Super Grover 2.0, Boxing Day storm, and beyond...
My Yuletide Revellers,
We had the perfect little snow on Tuesday night: about 2 inches of wet stuff on Christmas Eve, which still clung to the bare branches on Christmas morning, but then melted almost completely away through the day.
The next little bit of weather we’re going to get over the next 36 hours… not so perfect.
But first, let me tell you about the best Christmas present ever.
Flying Super Grover 2.0. (Super Grover 2.0 was introduced in 2010 as an investigator, observer, and saver of the world. Motto: “He shows up.”) Here’s a primer if you’re curious.
My love for Grover is well-documented. And my dear sister-in-law, Marika, gifted me with the above-referenced item on this fine day.
Flying Super Grover 2.0 (hereafter referred to as FSG2) features a swiveling neck, movable arms, and a litany of utterances ranging from “Hello Everybodeeee” to “It is now time to unleash our powers of investigation!” But the coolest of his many features is that when you tilt FSG2 at an angle to make him “fly,” he cries, “Up, up, and away!” and then there are whooshing sounds and birdies and all sorts of sounds to simulate what he is hearing during his imaginary journey high above the earth. And FSG2 also sings a cool song, whose lyrics run:
I am furry and blue. I investigate, too.
I am strong and lean.
I am quick to the scene.
I can fly…
The song is jaunty, not wistful, as its lyrics (and the closing ellipses) would suggest.
So thanks, Marika! As you can see from the pictures herein, the gift delighted me and confounded The Bunk. In fact, it delighted me so much that I intend to write a letter to Sesame Street (in which I will express my age in months) pitching my idea for a major motion picture featuring FSG2. I will, of course, share this letter with you.
Something ... too much of this. The weather:
Tomorrow (Wednesday 12/26) will be miserable. Seriously, nasty.
Precipitation begins as snow by 8am, accumulating maybe an inch before mixing with and changing over to sleet (10am – noon), and then mixing with and changing over to rain (by early afternoon). Winds will pick up throughout the day, and will gust above 35mph by the evening. We may see some sleet mixing back in with the rain overnight Wednesday into Thursday.
Temperatures will be fairly steady in the mid 30s throughout the day and evening tomorrow, and wind chills will fall through the 20s.
Total precipitation from this system will be an inch and a half.
Potential hazards from this storm include road slickness (most treacherous roughly 8am-noon), urban and flash flooding, moderate wind damage, and widespread air travel delays in the Great Lakes region and along the eastern seaboard (places like Philadelphia, NYC, and Boston). Areas including extreme northern Pennsylvania and New Jersey could see 6-8 inches of snow accumulation out of this storm, and areas in central Pennsylvania and the Poconos could see 3-6 inches.
[Note: there are a lot of moving parts with this system, and a slight shift eastward or westward would be a dramatically different forecast in terms of precipitation type and winds. The forecast above is based, as always, on my best semi-educated guess.]
Thursday will be overcast and windy with clearing toward evening. High 40, low 26.
Friday looks sunnier and less windy with highs in the upper 30s and lows in the mid 20s.
Saturday brings another small storm that could deliver 2-3 inches of snowfall, especially toward evening. High 34, low 22.
Sunday will be clearing and brisk with highs around freezing and lows dipping into the lower 20s. And that’s what to expect for much of the following week, really (Monday 12/31/12 through Friday 1/4/13).
Next really good chance of snow is that January 9-10 action I mentioned before – still looking feasible and rather potent.
Stay tuned for updates…