Invariably Variable
Hard to see, but those white spots are snowflakes! The sleet came later.
Having just come out of a time where I could only walk in the mornings because the afternoons here near Paulden were too sweaty in the hot sun, I was surprised to wake up this morning to the 46-degree temperatures dropping instead of rising. In fact, the consistently light overnight rain changed into moderately heavy snowfall in the 35+ MPH winds as the temperature dropped to 41 degrees. Then up to 44 as the trailer rocked in the wind, then back down to 42.Eventually, the snow began to stick to the Ford for a few moments, but never had a chance on the ground.
Then the heavy, dark overcast broke up to billowy clouds, and temps cruised up to the mid-fifties. That was it, or so I thought. I thought that until noon when the returning overcast brought blowing sleet. How bizarre! A normal day today would have been in the mid-seventies at least, unrelentingly sunny with the usual moderate breeze.
So, I’m pretty thankful for a decent camper to recluse in, a glowing catalytic propane heater, plenty of food to stuff into the hole in my face, and enough electrical power on tap to do what I like. It’s much more pleasant to watch weather like this pass through than it is to be immersed in it. Grizzly Adams, I’m not.
And, based on my low expectations, it’s odd to watch the workhorse office battery pack doing a routine recharge in such dark overcast. I’m avoiding using it much until it gets through its main charge and goes into float mode, where I can siphon off some of the unused power that the solar panels are still producing without pulling anything meaningful from the batteries. Even so, I wouldn’t expect to see the panels recovering the pack from last night’s power usage and holding the needed 14.4V peak well before noon. But that’s what it’s doing, and that’s good. A lot of things like this, you don’t need to know how they work. You only need to know enough to be able to tell if they’re happy.
Strolling Amok 