Tuesday, 12:15 pm: No more snow, but it is still very cold. After bringing in several loads of firewood I warmed up with some hot tea. Yesterday was even colder; I brought in one armload at a time and warmed up in-between loads. Now I know why tall people have a difficult time retaining body heat in extreme cold weather conditions. I think I need to be shorter and more compact.

Weather to a degree is predictable, which means conversely it is also, to some degree, unpredictable. Many times when I’ve written a weather blog and mentioned our current weather conditions, it will frequently change dramatically within a few hours. Trust me, I have eaten my words on more than one occasion. So whenever I write about the weather at our house, take it with a grain of salt. It reminds me of when George Carlin does his Hippy Dippy Weatherman routine.

Meanwhile, back at the homestead; we’ve made our reservations to fly to downtown Europe [sic] on April 22. At the airport in Zurich we pick up our rental car and blast north on the Swiss Autobahn for a short distance into Liechtenstein where we will spend the night. The next day we continue north skirting the eastern end of the Bodensee [Lake Constance] into Germany. From then on we just play it by ear, with no set itinerary until Berlin. I prefer Bavaria, but my wife is from Berlin, so we are [she is] obligated to visit family there; then back to southern Germany and the Alps. To my local weather:

Current values from our wireless Vantage-Pro weather station:

Temperature: 9.8° (F.)

Barometer: 29.810 & falling slowly

Humidity: 50%

Wind: Calm

Visibility: > 3 miles

Skies: Scattered high clouds

Precipitation: None

Lows since midnight:

Low temperature: -16.8° (F.) at 7:02 am

High wind: 5 mph at 11:14 am

Low wind chill: -17° (F.) at 5:56 am