Yes I love cooler weather over our unrelenting heat, but this is ridiculous

Winter mayhem is upon us in southeast Louisiana and it's been super cold in these parts.  While we will never experience the winter realities of the upper Midwest or the northeast or even the mountains out west, this has been extreme for the deep south.  I did not think this kind of winter would even happen because the summer hung on well into early October and the first autumn cool downs were not very cool and lasted only briefly. Now it did get cooler in November but it was more seasonal than exceptional.

By the end of November I had yet to even take winter freeze precautions as they were not necessary.  The heaviest thing I wore up to then was a light jacket.  But wait, here comes December.  A very cold front would arrive in the early days of the month and the air was still cold enough that when a low pressure system moved over from Texas we got snow.  A lot of snow, at least by our standards.  On December 8th I literally watched snow fall from the windows of my office from 10 am until way past 2 pm.  This snow was the big fat flake kind indicating a wet heavy snow.  The temps remained cool enough that the snow on many roofs and yards lasted through that weekend.  Somehow the weather moderated, as it typically does, and by the week before Christmas we were flirting with highs in the upper 70's.  Now understand that this is a normal kind of winter with lows maybe in the mid 40 range and highs 68 to 72.  But this brief warm up came with morning lows already in the 60's and that produces thick nasty fog.  So that was our reality until about Christmas weekend when we experienced a cool down, which was nice and welcome.

But folks this is some cold weather that ushered in 2018.  For us, we are not equipped to deal with several consecutive morning lows hovering around 20 or 24.  Wind chills have been as low as 13.  Now this might be ok for Minneapolis or Boston but it's too cold for us.  Take it from a fan of the cooler winter months, this is now bordering on ridiculous.  This is the 4th morning in a row that we have run water, turned the heat up a bit, keep light on in the attic and a light on the water pump.  Today's low is 24, not as bad as predicted, and the next two mornings are expected to stay around 25.

Now that I am sharing this with readers who are probably laughing at this, the forecast for a week from now will indeed moderate.  We will be back to morning lows in mid 40's and afternoon highs around 70.  It will be back to normal but still pleasant.  Remember, one of the nice things I can compliment about our weather is while the rest of the country shivers into February and March, we have much milder climate.  And often that still cool but pleasant weather is around in January too.  And it will return for sure but for now this cold is ridiculous.