@ILF: Massive coats still are useful to save on electricity even in as mild temperatures as what we are used to. Meanwhile we are getting your heat. Usually about a day or two afterwards. And some rain and cooler weather on Friday I hope.

What happened to our Southerly busters?

I don't have a heater, I hate the feeling of artificial(if that is the right word) heat anyway. Especially blowing in my face. They always have them up way too high on public transport. Bus drivers don't know how to operate aircons either. They either have them way too high up, so there is barely any difference to outside, or way too low, so when one gets off the bus into 35 + degree heat they nearly pass out.

I don't think I've posted in this topic since near the end of September! Unusual for me ... lots was going on this fall.

Briefly, we had a mild autumn and an unusually warm start to winter. Whereas last year, our winter (ie: snow) began mid-November; this year it came close to mid-January! After the temperatures plunged on Sunday, our first major snowstorm arrived yesterday, dumping 6-8 inches, with drifts and banks much higher. I was volunteering in town and, wow, getting home was mighty tricky with near zero visibility. Just glad I made that trip before dark.

The temp is rising a bit on Friday and Saturday, with possible showers, even, or else wet snow. It will be sad to see this current white covering disappear too soon. But no doubt, we will receive more.

In the meantime, the snowmobiles have sprung out of nowhere. And everywhere is so picturesque with that beautiful blanket of fresh snow!

Glad your winter has arrived, jo, and that you were able to travel safely. Rural areas are always so pretty under a blanket of snow.

We're in a brief warm spell (if reaching our average high temperature, 22F/-6C, can be considered warm ) but the bottom will drop out again this weekend, much like it did last weekend but even colder. The Weather Channel is calling for a high here Sunday of -7F/-22C, with much colder temps at night and wind chills pushing -40 or colder.

Like mm1991 mentioned above, that's the kind of air that hurts your face, and taking a deep breath of it is like having pins and needles poking your insides. It's when locals say either "Cold enough for you?" or "Why do I live here?"

(Meteorologists are quick to point out that even the strong El Nino, which usually means warmer-than-average temperatures for us, does not rule out the occasional cold snap like this one. This is the coldest time of year so this isn't entirely unexpected).

Tonight is supposed to be the last of the temps around -15F or less. The wind chills were into the -30F through the day today, so many will be glad to see it even get into the teens for the daily high.
Those pins, and needles poking the insides when you breath can sound a bit scary stargazer. I have heard of joggers out in this weather who have actually developed frostbite on the lungs.
Though it still is a trouble having all this cold, I ask myself which I would rather have, extreme cold, or six feet of snow to shovel? I recall one winter not long ago when a fellow went to check on his elderly parents only to find their house totally covered in snow.

Today I'm thankful I don't live on the east coast of the USA as they're expecting up to 3 feet of snow. No thank you.
But instead, we're getting sleet and freezing rain at the moment... again. However, we are supposed to get a nice inch or two of snow tonight and tomorrow. I can live with that amount.

Our weather is calm and quiet, and we're out of the deep freeze for the moment. It might actually reach 32F/0C this weekend. We might get a little snow next week.

Yes, all eyes in the US are turning to the east coast. 3 feet of snow is a lot even for areas used to it, but much of this is falling in areas that are ill equipped to deal with moving that much snow around. Ice is also likely, and that's always nasty.

Watching the Weather Channel's coverage of the snowfall out east. More than two feet, and still falling in some places. Central Park in New York City has that much already.
A friend on FB sent me a picture of flooding in New Jersey. They had cars stalled in the city streets water around them with little ice bergs floating by.

We've been having a roller coaster style weather pattern. First the heat builds up to an atrocious above 40C heatwave then we get a rain storm. Once the heat is broken by the storm front, the whole process happens again.

We watched the news tonight and saw that it was really a very bad snow storm in NYC and surrounds, right down to Washington DC. Apparently it is the second worst snowstorm in New York's history. The news coverage looked horrific. Hope you are all okay. And do look after yourselves.

Meanwhile, when did the worst snowstorm in New York/Washington history actually happen?

