Burning in Bismarck

So when I woke up this morning and jumped on my computer, the first thing I noticed is that my weatherbug was flashing down in the corner, indicating some type of weather warning from the National Weather Service. I wonder if maybe it is fog, because we seem to get a lot of those warnings here, but then I realize that I can see the sun coming up and that's not the problem. That also eliminated rain/thunderstorms. Naturally I click on it to see what sort of weather-doom will befall me this day, and I see, "Fire Weather Warning in Effect", Friday morning until Friday night, Burleigh County. WHAT THE FRENCH, TOAST??? Having never seen this, I have no idea what it means. Does it mean that my county is on fire? That doesn't seem to make a lot of sense since the warning is 24 hours in advance. Does it mean that there is a fire headed this way and I must flee my home within the next 24 hours? Cause if so, holy crappers, where do I go? All I know is that the stupid little bug doesn't start blinking at me unless some bad shit is going to go down, and fire does not seem like something to mess with.

Upon further investigation, I see more description that talks about the heat and the relatively humidity (or lack thereof) in the grasslands. So now I'm wondering if there is something to do with it being so dry here and the wind blowing, that maybe grasslands build up electrical charge and somehow spontaneously combust and start fires to burn down Bismarck... do I live at the gates of Hell??? And if so, why wasn't I aware of this from national news prior to moving here. I mean, even the flooding in Fargo makes it outside the border, so surely spontaneous combustion torching the town would be newsworthy.

Well, I asked around at work, and apparently this is the same as the silly little signs that they put up around national forest warning of the fire danger level of the day based on the dryness. Because it is so dry, apparently we are supposed to be extra careful about throwing cigarette butts out the window. Also apparently sometimes these fires start along the railroad tracks because the train will throw sparks and ignite the grass nearby.

While spontaneous combustion seems a lot more exciting, I'm glad to know that it isn't likely I will wake up with flames outside my window tomorrow morning. I'm still confused as to why I have never seen this warning from my weather bug before.

Beautiful in Bismarck

So I have a new favorite thing about being here. Although I guess since I didn't have an old favorite thing, this is more like my inaugural favorite thing. This morning when I got up there was a weather alert flashing on my computer, and it was for freezing fog. I get what that means in theory, but I feel like it isn't something that I'm accustomed to. In reality what that means is that you can't see shit on your dark drive to work. I couldn't even see the capitol building, which is normally lit up like a permanent, ugly, weird looking Christmas tree. What is also means is that when the sun comes up, everything is absolutely gorgeous. The frozen fog has covered everything in some sort of frost/ice/snow, so everything is white. And then when the sun really comes out and it starts to warm up a little, everything turns silver. I wish I wouldn't have been at work already so I could have gone and taken some pictures. (I mean, this presumes that my camera was here rather than laying on my kitchen counter where my freaking movers still haven't gone to pick it up... but I digress...) Of course, it is currently winter and there is snow on the ground, so it kind of just looks like a picture postcard for winter. However, when I was out here for my interview in November, this also happened. I just didn't know at the time what it was. It was even more amazing then because there was no snow on the ground, but all the trees and fields were still all white and silvery. Anyway, frozen fog is my new fab fave. (P.S. - Plus, I don't know under what precise weather conditions this occurs, and if you care, do your own Wikipedia search you lazy bum... What I do know is that a temperature with a positive sign in front of it was involved!)