White Snow Again in western New York

Well, after a few days of "nice weather" in western New York (WNY), we have snow on the ground again. It's not much...  probably less than an inch, but it's yet another white scene as we are looking out the window. The temperatures however, have been at freezing during the day and colder at night for many weeks!

As discussed after the Buffalo 2022 Winter Blizzard that claimed many lives as power was lost in many areas, if you find yourself without power and don't have a gas heater, you can use a camping tent to stay warm. Use blankets to cover the tent to better insulate the tent for a more efficient warm tent! 

Don't have a tent? 

Use your available furniture to provide support for your blankets to form a makeshift tent! You've seen kids do it to create a fortress, now YOU can do the same to stay warm during power outages in Winter! Even a kitchen or dining room table would provide a thick roof, then hang blankets off the sides then crawl inside and stay warm! It won't be the most comfortable bed but it could see you surviving a winter storm of a few days or till the power grid to your area is restored! 

If your gas heater is still operating well, no matter how cold it is, remember you need ventilation to move the air around to prevent the chances of carbon monoxide building up within the living areas where your gas heater is located. This can be the situation for any type of gas heater!

Just stay safe and always be aware of the cold in your home and while out on the roads! 

Stay safe wherever you are! 

Take a few minutes to make an emergency kit to leave in the car during the Winters. This kit could consist of a thick blanket, a few thick coats, sweaters, thick pants, etc, and a few snack bars, water, a fully charged phone and possibly a power bank with usb cables for your phone, flashlights or what I like better: a headlamp so your hands will be kept available to do other things, a safety marker, flares or safety lights, etc. 

We purchased solar batteries last year which charge using foldable portable solar panels to charge these solar batteries, and we are shocked but pleased to know that even with snowy overcast days, we will get a trickle charge input to our batteries and though it's a tiny amount, it still charges our batteries! Recently we also purchased a small unit that will jumpstart our car battery, and also has an air pump, a bright light, and also usb connections. This is great for using in the car and now anytime we are roadtripping, we ensure this is in the car also.

If you have other tips/advice for others, feel free to comment and describe your best tools, ideas, and things you'd have to keep safe and warm during any emergency situation! Hope this helps and you'll never need to use these tips or items, BUT if you ever do, you're prepared!

Above all, stay safe at home or while out on the road!

Road Trip Snowscapes Memories

This isn't recent but I can imagine this would be a good example of how some roads of the area would appear right about now. Just returned from testing a [yet again] new camera at the Falls, and will post a few later. A surprisingly nice sunny day with rainbows at the Falls and warm sunlight! No worries; I hear later during the week it'll be high winds again and cold. Tell me something new....

My Frozen Upper Niagara Moonscape

Another Day has come and gone. Did you know it's been 1195 days since the pandemic began? What I cannot believe is they're saying covid will be around for a loooong time, and will be so common it'll be treated just like the flu. Covid19 is not a flu!!

Went out again today to freeze a little bit more. With the blowing wind, the windchill is down to the low-20s but the temperatures has been like this for many weeks! It's not the coldest I've been out in chilly weather, and probably will not be the last. I am just glad the cameras aren't affected too much by the cold!

This scene is the icy upper Niagara River of western New York again! In previous years, just about ALL of the river is frozen. This is the first Winter I've seen less than half of the river iced over. 

Doesn't this lower portion look like a moonscape?

 

 

 

 

 

Just love the upper Niagara River in the Winter!

Thoughts on an Icy Chilling Day

Weeks ago we were hit with yet another wind storm that lasted days. Though this time we didn't see any downed trees in our immediate area, it wasn't the same for most of western New York (WNY). To give you an idea of how strong these winds were, there is a favorite spot we like hiking in the summer. This riverwalk goes under the Buffalo Peace Bridge leading to Canada and I have posted pictures previously somewhere of the fabulous views from this walkway, which consists of cement blocks placed together to form the foundation and walking surface of this riverwalk. Well, portions of this trail has been closed for some months due to a very strong wind storm that blew through the area last year during the winter, blowing and pushing huge blocks of ice over the walkway, and that action displacing many of the cement blocks, making the trail unusable. Well, it's happened again and now those blocks of cement that make up the riverwalk has been literally torn apart by Nature and the forces of the wind even before the repair work could be completed! 

No pixs of the riverwalk BUT here's wind-pushed snowballs!!

Nature may be beautiful, but it is also powerful, and all that which is taken from Nature, will surely be taken back by Nature eventually!

A walkway near Dunkirk, located hours away from us, and with a waterfront walkway also constructed of huge heavy blocks of cement was also blown apart. No one can ever doubt the force of winds in this area! 

The forementioned snows have already melted away, but not to worry: there's more snow coming our way early next week and will fill the streets and more for three days. Because of traffic, snows and freezing rains, we didn't venture out and do not have any pictures of the wrecked walkways described here, but were able to get snaps of other scenes closer to home!

So little but these icicles are pointy and frozen hard!

Last year this tiny creek was top and bottom frozen!

Flash-forward to today and gorgeous clouds, and NO snow! 

In many locations along the Niagara River, we have seen trunks, branches and more of downed trees, pushed many feet up and away off the Niagara due to high winds weeks ago!

In some cases, the debris has been pushed up to past 40feet away and over the waterline!

Frosted trees are a favorite for any camera!!

Leaves mix with green grasses in the melting snow and ice

We saw blue skies today, and a nice cloudy sunset!

Never doubt Nature or her powerful force!!!

