End January.

The month closes itself down, and even though there was no forecast these past few days, there was weather: rain Tuesday and Wednesday, fog bookending that rain, church spire out the kitchen window fuzzing over and clearing itself back out, then doing that again. Today suggests, just barely, the warm they say's coming tomorrow, but the sun's still low, the air's still chilly. Maybe I don't remember winter. The daffodils don't either, apparently, now out of the ground six inches.

How it went: on Tuesday, the novel was a disaster. On Wednesday, in the warmer fog, it seemed better, somehow. On Thursday I gave up and sent it on in.

I don't have any idea what happened yesterday. There was sun. It was cold.

We've sold, it seems, the Elam house. Cleaned it out today. Brought two clumps of the bluebells over, Mrs. Whoever's bluebells, who planted them thirty years ago and which have now naturalized ad nauseum across the yard, and which I do not even much care for in the way that I care for, say, dogwoods or daffodils or azaleas, but somehow my house would not be my house without these indestructible bluebells, and so there they now are, on the northeast side of the front porch, and though now is no time to transplant, I think they'll hang on. I'd be satisfied, I believe, if thirty or fifty years from now these ones here were Mr. Whoever's bluebells.

Hard to leave that yard. Hard to leave that outbuilding, wherein most of the novel etcetera.

And, friends and fans of novels, somewhere in all of this John Updike up and died, and I'm nobody to eulogize a man whose novels I've read only four of (the terrific Rabbit quartet) and whose stories I've read only a very few of, but it has landed on me, has registered on the barometer here at ANYLF, has left the interns around here wondering if there will ever be another American Novelist in quite that way, if all this digital panjandrum now means that nobody like him will every really have the chance to come along again, if now, these days, we don't really know who Richard Ford or Michael Chabon is in quite the same way because we haven't got the time nor the inclination in quite the same way. This, from the terrific New Yorker remembrance site, is Updike's fifth rule of sound book reviewing:

"If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it’s his and not yours?"

Warmer tomorrow, then cold again. Rain out there in the forecast. January ends. Let's us all learn to fail -- or cop to the fact that we have failed -- next month, and the next, and the one after that.

Sump Pump.

Looks like we'll be getting a little more rain than predicted as this ice storm slides on past to our north -- maybe an inch over the next couple of days. Maybe not, too, friends and fans of precip, so if we don't go all Noah's Ark out there, don't freak out on me. We just do the forecasting over here. We don't do the knowing. What we can tell you is that it's raining here at 709 Fairmont, and cold, and the birds are noisy about the whole thing out there, and just putting one foot out the door tells you we missed ice and snow by not that much. Porch thermometer pegged right around 38. Low, low sky. Radar says more rain coming. So does the dog, who's already gone back to bed.

Last time we got good rain the basement filled up with several inches of water, and ANYLF paid $89 for the privilege of having a plumber come out and shake the sump pump and have the thing kick right on. Then there was yes of course the sly $89 grin. Sumbitch, said ANYLF. There, there, little boy, said the plumber.

I have each and every intention of, ah, shaking my own sump pump from here on out. Cheers, friends and fans of weather, to learning the creaks and groans of a different house.

Winter Weather.

Yeah. It was definitely sixty degrees on Friday -- read on the front porch all afternoon with the dog. And it was surely better than fifty degrees yesterday: even the normally January-reticent AMR thought it'd be nice to have breakfast out back, facing into the sun. But last night we picked up what I'd have to report would be a chill in the air, and then later last night I'd have to report that we picked up quite the wind, and then now I'd have to report that it's gray again, cold again, winter blown back in just in time for this last week of the month.

I've been much enjoying the NOAA Forecast Discussion of late, and thought, friends and fans of weather, that you might just, too, so here's some Sunday reading for your grayed-over pleasure (and, perhaps, for your midweek use):

TUESDAY THROUGH WEDNESDAY STILL OFFERS A FAIRLY INTERESTING WEATHER SCENARIO FOR THE NORTHERN COUNTIES. PRECIPITATION EXPECTED TO INCREASE IN INTENSITY AND AREAL COVERAGE ACROSS THE NORTH TUESDAY MORNING AS A S/W IN FAST ZONAL FLOW MOVES TOWARD/JUST NORTH OF THE AREA TUESDAY. THIS S/W WILL BACK 850MB FLOW TO THE SW...INCREASING ISENTROPIC LIFT IN THE WEST AND NORTH. MEANWHILE PARENT HIGH (1035MB) ALONG THE MASON-DIXON LINE WILL MAINTAIN A COOL DRY SUBCLOUD LAYER AT THE INITIAL PRECIP ONSET. THE EVAPORATIVE COOLING OCCURRING WITH THE RAIN THROUGH THE SUBCLOUD LAYER MAY LEAD TO A 2-4 HOUR WINDOW OF FREEZING RAIN ACROSS THE FAR NW AND FAR NORTHERN PIEDMONT TUESDAY MORNING. DUE TO LIGHT PRECIP AMOUNTS...NOT EXPECTING WIDESPREAD ICING OR TRAVEL PROBLEMS. HOWEVER WOULD NOT BE SURPRISED TO RECEIVE A REPORT OR TWO OF SLICK SPOTS ON BRIDGES/OVERPASSES OR A SLIGHT GLAZE IN THE TREE TOPS. MAY NEED TO ISSUE AN ADVISORY IF PRECIP APPEARS TO BE MORE EXTENSIVE THAN CURRENT THINKING. PLAN TO END FREEZING RAIN THREAT BY MID DAY...BUT MAY LINGER A BIT LONGER NEAR THE VIRGINIA BORDER. WILL NEED TO MONITOR THICKNESSES TREND IN LATER MODEL RUNS AS COOL DRY AIR ASSOCIATED WITH MODIFIED POLAR AIR MASS WILL LIE JUST TO OUR NORTH.

