It was a dark and very rattling windy night

I have never slept well, and after two decades sleeping - or trying to sleep on assorted aircraft carriers, minesweepers and the such, I still can't get a good night's sleep. The slightest sounds wakes me and I am up and roaming to investigate....  am I the only one who can't sleep well?
So I am usually up a few times nightly, as I still don't sleep too well these days.  It was no different last night during a wind storm that ripped through western new York. 
The lights were off a few times during the wee hours, and even the extreme darkness with no lights, that woke me. This is really unusual for us as we rarely get anything like that of high windy conditions for our area. It does however affect other western NY areas. That was followed soon after by a power outage lasting almost two hours, not to mention the high whistling howling winds, sounding more like an off-key old opera singer, or a deadbeat train.... and tomorrow's forecast is expected to be more of the same.

 

A warning to my friends in Europe, to prepare now by tidying up your yards and around the house, or your neighbors will looking at your things blown into their yards! 
Above all, stay safe everyone! 
This all blew - and still howling through as I type - through during the night. The good thing is that now almost all the snow is gone due to days of all-day rains again....
Now to the chore of resetting the electric clocks. I've just forgotten how to set the analog clocks....

On the drone note, I now have three functional drones: my mini 4 pro, an Air 2 from my brother, and a Mavic 3 pro. I also have a mini 5 pro, though it's on crutches. With Winter cold all around and constant high winds starting up, so far in this early Winter I've only had one chance to test fly them, but all's good but quiet on the drone front. Now till Spring, or a rare above 50-degree day with low winds, would be very nice indeed.

 

The seeStar was out months ago, getting some more snaps, till the cold front returned. We tried getting even one of three comets in our night sky! Unfortunately, not too successful thanks to the clouds rolling in....  as usual. 

 The sunsets on the upper Niagara river are still marvelous!

 

Sights and Memories of MY City by the Bay

Right now the winds of western New York are blowing past 30 mpg and while we have experienced in walked in winds past 50mph, it's still interesting to be inside and hear the howling winds! 

I am always remembering my hometown and its sights, colors, events and Beauty! How can I not think of it when I have so many fabulous image files and memories?

What is your favorite city or place in this vast place we call Home?

 

Western New York Winter Storm (Yet Again)

Since we have returned from Michigan four months ago, there has been a "winter storm" seemingly every week! 

The cracked slabs of thick river ice

A few more nights of frozen nights and you'll be able to walk
on the river to the Falls, and beyond to Canada!

The car is covered with snow....   wait a day and the snow removed naturally by the heat of day. Wait another few day's and it's covered with snow again!

The news has been going overboard with scenes of the last huge snowstorm of 1977, when the area was hit with massive snowfalls, even burying cars, with another 10-20 feet of the white stuff on top of the vehicles!!! WoW!

It's been snowing for a few hours, then the huge flakes began to dance its way from the sky. So gorgeous to see, but such a pain to drive in! But in more simple times it would be great, but not in this modern age!

There's a RIVER somewhere in this image!

Across the Niagara and blowing snow, 

is Grand Island

We shoveled our way out of the house then took a little walk. Everything is white, and everything is just gorgeously covered with the snowflakes. We wanted to take our cameras but I didn't want to sizzle the electronics neither! I was snapping with my smartphone, and it was being covered with a bit of snow, and the screen and controls were going crazy! 

My phone is a "waterproof" S5 smartphone, but am guessing it didn't like the snow since it was zooming all by itself plus snapping a picture every half of a second for about a total of ten snaps!! Fortunately the device did capture some pixs correctly, though I am sure this will be my last samsung device since I found out a few months ago my S5 will not have its androidOS updated any longer. 

Since that was discovered, I get so many android error messages daily, plus screens that flash, bluetooth that doesn't stay on, galleries that don't want to display its images, and images snapped that have disappeared into thin virtual air, among many other annoying problems. If I knew this would happen, I would have NEVER purchased a samsung anything!! 

What do you say to that samsung??? I used to toot your smartphone and tablet's abilities all over my social media, then I dropped that a few months ago due to lack of time and still trying to "live". I am almost sorry I built up my amazing sharp samsung imagery (like those here) and everytime a iphone user hears my ability to snap a smartfone pix simply by saying "shoot", and being able to snap a sunset and having it look completely golden without any need to touch any button for special apps or effects. Well, I won't be doing that anymore! One of my daily chores is to clear the S5 cache, and of course even that action does nothing now  :(

These trees are gorgeous in their frozen state

While we were out it was snowing and by time we made our second walk, probably just under an mile, our foot steps were already almost covered by the newly falling snow. It just takes a measly 12 minutes if we're walking slowly, but we rarely walk slowly!

Even frozen the Niagara looks marVeLous!

Tomorrow the weather will be more extreme and lower temps, almost all day in single-digit temperatures (all below 4°f) with windchill temps of -18°  at sunrise with 18mph winds, and a nice temperature of 0° and a windchill of -25° , dropping throughout the afternoon until it levels out at sunset (set sets here at 5:25pm) of almost -16° , dropping even more through the evening till just before midnight, it'll be a windchill of almost -30°f!!!

As I was typing this, I looked out the windows for a second to observe complete white-out conditions!!!

Please be CAREFUL while driving in icy conditions

Stay safe, careful and if you are in an area with some of this white weather we are and have been "enjoying", then be sure your headlights are on, and drive slow. You don't want to be a sliding steel carriage in those slick wet and snowy roads!