Consecutive bicycle work commute number 1627:

Woke up to the sound that makes me wince: the wind howling. It's really hard to motivate myself to get out of bed when I hear that.

24°F with a 30 mph steady headwind and gusts much stronger. It was a "need to pedal downhill" kind of morning. Winds are actually supposed to pick up during the day, so I should get a real nice push home.

I was on the hybrid bike with regular tires. There were patches of fresh ice from yesterday's rain, and still thick ruts under the overpasses, but 99% of the pavement was clear so I didn't have any problems without winter tires. The west side of the state got dumped with snow, but thankfully we just wound up with a rainy day.

There is still snow that remains where it had been piled up by shovels and snow moving equipment, but a lot of it has melted off in a nice, slow, controlled fashion. That's good news, because starting Friday the daily high temps are supposed to start poking into the 50s F, and in a week into the 70s. That will be a welcome change in the weather, and because most of the snow has already melted off we shouldn't have problems with flooding. That was a big concern of mine a month ago when we had snow pack taller than me; a sudden warm-up would have pushed the river past its banks. Currently the river is high, but not so high that we're worried it will cause issues once the remaining snow melts.