Crazy

Thats been the weather around here the past 3 days. A quote from Skillings blog says it best:

"Since Christmas morning, the city has weathered severe cold, an ice storm, dense fog, heavy rain, rapid snowmelt, urban and river flooding, high winds, severe thunderstorms and record warmth."

Chicago also has set a new record for wettest year ever! 50.83 inches is our new yearly total. The 1st time in recorded history we have gotten over 50 inches. September with 13.63 inches [mostly from 1 event] was a huge contributing factor to this.

The after xmas chase event ended up being mostly a straight-line wind event for Illinois. A few tornado reports came out and some of the damage reports could suggest a brief spin up. In my opinion the whole event was over hyped. I saw a potential, but wasn't totaly sold on it otherwise I would have been lured away from family plans. Although I do wish I was home for the local thunderstorms but down in KY they had record warmth so the air felt nice and I got to drive with the windows down.

On the way home the FROPA was impressive. Sudden intense winds and a brief bout of blinding rain was followed by a temp drop from 55 to 43 in less than 2 minutes. About 20 minutes later it was 37 and when I arrived home it was 28 with west winds gusting to over 45mph

Looks like we have a few calm days ahead...time to take the truck to the wash and get a coat of wax on it...GFS wants to bring in another deep west coast trough by this weekend and the start of another active pattern could be in the cards. The ridge I saw last week is non existent now. Ill take the active patterns anyday. Still the possibility of a little clipper system affecting us thursday but those usually dont bring significant snows.

As far as Xmas goes...got mostly cash and a couple other small items...no big chase gear. The cash will go to truck parts mostly. The tax return may provide me a chance to get a new piece of equipment.

Hope everyone had a good holiday, Happy new years to all!