So much ado about nothing, Kingston. The trees, the roads, the automobiles, nothing is frozen. There is hardly any snow this December 24. The multi-hazard storm fearfully forecast largely passed us by.
The rest of Ulster County will have to speak for itself. There’s a report of a woman in Highland Falls who couldn’t open her car doors because a falling rain had flash-frozen it shut. Shortly after sunset blizzard conditions were verified in the parking lot of the Boiceville IGA, all wind and flurries and sideways falling snow.
In the 18 miles from Kingston, through West Hurley and Shokan, the altitude rises 600 feet. so maybe that plays a part. Back into West Hurley all that remained was the wind. And that wind at least is still mucking about with unexplained gusts suddenly approaching 16 miles an hour.
In the Rondout, the river and the creek rushed along rising ominously, inundated with the rainfall which fell far inland. But that was it. Spot flooding.
The temperature this morning is a deadly 4°, and wandering about in bedclothes waiting for the sun to rise at 7:22 a.m. invites hypothermia, that state where your body loses heat faster than it can produce it.
Curiously, this description of hypothermia is useful way to understand seasonal lag. Simply put, though the sun shines longer we’re still too far away and the angle of its sunlight isn’t as direct as it could be – ergo, the cold weather worsens because the land and the waters are losing heat faster than the sun can insolate both. Oh, to the months of March and April and especially May!
We’ll be lucky today if the temperature rises to 14° somewhere around 2 p.m. Today the sages of precipitation predict not a drop, and the sun is scheduled to set at 4:30 p.m. The daylight will last for nine hours and eight minutes — that’s us making progress.
According to the sagacious fur trapper Dionizas. who lives on Mount Tremper, there remain 76 days of winter temperatures ahead.
Now for the snow forecast, which is anticipated to be ample, we go out to Bjorn Jorgensen on Belleayre Mountain. Bjorn, how falls the snow?
Jorgensen: Fall it did, Johannes. Fall it will. It falls even now. Imagine a world where it never stops falling.
Hoarfrost: I don’t want to imagine that.
Jorgensen: The snowmen would prefer it, though. Imagine the army they could build. Minerva finds their banter entertaining. She thinks I should build more of them.
Hoarfrost: Question her motivations, Bjorn. Your Yule festival continues apace, then. It’s a wonder you haven’t pickled yourself. And what of the girl who hunts in the woods?
Jorgensen:Â Minerva says her name is either Petra or Janska.
Hah! There goes another one?
Hoarfrost: Another snowman?
Jorgensen: Another tree branch. The sap is popping all through the trees. Sharp cracks in the darkness.
Hoarfrost: Well, at least you’ve broached the subject.
Minerva: He’s too old to be thinking about the girl in the woods.
Hoarfrost: That’s a spiteful thing to say. Age is a state of mind, Bjorn, they also say.
Exactly how old is Minerva?
Minerva: Old enough to know better.
The snowmen, as a chorus: She’s older than the forest, she doesn’t count in years, her blood flows like ice water, and freezes in her tears.
Minerva: Heaven forfend, the snowmen.
Johannes: Oh, good, now everyone’s talking. I anticipate it’s going to get more and more difficult to get a snow report in the coming days.
Minerva: Age, if you want to catch her eye, is exactly just that, a number. Love, remember, is hard enough, more than just a tumble. Desire and lust, you’ll burst and bust. But I have something for that, too. Loss and longing and limping along — it was your ankle, wasn’t it? No need to wither, no need to weaken and lose the upper hand. I’ve got something — if you think yourself a man — for your heart to help you conquer, and something for your tongue to make your words convincing.
The snowmen: Direct action is what’s required, the propaganda of the deed!
Minerva: Fickle, false, and far from the truth. Ridiculous, the snowmen’s words will lead you astray, all they do is talk all day. Let go of what you are, Bjorn, that you may become what you might be.
Johannes: The foreboding increases. Can I get the conditions at the summit out of you?
Jorgensen: The weather at the summit currently is -17° Celsius, which is a handy number for you, because it correlates to zero Fahrenheit.
Johannes: Of course, zero in Fahrenheit is 32° below freezing. It’s possible that Fahrenheit didn’t have a clear understanding of numbers.
Jorgensen: Yes. He strikes me as a man of intuition foremost, and then a resolve to accomplish.
Johannes: What’s she offering you, Bjorn?
Jorgensen: She offers me an invaluable steadfastness that comes from intestinal fortitude, a restored and amended appetite, a cocksure optimism and a devil-may-care attitude.
The snowmen: A solution of brine made of water ice and ammonium chloride.
Minerva: And more dreams than regrets.
Johannes: All that?
Minerva: I offer him a golden apple.
Johannes: Oh. Youth.
Two percent restored, the moon rises again at 8:52 a.m. The new year is just eight days away.
Join the family! 