Fifty Degrees.

Whine and ye shall receive: we got our fifty degrees. One more warm day tomorrow before we go back to the weather we deserve for at least a few weeks more yet. Mostly I wrote through my chance to sit on the back porch and pant into the sun with the dog, but we did get a nice winter sunset right there at the end, friends and fans of unmitigated beauty.

Another long day's coming tomorrow. I like these long days. I'm dead damn tired, but I like these long days.

Holding Cold.

That low sun tracked left to right across the kitchen once more today, which is good, since that means most of the rest of the few things we understand about our corner of the universe are probably still holding true, as well. Our cold continues. I need a snap day wherein I can sit on the porch, even for a few minutes. Fifty degrees is all I ask, really. Fifty degrees and not much wind. Drop it back into the twenties overnight, if you like. Just give me a shot at our south-facing deck, a folding chair, a cup of coffee. I know it's January. I know that what comes next is not much better. I know, too, that come August I will be out front of the parade, asking for just one day where I might get to wear a winter hat again. I will sing songs to the glories of long sleeves. And I'll keep the hat and sleeves, for now, thank you. I just want to wear them outside more often, inside less often.

That said, the dog did spin me through the park this afternoon, and in shirt and shirt and shirt and jacket and hat and gloves, it was nearly pleasant.

The revision continues. The revision continues. The revision continues. The sun's still low in that winter sky.

Inaugural Snow.

Storm Watch.

Friends and fans of weather, we here at ANYLF are happy to bring you—at least to report to you—the season's first Winter Storm Watch. You'll note, savvies, that it's not a warning yet: Austin Caviness and the gang over at WXII (today's chosen fancies) can explain this better than I can, or at the very least more informedly and meteorologically, but it comes to this: the clouds out there now are not what we should be interested in. Rather, later this evening, we're going to get a new low hiccupped out of the mountains and headed for the coast, which should wrap some moisture back around the general vicinity of 27401 and thereabouts, giving, they think, Greensboro and points south and east a good shot at some snow. NOAA has us between 2 and 4, but that's just fancy governmental guesswork. This has all the trappings of a classic southern snow: They know it's going to snow, and they think they almost know where, but depending on sixteen very important and secret factors of weather forecasting, the snow could end up almost anywhere. Add in that tomorrow's a school day—after a long weekend, mind you—and what it all means is that there's very little chance we get what they're forecasting, which is let's say two inches. Rather, we'll get nothing, or a dusting, or six inches. This is a live-from-the-salt-truck kind of day on the local newses. Stand-ups from the line of school busses. Superintendents reminding everyone of the complex plan, which is no plan at all: try not to drive the school busses in the snow. Oh, and it gets better: we may not know for sure what's up until mid-morning tomorrow, which means the schoolies may either have to pull the trigger on shutting it down with very little snow on the ground, or run the risk of having seven zillion fourth graders stuck in the gym while their angry parents kick in the once-a-year four wheel drive on their Outbacks and bravely slog forth to retrieve them.


I'd say, for the most eager among you, the thing to do today would be to make a cup of tea and watch the early evening local news. That'll be good for a warmup. Then head outside once an hour or so, look up at those oranged nighttime city clouds, take a whiff of the air, decide for yourselves. Then maybe have a late-night nightcap and maybe, maybe, it'll be snowing, and you can think back on all those days when you had, oh, I don't know, an Australia poster due the next day, and you'd only really drawn in the outline, and had miles to go on things like exports and national anthems and climate averages and flora and fauna, and you would have given anything, anything, for a forecast like today's. It doesn't mean you don't still have to do the poster, of course. You do. You have to stay up late and try to finish. But hanging out there on the horizon, people, and this is all you can ever hope for, is the slightest, slightest chance of a reprieve.

Still Winter.

A word of advice: If you should happen to wake up, say, on a Sunday, and go outside and discover that it is not, in fact, 13 degrees any more, but rather 33, or even 34, or 35, do not decide hey! it's warm! and go dogwalking with no jacket out toward a field with no treeline cover and terrific exposure to the westerly wind bringing in all this almost snow.

It's warmer. But it is not, friends and fans of weather, warm.

I will say that the little outside shed heats up much more nicely in the 33 degrees than it does in the 13 degrees. Which is to say, it heats up. Earlier in the week I was wearing all the shirts there are.