.ssf/2009
/01/its_time_to_pray_for_global_wa.html  )

Good Afternoon,

My Name is Chip Zigulis and want to talk to you all about all the snow we have gotten in the past week or two and why is this snow so much to handle the reason for it is where do we put it? I know that alot of you are sick and tired of shoveling this white stuff admit it.

We have gotten:

6-12 feet of Snow all of the weathermen and women need to say: warm weather instead and the weather has gotten worse and worse each and everyday We do not want to hear that Nasty word:"SNOW" if you want to post on this subject then let me hear from you all. I pray that we get read of all of this snow immediately right now and now the sunshine is shiny, this snow will melt down to the ground

snow, snow ,snow, let come together and get this snow out of the Boston Area so that we can get more nice weather to come in the Boston Metro Area.

Send me a blog on this post as soon as possible!!!!

Thanks,

Chip 

If you know how cold the water is off the Cape in the summer, can you imagine how cold it must have been in the Hudson River?

Temperatures in New York City Thursday afternoon were in the low 20s.  The snow had moved away by then, so conditions for flying were very good.  As you know by now, US Airways flight 1549 did a control landing in the river Thursday just before 3:30 pm.  The water temperature was about 41 degrees according to buoy data.  When water is that cold, you will lose body heat rapidly.  You will quickly lose feeling in your extremities and control of your motor skills.  While it is possible to survive in 40 degree water for up to an hour, that time goes down with every struggle or swimming stroke you take.  Strong swimmers have run into trouble in water this cold after as little as 100 feet.  People were rescued very quickly from the water after this landing Thursday, avoiding hypothermia caused drownings. 

Perspective... Cape water temperatures in the summer are typically in the 60s.  That's 20 degrees warmer than the Hudson right now. 

... or in this case Bismarck, ND.  It was -40 degrees Fahrenheit there this morning!  Sure makes me NOT miss my time there!!  Did you know that was where my first on air meteorologist job was back in 1995 (now I'm dating myself)

I point this out to you because that is now where the core of the Arctic air is.  For the past couple of weeks it had been up in Alaska and NW Canada where highs were only about 40 below in Barrow, Alaska several days ago.  At last check it was 6 above in Barrow (same temp as Worcester at 8am) and now 40 in Anchoraqe, Alaska!  40 is warmer than New Orleans this morning!  So yes... that cold air is on the move!

Can you guess where it's heading next?  Yep, into the Northeast... but it will certainly modify as it moves our way.  By tomorrow morning lows will be as cold as near 10 below in SW New Hampshire to around 13 on Nantucket.  We should be close to zero in Boston and the last time we officially were zero or below was back in Jan of 2005.

The saving grace... NOT MUCH WIND... so it won't feel so harsh.  Like I said... 'Oh Geez'!

Brrr...
-Cindy