Ice And Snow

Snow and ice…  Winter is kind of like that in Northern climes, but it really hit hard the other day, reversing the order to ice then snow.  Of course the ice last Thursday was nothing like some of the ice storms that we used to get in Texas or they have on the East coast, but it was substantial enough that my car was fully entombed in ice and no amount of scraping or whacking on the icy windshield would clear it.  Only sitting with the defroster on full for 10 minutes would I be able to make a crack in the ice covering the windshield.  The  picture above was made that night after walking out of the lab.  By 7pm, everything has a glossy sheen to it which made sidewalks, city wide terrifyingly slick to navigate and resulted in hundreds of ER visits for broken bones around the valley.

The ice also caused a fair number of car accidents throughout the valley as people slid headlong into others in a skating rink bumper car kind of way.  This one was seen up the street from us and resulted in a 3 car shunt and a ride to the hospital for someone.

And then the snow started.  Our snow blower picked a fine time to stop running and was in the shop, just in time for this snowstorm.  So, out the shovels came and extra helpings of dessert were earned over literally, 5 hours of shoveling.  It was a minor triumph getting out of bed this morning, but the news reports more snow for tonight and offers another chance to earn another slice of cake.

Of course this is all good for the snow pack, water levels in the summer and ski resort business.  It also promises some rather excellent time up in the mountains assuming that I can still put skis on after all this shoveling.