Eye! Winter Begins Laddy.

Winter officially begins this afternoon at 1:35 pm EST. This picture was sent to me by my brother who lives in Dublin, Ireland. This is the Passage Tomb and Henge Stones at New Grange above the Boyne River in County Meath. I'm told the Passage Tomb was built around 3,000 BC and the Henge Stones were added about 1,000 years later. To say it's old is an understatement, this tomb was built before the pyramids in Egypt. The tomb was designed so that on the Winter Solstice the rising sun illuminates the very back inside of the structure. Check out 101 facts about this amazing structure at this link:
http://www.mythicalireland.com/ancientsites/newgrange/
I guess I'm fascinated by the fact that ancient people tracked celestial events with such accuracy and seemed to celebrate the changing seasons as we do today.
E-mail received from one of my other brothers this morning says it's 3 degrees in the cornfields of northwest Illinois. And I'm complaining about 23 here. Here are some of the other readings:

• 12 at Dayton, Decatur and Athens
• 13 at The Bledsoe State Forest
• 14 at Georgetown and Fort Payne
• 15 at Blairsville
• 16 at Trenton and the Murphy Andrews Airport
• 18 at Cleveland
• 20 at Ringgold

We'll be almost as cold again tomorrow morning after a sunny afternoon today with highs in the low to mid 40s. Upper 40s to around 50 Thursday afternoon. And mid to upper 50s on the way for Friday. We should keep a lot of sunshine around until Saturday. That's when the next weather maker slides in bringing with it some showers from Saturday afternoon through very early Christmas morning. Right now it appears like all rain, that may end before sunrise Sunday morning. And Christmas Day we may see some sun poking through the clouds with highs into the mid 40s. Some of the models are trying to squeeze out a flurry late Sunday night into early Monday morning, but even that may be grasping at straws. So leave some hot chocolate out for Santa, although he won't be shivering like he would have been the last couple of mornings.