Here in Missouri we are north of the storm that clobbered the southern US from New Mexico to the east coast. Texas got the most news coverage - there was snow on the beach in Galveston, and one day it was warmer in Moscow than in Fort Worth.

People have no water (frozen pipes) and roads are impassable because of ice and accidents. People have no power and no heat, and deaths caused by carbon monoxide are occurring because they try to use a car or charcoal to get warm.

I learned yesterday that the same weather situation caused snow in Greece and Turkey.

Earlier this week it was very cold here, -4 F or -20 C. (Plus snow and wind, but not very much.) That's colder than it's been for a long time. We were asked to turn thermostats down, which we did, and the power companies tried something new - deliberate rolling blackouts where areas receive no power for 30 to 60 minutes. We had one of those. Maybe it helped, because we did not lose power in our region.

Now it's 30 out. Nice and comfy.