5/17/26 Sunday 9 am
A series of frustrating events has led me to post later than I expected. It all began around midnight when the power went out. This time, it was a real outage for 82 of my neighbors and me, according to the LPEA outage map. It was out for a couple of hours. I had my wifi on backup. Remember that AC generator I bought a few months ago? I finally got use of it. It is fine for one of my computers, which is also hooked to the generator, but there isn’t enough power to run my TV off it.
Anyway, nothing worse for me than the power going out when I am trying to sleep. Silence is not golden; it is a nightmare to me. If I don’t have a couple of fans running at all times, I can’t sleep. So I went and lay on the couch using a fan noise from YouTube on my iPad.
I never fell back to sleep, but the power came back on around 3-4 am. That is way too late in the night for me to attempt to fall asleep. So I rebooted my main computer, which has multiple screens, and of course, the display configurations all changed. I messed with that for 4 hours before giving up and hooked my smaller computer to run the additional monitors separately.
I feel like the lack of sleep over the last 4 weeks has started to break down my body. When I wake up in the morning, I feel like I have whiplash. If I lift or turn my head, I have huge shots of pain at the base of my skull. And even stranger, it feels like my hands are arthritic; the top of my hands and finger joints hurt like hell, and are limited in movement.
So I pop a few ibuprofen, get positioned on the couch, legs stretched out on the ottoman. Put some gel packs in the microwave for 30 seconds, one on the base of my skull and one on my hand. I am typically much better within an hour. The second I fell asleep, Sus called for me to help her out of bed. She could not get back in bed after she was done. So I had to pick her up. Boom, all of the pain came back in the base of my skull and my hands. Then things got worse as I was trying to configure my display settings.
I know you are not reading this to learn about how I am feeling. But I am tired, and I ramble when I start typing. I don’t really have anyone to share these things with, so I guess I had to get it out.
Finally, the weather!
Here is the severe weather outlook for Monday
Why is it important?
In these situations, the energy that quickly flows through the state is usually absorbed by the powerful feature responsible for creating the severe weather in the Midwest.
Overall, models are, in my opinion being overly generous, showing many locations receiving 0.25-0.50 inches of rain in the lower elevations. Here is what the model blend is showing for high-elevation snowfall.
Most of this is forecasted to fall during the day on Monday-we’ll see.
Obviously, I didn’t have time to work on my El Niño piece. But I will leave you with this from the ENSO discussion for May, which I just received.
“The North American Multi-Model Ensemble (NMME) average, including the NCEP CFSv2, favors El Niño to form by next month and persist through Northern Hemisphere winter 2026-27. While confidence in the occurrence of El Niño has increased since last month, there is still substantial uncertainty in the peak strength of El Niño, with no strength categorization exceeding a 37% chance. The strongest El Niño events in the historical record are characterized by significant ocean-atmosphere coupling through the summer, and it remains to be seen whether this occurs in 2026. Stronger El Niño events do not ensure strong impacts; they can only make certain impacts more likely. In summary, El Niño is likely to emerge soon (with an 82% chance in May-July 2026) and continue through the Northern Hemisphere winter 2026-27.”
I will post again as soon as I am able
Pain pain everywhere! I am in lock step with you….a surgery I had a little over 3 years ago using mesh, started falling apart about 6 months ago. Heading to Parker, Colorado for evaluation and then going back up hopefully, shortly thereafter for surgery. Feel like insides want to explode; add getting shots in my neck because of severe pain, starting tomorrow. A caution Jeff…I took Ibuprophen sometimes up to 4 a day for shoulder pain. Ran a hotel laundry for several years and tore out both shoulders. All that to say I learned Ibuprophen if taken regularly can do damage to your liver. I really hurt for you as you have a lot on your plate taking care of your wife and keeping up with weather…she’s blessed to have you. God bless you Jeff…you’ve got this.
You need to go see a dr about your symptoms! Seems to me you may have damaged your neck or upper back. I know you are a caregiver but taking care of yourself is critical. Your wife can’t get your help if you are unwell. It’s a ln old cliché but it’s true. So many caregivers pass before their loved ones. Please take care of yourself.