Winter Storm Warning For Me in Raleigh.... Tonga Eruption. News and Sharing My Thoughts on the Beauty of the Day Here...Waiting for the Winter Weather, Snow, ICE, Sleet...

That's Ice on the wires........

Winter Storm in Raleigh...

... in NC

Charlotte to Triad to the Triangle!

I'm in Raleigh so I will talk on Raleigh.

Think Global, Act Local... 

...satelligte imagery looks like the models showed!

My Winter Storm is on the move.

It's been a busy night in my world with multiple stories going on and we are waiting to see which type of winter weather we get the most of tomorrow. The streets have been brined, it was extremely cold today and gray. As wintry as I can remember it looking. I walked to synagogue today about 3/4 of a mile from where I live and enjoyed staring up at the trees, bare of greenery showing their intricate beauty ... every branch is a sort of poetic symmetry in black and white and shades of gray on a day like today. There's a large private school near my house that has large grounds and it always amazes me that in the winter when you look at the line of trees (all the same) how much each tree has it's own unique beauty yet together they just flow in their beauty. 

The synagogue I attend looks out onto a natural area in the back of our property that always shows off the seasons beautifully. In the Spring wisteria turns everything shades of lavender, in the fall it looks like an advertisement for Autumn in Raleigh and in the winter it's quiet, a few green pines poke through the brown bare branches that allow you see what you can't see in the summer as in the summer it's just a wall of green. Since Covid we are holding services in the large social hall that has many windows that look out on the natural area. People feel safer in a room with high ceilings and more room and I hope after Covid (it is leaving right?) that we continue to pray in that room that has so much natural light and shows off our beautiful landscape.  Sorry no pictures as I don't keep a phone on me on Shabbos and I don't use the phone. It's a really different sort of day and so trying to convey to you how beeautiful it was both in the stark grayness and in the beauty of what I saw while peering out into a natural area that will look very different 12 hours from now.

I'm writing about this because I moved my chair near the window and between praying and staring out at the beautiful view wondering what will be covering it on Sunday (some snow? sleet? ice....) this bright red, orange red thing caught my attention and had to really stare a bit to see it well and yes it was a bird! Okay in Miami this may not be strange but you don't see cardinals like that usually deep in winter round here, once in a while but this was really wild. Nearby was it's mate, not as brightly colored but very big as was the male cardinal. Then I noticed lots of little birds .. my friends call them "snow birds" in that they predict the weather, little birds close to the ground darting about in one large flock that took off and left just in time as a large hawk flew by and then more birds flying about ..........way more than you normally see in the winter time and I smiled. And, I thought "wow, this winter storm is really happening" and I smiled.

It's the little things when you are watching weather. The stillness of the air today, not a pine leaf was moving. Cars were driving about fast, yet there were not joggers out jogging on the busy street and trust me there are always joggers on Saturday even on cold winter days. Inside the synagogue we had a small meal after the service, we talked, chatted with a few people passing through and then walked home through the cold, gray, colorless world.. okay always green from the pine trees and a few magniolas.

I stared at the brine on the highway.... a real sign of "something about to happen" and even the cloud cover changed it's patterns from the walk over to a cloaked sky on the way home, lower than it had looked earlier. 

After Shabbos was over the phone was busy with kids calling, while I checked the models and read NWS discussion, which is insistent that on some level this winter storm will deliver.. something wintry. 

In Iowa, it dumped more snow than they have had in over 50 years. Sometimes, but not always, storms have a sort of history... they overproduce or underproduce consistently. Tomorrow we will see what we will see.

 

I've charged my phone battery packs, I have what I have and will see if we keep power or lose power. I obviously want the storm, the whole shebang winter package it's promising and I know we could lose power as winds are supposed to gust as high as 40 MPH tomorrow after the branches could be covered in Ice. 

Anyone can look at a model and read the NWS discussion, but when you quietly observe the little signs before a storm it seems real in a different way and I needed that today.

So do I get thunder and Ice tomorrow?

When that bad passes over Raleigh on it's way to the coast?

That's the NAM above.

Seriously how do you take that seriously?

You just prepare the best you can...

...and wait to see what will be tomorrow.

OH that's SNOW later in the week!!

A chance of real snow.

We'll see.

I'm loving this winter here in Raleigh.

I'm old school... I like reading discussion.

It changes and is updated.

Words matter.

So with prayers for the Rabbi in Texas...

...and the other hostages.

I pray ...hope... somehow this ends peacefully!

Hope he gets to see his children and wife again.

I don't talk about this often but it's a part of life here, we have a police guard during services. Note a Church nearby also has a police guard outside during services. When my husband got back to Temple for evening services he and his friend found 2 cop cars in our parking lot. Kind of "hey, what's up?" and it turns out they were trying to reach the Rabbi and wanted to check if everything was okay by us. That was nice, but it was also our first clue something was going on in the world out beyond my Winter Storm Bubble I'm in.

I also read about the Tsunami in California from the crazy, wild volcanic eruption in Tonga. While it may not be a huge tsunami, the fact that water level was raised and it was dangerous for swimmers was huge. I mean we always hear of warnings and then the warnings are dropped but not today. 

Crazy day today news wise, as a friend warned me in my WhatsApp... yes, indeed. So I'm going to watch some video from the Tonga situation and go back and forth from CNN to FOX to TWC as I watch things I didn't expect to watch as I thought I'd be doing which was just obsessing on the weather.

Y'all know how much I love geology and so that's big. Here we were worried on Las Palmas and then a Tonga eruption leads to waves actually making it to California and yeah we may have an Ice Storm tomorrow! 

Stay tuned. Hopefully I keep power, if not I'll be on the phone........... 

We will see what we see at daybreak!

Sweet Winter Storm Dreams,

BobbiStorm

@bobbistorm on Twitter and Instagram.

Ps I do think we will get sleet but how much snow, will it rain at the end or turn over to snow or will sleet and freezing rain 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEXP5SNwMrE