And More Unsettled...

Yesterday went from unsettled to more unsettling.
N. is not the only person who dislikes sudden schedule changes.
Being a midwesterner at heart, I dislike missing commitments.
Even when I have good reason. So following is a photo-essay of why I missed class last night.

January 31, 2008

Dear Professor N.,


Yesterday was a most unsettling day!
This is what it looked like at about 1 PM,
as N. and I were eating lunch.
The storm clouds were sweeping across the Sandia front and into our valley. Still, the snow showers came off and on, and the temperature was about 33 degrees.






At 2 PM, the snow that had covered my driveway was melting in places.
Henry the Big Red Truck had dried himself off by basking in the sunlight that appeared and disappeared as the clouds continued to move briskly across Los Pecos Ridge. So I decided to take a shower and get ready to go. Piece of cake, I thought. I will make it to class.



But when I got out of the shower, my driveway looked like this! Yikes! The temperature had dropped to 23 degrees in half an hour! After consultation with the radio traffic reports, with my husband in town, and with the carpool driver for Machon, and after getting an e-mail from the Sandia Labs East Mountain Drive Updates, we decided that home was definitely the best place to stay. Bruce and MLC even came home early.
We settled in with a video and popcorn to enjoy the blizzard.


And then, as the temperature continued to drop, the wind came up. It stopped snowing over Los Pecos Ridge.
We could see the sky clearing to the west, even as snow continued to fall in Tijeras and in the pass. It did not seem so bad at home, but we could see that the pass would be windy and treacherous.





As the temperature continued to drop,
the cold front came through, with winds strong and fierce. You can see the snow being whipped from north to south along the trees in the high meadow.

The temperature was 16 degrees at this point, and the wind chill was such that in 10 minutes, unexposed skin would be subject to frostbite.

Our road out was drifted. I could probably have gotten into town, but I would not have gotten Henry up the hill later, when coming home. And walking two miles up the hill in this wind would have been life-threatening.

I think I made the right decision.


This morning, we had 1 degree and 5 degrees.
In the predawn, the temperature was 5 degrees above zero. The sky was perfectly clear.

And most spectacularly, Venus and Jupiter were only one degree apart, as they near conjunction in the eastern sky. In the picture, Venus is a faint dot to the left of the tree which is to the left of the right post. If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you will be able to see both planets.

The weather is still unsettled. Cold, with strong winds, is the order of the day. But it should warm up tomorrow. Just in time for another storm to roll in from California this weekend.

Would you accept this excuse?