Now this is gorgeous weather!

Not comfortable weather, I'll agree, but absolutely gorgeous. That pic at right is the built-in from my mini-van on the drive in this morning. Frosty! The observant reader will note that the readout is displaying in degrees Celcius. True. this temp only corresponds to about -10 deg Farenheit. Unfortunatley, I don't have a pic of the temp when I hit the highway... -15 deg F! At my home, by contrast, it was a disappointing -8 deg F. It's the winter version of the lake effect - always a few degrees warmer at home because of the proximity of a Great Lake.


But I digress. My point was that this morning is beautiful. The sky shades from a denim blue westward of overhead to a gentle rose at the horizon (sunrise still being a few minutes away). The air is still , and quiet. Since schools are closed, many people are home from work with the kids, and the roads run free and easy (well, techinically not free, since the Illinois tollway authority extracts a buck from me each day to get to work, but again, I digress). Best of all is the snow. It's too cold for salt to do it's snow-melting magic, so the parking lots are covered with a layer of packed snow. And when you walk on it, it squeaks! It's my favorite sound of winter, the squeaky crunch of o'er frozen snow.

But that's not all! Frost builds up on the moustache after only a minute or so outside. Nose hairs also freeze together with the frost from exhales. It's a curious sensation, having one's hairs freezing together - a brief window into a different world. Further indication I'm a freak? Sure, but what the hell? It's the only weather I truly love!

That's a Mother-*$#&@-ing Lot of Snow!

Wow, what a storm! The official tally for my area was 12.5 inches. That seems about right, maybe an inch or two more, since we're in the lake-effect zone. Hard to judge a snowfall when you've got so much drifting. We had a 2 1/2 foot drift in one part of our driveway, and bare pavement in another part. The best news of the day is that our local snowplow driver helped me out while I was shovelling this AM (NOTE: TheWife was out helping shovel today, and shovelled my side of the driveway before I got home yesterday afternoon. She just happened to be inside feeding TheBoy when the plow came. Without her help, add another half-hour to shovelling time, at least). Plow guy backed up and pushed the ridge of heavy-packed snowplow leavings off the edge of my driveway and into the ditch. Probably saved me another 45 minutes of shovelling. Thanks Mr. Plow! You made my day!



TMJ4 has a listing of the official snow totals here. Looks like the parents got hit with 16"! Damn. That's a lot of snow.

Tornados and Storms

Looks like elmina and libelleak were right in the line of the major storm damage and tornados tonight. Anybody heard from them?

UPDATE!
Both elmina and libelleak are fine and, from what I hear, their homes are undamaged. Unfortunately, it looks like libelleleak has some in-laws who were directly hit. I'm a little mixed up on details right now, but it looks like one or two family members have homes that are complete losses. More details as they become available.

Snowforms

The snow in my back yard is really gorgeous right now. Repeated small snowfalls, wind and extreme cold have collaborated to create these amazing designs (click to expand):

Damn!

OK, we all know it's cold, but Damn! That's cold! It's cold like it used to be, for those two or three days every winter. It's an exhausting cold, but a cleansing cold. And thank ghod for the foot of snow protecting our plants! If only I had a foot of snow protecting the soda in the garage fridge. That'll be fun to clean up (once it warms up enough to risk having wet hands in the garage).

A Luster of mid-day

There was a brilliant full moon last night (OK, techincally, the fool moon fell after midnight but, still), and it seemed all the more brilliant due to the thick layer of snow on the ground. Like the poem says,

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow, Gave a luster of mid-day to objects below.

Now, Mama doesn't wear a kerchief, and our winter's nap was all but long due to our hungry, hungry hippo of a boy. But the moon was glorious.

(The scene was much like that at right, but credit for the photo goes to BlueRidge Muse. I hope it's ok I used your photo!)

Snow Day!

No school for the kid today! In fact, we've all decided to stay home. The whole area is under a Blizzard Watch. We've got 3 or 4 inches on the ground with totals to exceed 10 inches today! And winds are gusting up to 35 miles per hour. A-a-a-nd it's supposed to be worse to the south (which is the direction I'd have to go to get to work) Sheesh! HAve a look at the video I shot after I (pointlessly) shovelled the driveway:


(PS: That's not fog, it's snow, blowing in sheets across the landscape. OK, it's boring, but I like uploading stuff to YouTube - makes me feel connected.)

Truth be told, I'm feeling a little guilty about not going to work today. There's a load of stuf fI need to get done, and now it'll sit until Monday. But Kenosha county (the one I travel through on the way to work) is reporting that they already have over 30 accidents, most of them on the interstate. I guess it's good I'm staying home. Besides, now I can get the tree up!

Anybody else staying home today? Or more to the point, did anybody from the area actually go to work? Leave a message in the comments!