Predicting a hard winter?

Well we are already having strange weather in August near Dallas, Rain and cool weather (80's and 90's for highs in August ARE cool weather for us). wouldn't suprise me if we had a hard winter. Last year winter was just about non-existant. Are we due??? who knows?

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Apocalyptic and Survival Fiction - Readers and writers welcome

Low temps in the 20's and 30's, snow and even worse; freezing rain.

I know, I'm a transplant from MN and WI. I used to laugh at TX winters, but you have to remember, the entire city of Dallas has 2 plows and they have to be hooked up to the city trucks when needed. This part of the country is just not prepared for snow and cold as it usually doesn't have to be.
Nobody has a decent winter coat and the only boots available are cowboy boots. Snow shovels? no store stocks them.

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Apocalyptic and Survival Fiction - Readers and writers welcome

Well we had snow in March here in 2008 a week or so before my baby was born. Enough my dc made a respectable snow man and everything was covered... no not what some of you'll get...

but we do get temps in the teens... it is all relative.

I am sorting through and gathering blankets for the windows.... 2 rooms here are lined in windows...

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Lynn

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
— P.J. O'Rourke

I'm in Lincoln County, TN, and it has been dry here. Not as dry as last year (118-year drought), but definitely a 50-60 year drought. We are losing our last poplar tree to borers, so never had quite as many leaves to start and it is turning now. It's really drought we are losing it to, cuz that's what made it susceptible. We are also battling to keep our huge old maple shade tree in the yard. It has gotten vermiculum wilt, and is also a drought victim because the stress opened it to disease. We are fighting back by applying phosphate and potash and keeping the carpenter ants out of it, which is about all one can do to help.

My pecans got nailed by late frost last year, are trying to regrow, and now this year it is dry enough that the early nuts just pretty much fell off. That's two straight years without pecans. We've lived here 17 years, never have missed a year on pecans before these two.

We got 2 weeks of glorious low-humidity 80s in August, but now are back in humidity and 90. Fay is swamping Florida and it looks like it will even rain on Memphis, and yet we do not expect to get any rain from it.

The bullfrogs on our ponds quit singing way early this year, around late May. Usually they are good to go into July. The barn swallows left a week early this year, and the geese started honking and flocking up in early August instead of mid- to late August. I am already laying in wood now for a cold one ahead, based on that freak cool spell this month.

Two straight years of drought have been exceptionally hard on my meat goat herd. It seems even every day vigilence has not been enough to keep from having losses this year. The pattern of long dry spells followed by a couple days with an inch or two of rain has made for a couple huge worm hatches on the place, and even with deworming, my herd has had losses. That coupled with less nutritious grass has been hard on them. I'll carry them through until early November, when I look to do a major cull and cut back to maybe a third of what I have now.

Still, the goats have been bountiful for us and provided us with a freezer full of meat at a time when store meat prices are high. I just hate to see them stressed by the drought and heat so much. It is approaching the time when I normally cut fall hay -- right around Labor Day -- but I probably will hold off until mid to late September again this year due to drought, and hope for some rains to flush out more grass.

It's all a part of a cycle, and things will probably get moister in future years, but with fire ants bountiful now and armadillos moving into my area -- and the dry look of things -- I can't help but wonder if at some fundamental level we in the SE are not seeing some longer-term shift in weather.

That's been one of the cool things about living in one place for this long. I can tell the variations in the basic pattern now and note the ones that carry over from year to year. Sorry to go on like this, but your post just elicited all this from me!

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Jim Steele
Sweetpea Farms
"To avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing." -- Robert Gates

I've been saying for weeks now that the cold is comming early. The geese hit the migration paths way early this year. I was seeing them overnight in the school yards and even the grassy areas of strip malls, baseball diamonds and businesses. I haven't seen many geese flying this week, just a few stragglers, but I am keeping my eyes open for the second wave. Once that happens I will be sealing up the windows and going through the winter check list. I have already pulled out and looked over winter coats, boots, gloves, blankets and sweaters to see what needs to be replaced or repaired.

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Life isn't like a box of chocolates... it's more like a jar of jalapeno's. What you do today, might burn your butt tomorrow

Here where I live in the central part of the state, it's been about 3 weeks since last rain, and that wasn't more than a temporary soaking that didn't do much for the rainfall shortage here. And we're lucky, cause some parts of the state haven't had rain since back in early July, and not much then. Leaves are turning color all over the state, but mostly, it's due to the dry conditions. Tobacco is being cut in some areas, but others still have about a week to go, so pretty on spot for that. We had a cool spell last week, but it's back to heat and humidity. Haven't seen any ducks/geese in a long while here. They usually come through here due to all the lakes and ponds. The hummers are sucking all the feeders dry though. We're still trying to coax our garden through the dry spell. Don't look good though. Got tired of trying to put up all the apples, so had the neighbors come in and pick for themselves, and we still have apples. We've never had this kind of yield from our trees. It's almost freaky.

Here in SE Ontario, we haev had a lot of rain and I still some change in colour in some of the leaves. It's also cooler at night and some mornings, though the days are still relatively warm. Chris

IF the fruit and nut trees are a good sign--we will need lots of wood..QB

It's been a relatively cool August here too. We've hardly had any days above 90*. It's been highs in the 70's and 80's with lows in the 60's and a lot of rainy weather. Have seen a lot of geese, ducks and dove migrating out already and they don't usually start till next month or so and August is usually in the 100's.

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"Be still sad heart, and cease repining. Behind the clouds, the sun is shining. Thy fate is the common fate of all. Into each life, a little rain must fall." -Longfellow

NOAA s long term forecast still predicts a warmer than normal winter for most of the country.

Ravenlost, have you also noticed our oak trees in MS are loaded with acorns? Heard a saying that is a sign of a hard winter coming.

About three weeks ago, I went outside and thought,hmmm, today is the first day of Fall. I am located in NorthEastern Washington, just W of the Idaho panhandle. We generally have hot summers and snowy winters. So I am told. This is my first full year here having moved from Seattle- to get away from the masses of people and onto acreage for less money.

The locals are saying the winter is supposed to be like last year, hope not, we had 4 feet of snow at my house.........and it didn't all go away until May.....

I don't think that we will. The deer didn't have multitudes of twins this year like they did last year. It seemed as though all of the does had twins and some had triplets. It was amazing.

But, in the long run, there is not much I can do about how the weather turns out. I just hope that I get all prepared in time.

Staci

The new Farmers Almanac is now on sale:

http://www.farmersalmanac.com

The website shows KY in the frigid wet wild snowy graph for this winter... whoopee.

hmm..........usually, when it looks like this,
its going to be a tough winter:

OH MY GOODNESS!!! The flocks are here! And it is only August!
I can't see my lawn! Only black birds everywhere and in all of the trees! Out of nowhere too. Luckily DH mowed the field the other day so there are lots of bugs to fuel them up!!
In August!!!????