I had an interesting one a few days ago. It was raining all day at work except for when we were on our 15 minute breaks in the morning and afternoon. Then after our afternoon break it rains again right when one of the local schools arrives with kids for their annual campus cleanup. The rain right when they started turned to hail and then to heavy rain ten minutes later. It turned into a light rain 20 minutes after that and continued. Then, right as the kids got done with campus cleanup and started walking towards the school bus it stopped raining and the clouds parted giving way to sunshine. This just happened to be at the exact same time me and my co-workers got off work. We literally had just put on our raincoats to go to our cars when it stopped raining.

@Hyperwing: For a moment I thought you might have come from Western Australia, which also uses WA for its state abbreviation.

We've been told ad nauseam that we were to have a monstrously dry summer, a long, hot one, due to an El Nino effect. It certainly looked that way up to the end of December, with heatwaves and bushfires galore.

But instead, January has been the wettest one on record. The dams which were 88.1% storage this time last year are now 94.6% as per today, 1/2/2016, so we won't be getting water restrictions just yet. The local shock jocks and their journalistic friends are complaining that our Bureau of Meteorology are completely crackers, and now we are told that the on/off cyclical wet weather is to continue until the end of February with daily or mostly daily storms. Although the weather isn't too hot much of the time, merely humid, we are told Sydney is now more tropical than the tropics, themselves.

Especially as the monsoon rains have now arrived on the Top End of Australia. Plus the cyclone season.

Hahaha it was raining in our WA as well yesterday. Well it was raining in perth. The last two days in Perth have been Brilliant. Tops of 23 and 22. I am loving it but it is going back to the 33 on Thursday. I think we have one more day of cool weather.

We watched the news tonight and saw that it was really a very bad snow storm in NYC and surrounds, right down to Washington DC. Apparently it is the second worst snowstorm in New York's history. The news coverage looked horrific. Hope you are all okay. And do look after yourselves.

Meanwhile, when did the worst snowstorm in New York/Washington history actually happen?

Meanwhile, I have a couple friends up there that were just LOVING The snow and posted tons of pics of massive snowball fights and just having fun. I guess it's just what your preferred weather is, and if you didn't get stuck in it.

In answer to your question, I thought I heard it was 1997, but then I went and looked it up and it was 1888, so I wasn't even close.

We had a brief reprieve of cold winter air this weekend. It almost hit 70F/20C on Friday so we went and flew a kite in the park. It's cooled back off now and our next winter storm arrives tonight, but I don't think we're supposed to get much snow in SE Kansas. NW Kansas is a totally different story. I think Nebraska and Iowa are supposed to be hit pretty hard too.

Though it's nothing like the storm that hit the US East Coast last week, southern Minnesota is on the edge of this big winter storm that's moving up from the Denver area. The snow is still a state away, but some schools in that area have preemptively closed for tomorrow, ahead of blizzard conditions expected to bring up to 12 inches/300mm of snow with winds over 40 mph/65 km/hr. The big issue is not so much the amount of snow but that the southern part of the state tends to be flat agricultural land so there's nothing to stop the snow from blowing roads closed (thundersnow and snowfall rates exceeding an inch an hour are possible).

The Twin Cities is on the northern edge of the high snowfall area and may get anywhere from 4 to 10 inches (100-250mm) depending on the storm track, and with northern suburbs getting less than southern. The winter storm warning covers the entire area with the blizzard warning being south of here.

After a mild December winter has decided not to go down without a fight, El Nino notwithstanding. The storm I mentioned in the last post dropped 13 inches (330mm) of snow, and winds in excess of 65 km/hr caused whiteouts and road closures in several states.

Now, after a few days' respite, another blast of winter is blowing down out of Canada, with more high winds (approaching hurricane strength), blowing snow, and road closures. It's not too bad here in the city (though it certainly sounds like winter with the wind howling outside), but out in the country highways are treacherous (if they are even passable). After this storm passes we'll have some cooler than average temperatures (below 0F/-17C) for the next few days...not bitter cold but enough to get your attention.

The above mentioned arctic air blast hit us yesterday too. The winds were gusting up to 50mph (or so the y say, it was very blustery but it didn't feel THAT strong to me) and it was quite chilly. I guess today is supposed to be cold again but then tomorrow the arctic air moves off to the east and it's supposed to hit 60F/15C.
But we have not had one single proper snowfall yet this winter. I'm hoping we get one before spring arrives, but it's looking like El Nino may keep that from happening.