Very sloppy morning

Good morning Augusta. If you're just waking up DO NOT look outside. Its miserable out there.

This morning it is overcast with ice pellets, then rain and ice pellets in the afternoon. High of 46F. Winds from the NNE at 5 to 15 mph. Chance of precipitation 100% .

Tonight it will remain overcast with rain. Low of 23F. Winds from the North at 5 to 10 mph shifting to the WNW after midnight. Chance of rain 90% with rainfall amounts near 0.3 in. possible.

The readings taken from my own weather instrumentation are:

A relative humidity of 95% with a Dew Point of 29.3ºF and a wind chill of 30.6º F.    

The temperature is 30.6ºF.

Presently we have   East Northeast winds between 5.4 MPH and 8.3 MPH.

Our Barometric pressure is 29.90/HPA 1012.5 and falling with a weather graphic indicating rain.

The UV rating is 0 out of 16, sunset will be at 3:59 PM with Moon Rise at 3:39 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, and the moon phase is Waning Crescent.

For the pilots out there: Raw METAR is –

METAR KAUG 101153Z AUTO 04007KT 5SM -FZRA BR OVC004 M01/M02 A2999 RMK AO2 PRESFR SLP160 P0006 60017 70017 T10111017 10000 21017 56029

Visibility is 5.0 miles/8.0 Kilometers with overcast down to 400 ft / 121 m.

We have had a real mix of percipitation here in the form of rain, snow, sleet and general slop in the amount of 0.14 inches, but this type of precipitation is hard to measure owing to the freezing of it before measurement.

Folks, its real sloppy out there. Yep, its Monday.

Have you ever wondered how snow was explained by ancient people? How about the ancients of New Zealand?

Weather-ology: The Children of Wind and Rain – courtesy of the online Farmer's almanac

by Jaime McLeod first published on Monday, January 23rd, 2012

While myths explaining the cause of winter, and the attendant loss of daylight, are common across a wide cross-section of cultures, myths about the origin of snow are actually somewhat rare. Among the native people who lived in much of what is now Canada and Alaska, ice and snow were seen as a normal state of affairs. They saved their stories for explaining warmth and light. Even the Norse, bound up in frigid northern Europe, pretty much left the question alone. They imagined a few frost giants to personify the cold weather, but didn't provide much by way of insight into their beliefs about why snow exists.

One notable exception is the Maori people of New Zealand. Their legend tells how the goddess of cold winds, Huru-te-arangi, and the god of rain, Te Ihorangi, married and bore 12 children, each of whose names represented a different kind of snow. These were Huka-puhi, Huka-puwhenua, Huka-rere, Huka-punehunehu, Huka-papa, Huka-pawhati, Huka-taraapunga, Huka-rangaranga, Huka-waitara, Huka-koropuku, Huka-waitao, and Huka-teremoana.

The family were said to have lived on the summit of Mahutonga, a great mountain in the frozen land of Paraweranui, at the south end of the world, and to sweep up to visit their northern kin when Pipiri, a southern winter star, was high in the sky during the winter solstice.

What's interesting about this myth is that, unlike many other origin stories about natural phenomena, the Maori understanding of how snow forms is actually pretty spot-on. Just like rain, snow starts in our atmosphere as tiny particles of water vapor. These tiny particles condense and join together to form droplets. If the atmosphere is above freezing, these drops eventually get so heavy that they fall as rain. When the atmosphere is below freezing, however, the droplets freeze into tiny ice crystals and fall as snow. So, in a poetic sense, snow really is the offspring of rain and a cold wind. Without possessing sophisticated weather instrument, microscopes, or other modern technology, the Maori showed an astute understanding of the natural world.

Jaime McLeod is the Web Content Editor for the Farmers' Almanac.