Week 4: A Cold and The Cold

Hello once more!

This past week marked one month of living and working in the UK. It truly is hard to believe it has been a month already! I looked up how much longer I have, and looking at those numbers is quite sad. While I am not even a third of the way done with my time here, it's sad to know that the time is coming, and if the rest of the time goes by as fast as the first month, I will be back in the USA before you can say, "Top of the morning!"

England appears to be mourning the fact that I have a limited time also. The passing of time also appears to have brought with it more typical English weather. After nearly a month of warm temperatures, mostly sunny skies and all around pleasant weather, this week a cold front moved through, the temperature has dropped and it has been rainy and cloudy for almost 48 hours now. I think England decided I couldn't spend this much time here without getting a taste of good ole English weather.

So that was "The Cold,"  but additionally, this week I came down with a nasty cold, that set up shop in my chest and head. Monday and Tuesday nights were rough sleeping because I couldn't breathe. Andrew and Grace gave Olbus Oil, and boy, that stuff works! Your eyes start watering from sniffing just one or two drops of that stuff! It is potent.

The work is continuing to go along, fairly steady. We are still meeting and having good discussions at our Tuesday night Bible study, there are 3 moms that come steadily to Tots and Toys, but there has been at least one other mom the past three weeks. We had another Explorer's Club this week. I was in charge of the craft. It went fairly well.  We talked about Noah and the Ark, so for the craft we took paper plates, cut them in half, then cut out the middle. The outside edge was the rainbow, which we decorated, and we even have clouds made of wool balls (cotton balls in America). We took the middle part we cut out, flipped it upside down, and made the Ark out of that. Finally, we punched holes in the rainbow and the Ark, and tied them together with string! All in all, I was proud of the craft, especially since I came up with the idea. Here is an example (my example), excuse the coloring, being color blind, coloring in rainbows aren't my specialty.

I also had the privilege of leading the older youth at Connected (the weekly Bible study for Harby youth) last night (Friday). Despite it being myself, and 8 girls, things went pretty well. Everyone got to hear my "American" accent last night when I said the word "ham," apparently it sounded a whole lot different from how they say it.

Next week's blog will definitely be delayed, if not cancelled, as from Thursday through Saturday of next week I will be traveling with Andrew to and from Scotland. Someone else is joining the team (permanently) from Scotland, and we are helping them move! I'm excited to see Edinburgh, try Haggis, and see the Highlands. I feel like I will be following the trek that the Granthams made in the final episode of Series 3 in Downton Abbey.

Speaking of Downton, here in the UK, the season started the Sunday after I arrived. Grace M., kindly recorded them, and so I saw the first two episodes of series 4 Thursday. I'll do my best not to spoil it, but in the first episode, a long time member of the house leaves, and a trouble maker returns. Hope that whet the appetite of everyone who watches Downton.

One final thought. Sunday at church, we always have tea and cakes after the service. This past Sunday I was on tea and cakes duty. So I helped boil the water in the giant pot (as big if not bigger than the ones at the BSU). Unfortunately, I didn't know there was a switch on the bottom side of the pot, to prevent the boiler from burning itself out when there isn't any water in it. So, when we went back after service to get the "boiling" water, it was cold. The water was just as cold as when it came out of the tap, if not colder. Clearly, I need to work on my boiling water skills. Along those lines, I would love to get a house water boiler when I am back in the States. They are quite handy, they look like a kettle, but you plug it into the wall, and it boils water in a just 3-4 minutes. When I saw boiling, I mean boiling. I guess this means I'm starting my Christmas list now, haha. I'll save the rest of my list for Santa. I wonder if there is a different address for Santa over here?

HAIL STATE

Dear Readers of crankyweather,

I certainly hope that as you have read this blog that you understand at least a little of what I say. However, apparently not everyone at Mississippi State University is quite as literate in weather as you wonderful people are. Today, as we had some snowflakes, sleet and rain come down on campus, the students were all talking about the "hail" outside. Twitter was full of students commenting on how ironic it was that it was hailing at state, where a common greeting is "Hail State." I am writing this today to put down this bit of unintelligent thinking, and to  combat the rumor that in the winter, it can hail whenever, as opposed to in the summer, when hails comes down only in certain thunderstorms. According to dictionary.com, sleet is defined as "precipitation in the form of ice pellets created by the freezing of rain as it falls." Hail on the other hand is defined as "showery precipitation in the form of irregular pellets or balls of ice more than 1 / 5  in. (5 mm) in diameter, falling from a cumulonimbus cloud." I would like to go further than just this general definition, which, in all honesty is a little wordy and confusing.

Hail is created during a thunderstorm by the updrafts and downdrafts of the storm. A raindrop begins its life as a piece of ice; at the altitude at which they are created, it is below freezing. When this raindrop falls in a thunderstorm, it falls, melts and combines with other raindrops, but before it falls out from the cloud, an updraft picks it up and sends it back up to the top of the storm, where it refreezes. So this same raindrop, just larger, has frozen, and begins falling to earth again. This process happens several times, and eventually the hailstone will be too heavy for the updraft to send back up, and so it falls to earth. This is the life of a hail stone. Sleet has a much simpler life story.

Sleet, begins as a snowflake! Thats is awesome just by itself, I know. Anyway, the snowflake begins falling to earth, but as it falls, it reaches air that is warmer than freezing. This snowflake melts there, however below this layer of warm air in the sky, there is another layer of cold layer. This layer refreezes the snowflake, only now its not a snowflake, but an ice pellet... sleet. The sleet then falls the rest of the way frozen to the surface where it hits you in the head, and you notice it more so than rain or snow, because it hurts more. This is why sleet, snow and rain can all occur simultaneously. Because each individual flake, pellet or drop is going through this on its own and may not be at the same stage. 

Freezing rain is another winter precipitation type people are often confused on. Freezing rain happens when the ground is below freezing, but the air directly above it is not. This means the sleet doesn't refreeze until it hits the ground. This creates a glaze over the surface, on roads, this is known as black ice. This type of ice is quite common in North Carolina, which is infamous for its ice storms. Freezing rain is extremely dangerous because it is hard to see, especially at night. If anything is "shiny" and you are driving on it, take extreme caution, or better yet, stay home, read a book, sit by the fire and have something warm to drink!

In conclusion, sleet does NOT equal hail. Sleet is often mixed with snow and rain. Hail happens during a thunderstorm. Hopefully this has cleared up some questions that may have been in your mind as you went about your business today. :)