Overnight freezing rain transformed our usual drab gray days into a bright, wintry white, and wow, it looked spectacular. Sadly, it’s all slick, glassy ice instead of fluffy snow, so no snowball fights for the neighborhood kids. We’ll be hunkered down at home for the next couple of days while the city more or less shuts down. Stay safe out there, and keep warm!

Source

A powerful, but brief, storm front blew through tonight. I was hoping for a dramatic time-lapse video, but it was rather tame. Oh well, I guess we should consider ourselves lucky there was no tornado or other damage, right?

Source

At about 2 am this morning, the icy tree branches started breaking off like crazy around the neighborhood. Our house backs up to a greenbelt, so there are a lot of trees close to us, and I could hear the wood cracking. Lani was also barking and whining, poor girl. I know she just wants to protect us and chase the animals that are making the sounds away, but I couldn’t let her out because it was so dangerous.

I surveyed the damage after it got light and the damage around our yard wasn’t too bad. But while Lani and I were outside, a large branch came down and scared both of us. Thank goodness Lani was at the other end of the yard!

Soonthe temperature rose to above freezing and the ice started to melt. I made a little time-lapse of the trees returning to their normal shape. Enjoy!

Source

Well, the icy weather has come to Austin! Schools are closed and the city is urging people to stay off the roads. All the trees in the neighborhood are straining under the weight of the frozen stuff, and many branches have already broken and are lying on the ground. So far we’ve been fortunate to only have a couple of small branches come down in your yard.

Unfortunately, the worst is yet to come, so we’re expecting more damage overnight… We’re crossing our fingers that it’s not too bad!

Source

We’ve lived in central Texas for over 20 years now, and we’ve never seen so many tornado warnings. Or perhaps we’ve had plenty of warnings, but this year there have been several actual tornadoes touching the ground near us. It’s pretty scary.

This afternoon, the tornadoes touched down about 40 miles to the north of us in Salado, and a few weeks before that, a tornado touched down about 10 miles away in Round Rock. That’s so close!

Today’s photo is of one of the massive clouds that might have been the one that spawned the tornado up north. Luckily it passed us by without incident.

Here’s a short video of some of the activity that from our backyard window:

Stay safe, everyone!

Source

Don’t you love when it’s bright and sunny, but it’s also raining? That happened this afternoon, but it wasn’t just a few drops, but rather a full-on downpour! It was so cool that both Bay and I had to take photos.

Source

こんばんは。How’s it going?

Today we woke up to several inches of snowfall here in Central Texas as well as to a bitter cold. Because of the latter, we’ve been experiencing electrical outages throughout the state. That caused my work to cancel several of today’s meetings. Thankfully, our house hasn’t been affected by the blackouts, but it seems like all my friends have. I hope our good luck continues through the night. (fingers crossed)

The snow was actually kind of fun to experience! Lani had a few moments of confusion this morning when I let her out to do her business. She didn’t know where the lawn was, so I put on my boots and walked down the stairs to the grass, and then she got enough courage to find a place to pee.

During my lunchbreak I bundled up and went for a little walk toward the mailbox and back. There was so much snow on the ground and lots of kids were having snowball fights. Surprisingly, there were no snowmen, even though there was a ton of snow to work with. I think it was just too cold! (19°F / -7°C) I recorded my walk using my GoPro, and you can see the video at the bottom of the post. Enjoy, and stay warm!

Source

Here in Central Texas, we’re experiencing some very cold weather.

Unfortunately, the arctic blast also came with freezing rain which made for a mess on the highways and in peoples’ yards.

One of the trees in our backyard got so weighed down with ice, that a major branch snapped. Luckily there was no damage to our house or deck. I’m hoping that’s the only damage we’ll see, but there are a few more days of even colder temperatures to suffer through. Come on, trees! がんばってね！

Stay warm, ATX friends!

Source

Growing up in California, I’ve experienced several earthquakes when I was younger, then when I was in Japan, we had earthquakes and typhoons, and now in Texas, we have severe thunderstorms and tornadoes. I’m wondering what places don’t have much extreme weather. Maybe the Scandinavian countries are relatively free from natural disasters, but I personally think anywhere that gets snow on the ground for more than a week is too extreme for me.

How about South American countries? Do they have hurricanes or earthquakes? I have no idea…

Anyways, we had a powerful storm blow through, with lightning, hail, and even a tornado in the area. Luckily, our neighborhood only experienced high winds and heavy rain… but it’s always a bit scary when the weatherman says, “Now’s the time for you to go to your safe space.”

I hope you had a nice-weather day!

またね〜

Source

A severe storm rolled through our part of Texas today. Luckily, there wasn’t any damage to our house, just plenty of rain and anxiety!

Later on in the evening we enjoyed a yummy pot of chankonabe ゃんこ鍋. This is a hotpot that is popular with sumo wrestlers because it helps to bulk them up. We’ve never made it at home before, so this was a special treat.

As the day ended, the skies cleared and we were treated to a nice sunset.

I hope you had a good day!

またね～

Source