Weather Excitement, Chapel Hill style

I grew up in northeast Ohio. During the month of January, it would sometimes snow every day.  Once, in college at Kent State, the high temperature was -5 degrees (we still went to our college classes).  Rarely was anything cancelled. 

So, now I've moved south and I get totally amused here by the excitement that even the thought of snow generates in Chapel Hill.  A few times at school in the past years, kids have been sent home early because of impending snow (usually didn't happen).  Sometimes, it snowed and melted by 9:00 am, and the entire school day was cancelled.  On a snow day, businesses close, accidents happen, grocery stores run out of bread and milk over nothing!  The best Girl Scout cookie booth I ever ran was in front of a grocery store when snow was in the forecast.  Gotta stock up on the essentials!

We should have had a cookie booth today!   If you look at the above weather map, it's raining in the area, but school is now on a two hour delay.   It's actually the workday that's delayed---all the better.  We haven't had one flake of snow all winter, so the news stations are loving this!

(I spoke too soon. As I peek outside my window now at 8:30 pm, the flakes are starting to stick to the grass, so this truly is exciting!)

How much snow do you see in the picture to the left?
This made the WRAL headlines.

Part of me wishes for this!

Crack, then Crash

I promised a followup story to my Friday blog.  On Friday, I was looking forward to weather that was slightly more exciting than the drought-filled, 95 degree days that have seemed to be the norm.  I had forgotten what a drenching rain was like, and missed Greg Fishel's dire weather warnings on WRAL.  This weekend, Hurricane Irene was all in the news and was satisfying my weather needs, just through the internet/television screens.  We were not in the direct path. (New York City was being evacuated, but not us!)  I felt safe inland, but the weather map really was intensely riveting. 
      For Chapel Hill (again, being out of the direct path) this was 'hurricane-lite'.  


So what happened to us on Saturday?  Although this was not the drenching, 100 mile an hour full blown hurricane, there were a few moments of wind.  The wind was random--one minute nothing, and the next minute, small limbs were falling, trees bending, and if you were outside, you felt the urge to run for cover.  It was during one of those moments that I heard it.   (I was safely inside).


Crack    (This where you feel vulnerable and suddenly look up in dreadful anticipation of the next sound.)

Crash (right into the corner of the house)   Pictures say everything.  

Maybe I really shouldn't wish for memorable weather. On the bright side, it could have been worse.
I truly feel for those who endured much, much worse than we did. 

Memorable Weather

The weather has been sort of boring all summer.  We talked about the heat (100s), but there's been only sluggish misery--no trees crashing, power outages, torrential rain, until now-- hurricane season.  We have been lucky enough for about 10 years to avoid recent storms, but it's hard to ever forget Hurricane Fran and Hurricane Floyd back in the 90s.

 Fran came to Chapel Hill at night in 1996.  Trees landed on neighbor's rooftops and across roads on our street.  There was no power at our house after that for 5 days!  The night of the storm was terrifying (kids slept through it, though), and I felt lucky to be alive the next day. 

Hurricane Floyd in 1999 did not affect the Chapel Hill area (except the kids got one day off of school).  Eastern North Carolina was hit with torrential rains, and devastating flooding. There were 35 deaths.













The hurricane in the news right now is Irene.  The path takes it inland a bit so the outer banks area is expected to take the brunt of the winds.  Heavy rain is predicted in the eastern part of the state.  I feel for the people living out there and hope they have taken necessary precautions---evacuating if needed.  I'm not worried at all about Chapel Hill--and currently am grateful for where we live.  I'll let you know on Sunday how this all turns out. 

Check out the local art scene

David and I have a ritual.  Once a month, we plan to not worry about cooking supper and just go to the local Chapel Hill-Carrboro Art Walk.  Tonight, all kinds of edible delicacies awaited us at each art gallery---pita chips with hummus, vegies and dip, apples and grapes, several types of crackers, many cheese selections, creme filled pastries, chocolate chip cookies, and the most important, wine.  I will say that since I'm gluten-free, I could only admire a lot of these from a distance, but my husband had a fantastic meal. 

      I do love the art on the Art Walk, in addition to the food.  Each art show is completely different in style and presentation from the one before.  One never, ever knows what to expect.  Words don't do them justice, so I've posted a few of the pictures.  I especially loved the show with the cat painting and the horse painting.  This artist started when she was 50 after her kids grew up, and is quite good!  She's won several awards!

"The Meadow"

This is my first post, and I don't know where to begin----life is so full and complex, so how do I narrow my thoughts down to a few paragraphs? I thought I would begin by saying that my own children are all adults, or so it seems by their birthdays, so to give back and make my life more fun, I do mentor a 10 year old girl through the Blue Ribbon Mentor Advocate program. We get together a couple of times a week. Yesterday, we went to 'The Meadow' which is a delightful place just a few blocks down from where we live. There is no longer a direct path there, so with the neighbors' permission, we walked through driveways, and under canopies of trees to arrive at the open field, wild flowers, birds, and bugs. Alana (my mentee), Andorra (my daughter) and I walked completely around the meadow, splashed in Morgan Creek, walked over the new greenway bridge, and studied the plant life carefully. It couldn't have been a nicer outing! I love Chapel Hill for its greenways and open spaces!  I didn't take my camera, so these photos are from Andorra's computer from a meadow visit a while back.