Snow Day

The past 24 hours has been pretty remarkable in my experience, although I'm sure there are some out there who can relate. Having grown up in Southern California, my snow experience is rather limited.

Around noon Friday, the long-expected storm hit. It didn't just start with flurries like most of the previous storms this season...it just started dumping snow right from the beginning. The first picture here was taken about an hour after the beginning of the storm.

The NWS had predicted that most snow would be north of I-40, which is about 50 miles north of us, but that did not happen. Before the night was through we were up to about 4 inches as measured by the accumulation of the exposed front porch deck rail. You can see a similar accumulation in the picture I included which shows the table that the Tiki Bar used to meet around and the chairs the members would sit in.

I even took time to build my first snowman...a rather pitiful small-scale assemblage on the hood of my car. I couldn't find a carrot for a nose or two eyes made out of coal, so I broke some twigs off the tree out front and used my sunglasses. Instead of Frosty's corncob pipe, my snowman is smoking a cigarillo...but at his size, it's practically a Presidente!

Later on the TV went out as the dish started filling up with snow accumulation. At this point it hasn't fallen off yet, but if it hasn't in the next hour, I'm going to try to force the issue. Overnight the snow turned to freezing rain and sleet so a lot of the piled up snow has already melted or turned into ice.

Woke up to the power going out at 7:45 this morning. It came back on about an hour later, Thank God. I was able to get my morning coffee after all and the house started to warm back up.

I'm sure there are parts of the country, especially directly north of us, that see this whole experience as pretty mild, but this was my wildest storm experience yet...and a good educational experience for times when it might be even worse. At this point it's still too dangerous to drive, so I'll be staying home for the day. Even if I did make it to town, I probably could not get home because of the several steep hills in the way--steep hills and icy conditions are rough on a front-wheel drive car!

It's warmed up to a nice 37 degrees at this point (although it is a "wet cold") so I might actually get out to smoke a stogie today as I watch the snow melt. Wish y'all could be here...this would make for a great "snow herf."