The Ooze of Permafrost Melting

Using the term permafrost in Virginia is a misnomer; there is no permafrost but the ground has been so cold for so long that the recent warm up has created similar conditions to the summer melting of permanently frozen tundra soils. The mid-winter mud season is here and things are oozy and slippery.  I'm not sure how far down the (exposed) soil has frozen (it's frozen and hard to dig into!) but it's far enough that the top layer is now thawed and looking to move...when you step on it. It's a muddy, slippery, sliding world and what looks like solid ground is far from solid; be ready to have your feet move and not in a direction you expected. Walk gingerly!!
The moon is back on the evening side of Earth and was a lovely, tiny crescent with earthshine last night low in the southwest. Jupiter sits in the center of the Winter Hexagon in the southeast opposite the moon when gazing southward.  Clouds later today and for much of this week will make sky watching an iffy endeavor. Any break in the clouds before dawn will show the brilliant morning star, Venus.
While there are always volcanoes rumbling and spitting here and there around the shaky planet, Sinabung, on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia, has erupted; exploded into action and killed people that had begun to move back to their homes after initial evacuation orders. Things change quickly and with often explosive consequences here on the big, wild planet. If you live in Indonesia, you already knew that.
Greece continues to have aftershocks in the 4 and 5 range on the Richter scale, New Zealand (an island off the coast) was rocked today with a 6.5 quake, Peru, Indonesia, California, Alaska; you know the rest of the earthquake list. None in OK or UT, but though there was a little shake along the New Madrid fault zone along the Mississippi late last week; not a sign you want to see...
Warm temps, even with high cloud filtered sunlight, will make for a pleasant Super Bowl Sunday but those clouds foretell of unsettled changes ahead, rain changing over to some snow Monday, more rain Tuesday into Wednesday and the potential for another storm next weekend. The groundhog saw his shadow (and we know this how...) so folk tales tell us, 6 more weeks of winter. Seems to be the way the planet is headed this year: warm and dry on the west coast, cold and wintery on the east. Get out and check out the warm, slippery planet before the big game, today on Earth.