Windcicles

Our recent blizzard was nearly tropical, temps never dropped below 25 degrees during the snow fall. Those warm temps and the steady 30mph winds produced the most interesting icicles I've ever seen.

Yesterday, temps got up into the upper 30's on the front porch, and the sun was bright, which made for some beautiful pics.

Man, I love the camera in my iPhone 4.

The morning after the morning after

Well, things are pretty much back to normal- roads are open and schools are up and running.

I think we got about 12" of snow, but it drifted pretty heavily.

But The Hub knows People. People with construction equipment.

He does love his toys.
So we can get out now.

I put my snow-days to good use, though.

The morning after

Well, we survived. The power didn't blink though the winds howled a steady 28mph or so for almost 12 hours straight (except when we had gusts up to 35mph and higher). It's going to be hard to measure the snowfall, but Aberdeen (to our north) got 14" and Huron (to our south) got 9", so I'm guessing we're somewhere in the middle with at least a foot. But that foot of snow is highly mobile.

I took some pictures yesterday.

And I took some more today. We're not totally snowed in, in that The Hub was able to coax his pickup out to the highway, but I won't be going anywhere for another day or so. But we're warm and I have plenty to read, and even more that I should be doing.

But the coolest shot of all is this one, of the Windcicles... usually blizzards are too cold for icicle formation, but it was a warm storm (relatively speaking- in the high 20's) so the wind actually formed the icicles as they dripped.

Is that the coolest thing ever, or what?

And so it begins...

It's still quite warm. Our temps are in the upper 20's, which is why we're getting the snow. It started falling last night around 8:00 pm, and I think we got about 7".

We're smack in the middle of the slow-moving storm track, so the fun has just begun. The wind is picking up- it's now blowing over 20mph, with steady 40mph winds predicted. We'll have a hard time estimating the final snow amounts because it's going to be highly mobile.

I took a couple of quick movies this morning- that crackling sound you hear is snow hitting my phone. This is the front yard- we can't see the railroad tracks, which are less than 100' from the house.

The back yard is a little more photogenic, but every bit as blizzardy.

We have another full day of this coming, but we're hunkered down and we have a generator if we lose power. It's going to be interesting.
And we're not done...