All Things Must Come DOWN eventually (watch out)

It's been another few days and nights of snow and howling winds again, we are still alive and safe....  well almost. Last night the wind howled throughout the day. Branches of all sizes and weights were falling down, several of a substantial size fell quite close to our camper minivan, so I moved it to a spot where hopefully, the winds wouldn't bring down anymore bits and pieces of nearby trees. Not even an hour later, a HUGE branch fell with a loud THUD outside our window. I looked out the window to see that huge tree on the ground where our minivan sat previously!

Screen-capture of our local CBS station WIVB
showing yesterday's top wind gusts. WoW!

I dashed outside into the winds and cold to see this branch measuring at least 3ft at its widest and about 40ft long lying across the roadway, and its end lying right next to a neighbor's car. I moved out a few smaller branches that fell off, tossing those by the side of the road. Things like this never happened where I used to be in San Francisco. But apparently, this stuff happens a lot in many parts of the world during snow and windstorms!

All fall down!

Eventually it was cut up into manageable pieces and pushed to the side of the street, as snow began to fall. Soon the road was white with the wind blowing waves of snow.....  it was a poetic but sad fact of life in snowy areas that I know little of, not really living in snow-affected areas 87% of my life. 

The weather though, has remained the same as it has been for some months: a few days of snow, enough to paint everything white again, then a few days of warm sunlight to melt the snow a bit, just enough to give one a slippery walk on the streets the next day! Plus it's been freezing or below for most of these past months, with perhaps less than 10 days of 40° degrees or above! 

That gloss on the snow is frozen ice ~ very slippery!

On the other hand, we have been enjoying some really tasty ice cream over the last few months. We gave up the real stuff for a low-fat version that is so creamy and tasty!! However, at another store, we found the "same" low-fat taste and flavor, but after we recently looked at the ingredients trying to find out WHY this low-fat version is so creamy, and what we discovered is incredible, and has changed our mind about where we'll be buying it in the future!

At one store, we are buying a big gallon tub for a very reasonable price, but sometimes it isn't available so we go to another store. At the other store, we checked the ingredients and saw "propylene glycol". 

What is that?

It's been approved by the FDA and not considered to be a threat to humans, but again, the FDA approved use of Opioid use also, and everyone knows how that is working out! This is what we discovered online: "Propylene glycol is a synthetic organic compound with the chemical formula C₃H₈O₂. It is a viscous, colorless liquid which is nearly odorless but possesses a faintly sweet taste. Chemically it is classed as a diol (an alcohol containing two hydroxyl groups in its molecule) and is miscible (This term is most applied to liquids, but can also apply to solids and gases. An example is water and ethanol, are "miscible" because they mix in all proportions) with a broad range of solvents, including water, acetone, and chloroform". 

Really?!!?

The FDA states it's an additive that is "generally recognized as safe" for use in food. Really???

So, we are returning to our original store and NOT buying it at the other store any longer. If you want to know where we were buying the "propylene glycol" version of the "creamy" ice cream, just email me and I'll tell you. We'll kindly do without it, thank you!!

If you and yours are in a weather-affected area, please stay safe and warm!

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!

Great Lakes activities

It's been cold and windy, as can be expected in these Great Lake areas, and where we are presently. Back in western New York (WNY), it gets cold and windy also, but it's nothing like a visit to a Lake Michigan park beach, and to be slapped in the face with chilling cold that will really wake up anyone!!

We had just arrived and walked to the beach where there were some great waves!! Sheila mentioned that the waves at that beach reminded her of seeing the Atlantic Ocean waves, huge on a very windy day! It was indeed windy but since I have seen huge waves in my life near waters of the world, it seemed those waves were small but still, it always feels good to be near water.

It was just a few minutes later that Sheila shouted out "Eagles" and pointed north. I looked up to see two large birds, and snapped a few. We didn't have our monsters on the cameras, but one could easily see the white head and tail. We are having an eagle of a month, with over 10 eagles seen now within the past few weeks!

Here is an image link to my images at fineartamerica, which feature quite a few western NY scenes

We stayed and froze a little bit longer till the sunset. We snapped pixs to our heart's content with the chilled wind on our faces, and the waves crashing onto the shore. The intense color quickly faded but it was one of the nicest sunsets we've been able to enjoy in over a week! Just days ago we experienced the first snowfall of the area, and brushed off almost two inches of snow from the car. We drove looking for Fall colors and snowfall, but the high winds of last week had already stripped most of the leaves, and instead just found white expanses of snow....  except for a leaf-print in the snow. I've been to many areas where snow is the norm, and I have never seen these ice cube sights ever...  have you?


On the other hand, I am porting my cell number over to a company offering very lost cost data for those on the move. I still have my old number which I've had since 2009 at least, with its various groups of numbers originating from the area code of Oregon, the area code of Sevilla, and lastly, using a very easy-to-remember combination of keypad presses. I've never been one remembering all the previous numbers I've been assigned, but this I've had for too many years but never forgotten since it's so easy to remember! If you know it, you've still got a means to call me! If you don't, no sweat as I make very few calls but also receive even fewer calls!

The only exception to this newest company is that I now have - for the first time ever - data on my Samsung S5! We use digimobil while in Spain, and they have been offer rollover-data for their data users! Why can't we have that in the USA? Unfortunately DigiMobil is not in the USA!

UPDATE: As you probably know, the image links in this post doesn't take you anywhere since those linked images are gone; I change out the various images I have on fineart every week. I apologize but you can always see other imagery I have displayed at redbubble