Foggy, mild and a bit of "Nutcracker" history

Good Morning Augusta

This Morning we have fog, then it will be cloudy this afternoon. Highs around 45F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph. 

Tonight we’ll have

The readings from my instruments are:

Humidity is 100%, the dew point is 38ºF, its 40ºF outside with a wind chill of 40ºF.

The wind direction is West between 0.0 mph and 0.2 mph.

The Barometric pressure is 29.68 HPA 1004 and falling with a weather graphic predicting rain.

The UV rating is 0.0 out of 16, Sunrise is at 7:09 a.m. Sunset is 4:01 P.M. Moon rise is at 11:46 A.M. EST and the moon phase is waxing crescent.

The METAR reading from Augusta’s airport is:

METAR SPECI KAUG 181221Z AUTO 35004KT 3/4SM BR VV002 03/03 A2964 RMK AO2 T0033003

Visibility is 0.8 miles / 1.2 kilometers with fog.  

We had 0.37 inches of rain here in the past 24 hours.

Copied directly from December 17 NYT’s “BACK STORY”

I didn’t know that…

“It’s hard to imagine the holiday season without the cultural feast of glittering fairies, toys and sweets that come alive with the dancing and music of “The Nutcracker.”

The ballet, with a score by Tchaikovsky, premiered in St. Petersburg, Russia, 123 years ago on Friday.

It might never have happened. Tchaikovsky’s parents sent him to law school because they didn’t consider music an acceptable profession. Later, he quit a legal job to attend the St. Petersburg Conservatory, the foundation of an illustrious career that included “Swan Lake” and “Sleeping Beauty.”

The “Nutcracker” tale isn’t entirely Russian, though. It’s based on an 1816 story, “Nutcracker and Mouse King,” by the German writer E. T. A. Hoffmann, and it was adapted and popularized by the French writer Alexandre Dumas in 1844 as “The Tale of a Nutcracker.”

Decades later, the St. Petersburg Opera hired Tchaikovsky to write music for a ballet based on the later version. No performances today faithfully follow the staging first done in St. Petersburg.

Tchaikovsky’s scores are among the most famous in ballet, and they lend much of the magic to the holiday fairy tale that ends happily ever after.”