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The first twelve days of 2010 in Indianapolis rank as the 14th coldest start to January on record in terms of daily average temperature.  The coldest temperature seen during the 12 day period was 1 degree on January 3.  The warmest temperature recorded during the period was 31 degrees on January 12.  The last time the first 12 days of January averaged colder was in 1999. The last time we had at least 12 consecutive days below 32 degrees was in 2007.

In terms of high temperature only, the first 12 days of January rank as the 9th coldest start of the month...

The temperature surged above 32 degrees in Indianapolis on January 13 for the first time since December 31, as most of central Indiana rose into the middle and upper 30s.  This marks the end to the longest streak of continuous subfreezing temperatures in almost three years.  That streak lasted 15 consecutive days, from January 28-February 11, 2007.  The longest streak of consecutive subfreezing temperatures in Indianapolis began on December 29, 1976 and continued until February 2, 1977, a total of 36 days.

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National Weather Service:

The average temperatures for the first three days of 2010 are among the coldest of record for Indianapolis. The last time the New Year began on a colder note was in 1940 or 70 years ago...

Indianapolis, Indiana
Lowest Average Temperatures
for January 1 - January 3
(records begin in 1871)

“Coldness” Rank	Average Temperature Degrees F	Year(s)
1 (tie)	1°	1928, 1887
3 (tie)	8.7°	1879, 1877
5	8.8°	1940
6	11.2°	1920
7	11.7°	2010
8	12.2°	1974
9	13.7°	1968
10	13.8°	1979
11	14.0°	1918
12	14.5°	2008
13	14.7°	1969
14 (tie)	15.2°	2001, 1977
16	15.3°	1958
17	15.5°	1901
18 (tie)	15.7°	1919, 1885
20	16.0°	1945

The latest forecast indicates that the first 10 days of the New Year will continue to remain near the top ten coldest starts to a new year. The average temperature for the first ten days of January is expected to be around 14 degrees. The last time the first ten days of a new year were colder was in 1999, and the last time Indianapolis experienced a cold spell of this duration or colder was in February 2007. The record cold for a ten day period is 0.5 degrees which occurred from December 15-24, 1989.

Indianapolis, Indiana
Predicted Lowest Average Temperatures
for January 1 - January 10
(records begin in 1871)

“Coldness” Rank	Average Temperature Degrees F	Year(s)
1 (tie)	8.2°	1970, 1887
3	8.3°	1879
4	9.0°	1884
5	9.4°	1912
6	10.6°	1979
7	12.3°	1999
8	12.5°	1968
9	13.2°	1942
10	13.4°	1875
-	13.5° projected	2010
11	14.1°	1988
12	14.2°	1940
13	15.1°	1969
14	15.3°	1977
15	15.6°	1893
16 (tie)	15.9°	1981, 1877
18	17.9°	1974
19	18.8°	1996
20	18.9°	1920

Posted by: Old Grouch in Dear Diary... at 18:09:43 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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...from Old Grouch.

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What with loose connections (not to mention all of last week’s breast- (and.brow-) beating^[1]), come Sunday afternoon shortly after 3pm I showed up at the Infamous Brewpub to discover... well, nobody; excepting me, a few traditional Ripple types, and the Pub staff.  “Well, OK,” said I, “no bloggy conversation today, but [checking list] hmmm... there’s a stout which needs sampling.”  Which produced a decision to adjourn to the taproom (with its leaded-glass windows looking into the brewery) for a late lunch/early dinner.

The other customers were couples obviously uninterested in conversation with strangers, and, as the staff hadn’t yet turned on the football,^[2] I found my moments sampling the stout^[3] and waiting for the soup^[4] accompanied by staring into space and half-listening to the Pub’s background music (played loud enough to listen to, but not so loud that it’s impossible to ignore).

Well:  “I know that.  I know that one, too.  That’s...  Which you segue into...Hey!”

Late 60s Top-40 radio.

Now a part of my radio experience includes almost-daily shifts at a top-40 operation from early 1967 to late 1969.  So it’s with a certain amount of confidence that I place the Pub’s playlist at 1969 (including some recent goldies).  The scary thing is that every track I heard for the hour or so I was there were ones that I’d spun on 45s, back when:  Happy Together.  Pleasant Valley Sunday.  California Dreamin’.  (Except for American Woman, they used the album version for that one.)  One after another, including some I hadn’t heard (or thought of) since the 70s.  But all recognizable, despite the Pub’s (or, more likely, their music service’s) strange audio processing (Did you know Creeque Alley is really a capella?  Sure sounded like it!)

After a while, it turned into a bit of a game.

If someone wanted to create an “Auld Hippie” channel, they could do a lot worse than start with the Pub’s playlist:  Add a touch of the psychedelic stuff, say Incense and Peppermints, a track or two by Donovan (Wear Your Love Like Heaven?); some post-White Album Beatles, the Fifth Dimension’s Age of Aquarius/Let the Sun Shine In (but not Up, Up, and Away).  Oh, and Light My Fire.^[4]

I wonder about what it’s like for the Pub employees.  When I was their age, it would have been like working in a place that played Glenn Miller records all the time.

For me, well, it left me feeling 40 years younger.  And I’m seriously considering going back to see if I can con some sucker body into a “name that tune” contest.


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...this morning!

(Flood geeks can waste a bunch of time playing with the hydrology stuff that lives here.)

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A day of steady rain with lowering clouds as darkness approached meant no (professional) fireworks for us last night.  After waiting half-an-hour beyond the scheduled 9:47 start time, the sponsors announced^[1] they would hang it up and try again tonight.  (And no wonder: It’s hard to see fireworks shot off the top of a 36-story building when the ceiling is 500 ft!)

While dropping my date off, noted (with approval) that the neighborhood amateurs were doing their best to make up for the “silence of the pros.”


LATER:  Figures:  It’s all Tam’s fault.

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Posted by: Old Grouch in Dear Diary... at 06:10:21 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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Was left searching for the point of this post, until I Googled the circumstances of David Carradine’s demise.  (Not something I’d missed at the time, just trivia I’d discarded as unimportant.)

(And which doesn’t make Tam’s comment any less telling.)

Geeze.  Guess I should retire to a mountaintop somewhere, where the only communication is via smoke signals or hand-carried parchment scrolls.

Elsewhere:

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