It's Snowing Again....

[Priscilla]

We're due for one to three inches this afternoon. Then, it's supposed to turn to all rain.

[Hans]

That's water dear The snow that has already fallen can't turn into rain, see?

Yes, you're not the only one that can be in a silly mood

[Priscilla]

Hehe! I think that's a local expression. However, what's on the ground is gonna melt and be "water" once that later rain hits it.

You are a silly one, H.B.!

[r2005]

I hate it when the precipitation changes over. I think we're due for some of that tomorrow, at least I think that's what I heard when I briefly caught the weather report on my way out the door.

Starting as snow and then changing over to rain brings dangerous icy conditions if it gets really cold.

[Cynth]

Originally Posted by r2005

Did you happen to have a camera near by? That scene sounds like it would be a wonderful picture.

No, we just stood in awe.
Kas is the photographer in this house but she was at work...maybe next time...we get quite a few rainbows but this one was truly magnificent, especially after so many days of grey skies.

[Cheryl]

I just scraped a layer of ice off all the windows of my car. First time I've done that in years.

[Sandi]

I don't like ice. As I remember when I used to live in the DC area, scraping ice was a frequent challenge. On the other hand, the roller coaster effect weather is still going on here. About lunch time it was 74F on the front porch, a thing that always means trouble this time of year. Sure enough, by 3 p.m. there were tornado watches and warnings all over the place. Fortunately it calmed down before it got here and all we got was wind and rain. And it's supposed to freeze tonight.

[Anareth]

It's snowing again. Dammit.

[mawra]

We had freezing rain. Now we just have ice every where.

[Cheryl]

Here too Mawra. No school for all the ice out there. I'm hoping I can get some pretty pictures when it's a bit lighter outside.

[r2005]

Everything has been canceled where I am today. At least I'm only missing one class today.

We got snow this morning, and it has since become freezing rain. I know that the roads are going to be a mess.

[Sandi]

This time yesterday the temperature wa 74F. Right now it's 29F. We've had a few flurries but no "real" snow. No wonder most of the people around here are sick.

[Cynth]

Not to rub it in...but today finally, we have beautiful, warm sunny skies and the lambs are all frolicking out in the fields...I plan on working in the greenhouse, seeding veggie flats, most of the afternoon. This is my favorite time of year, when everything is fresh and new.
We'll probably have another couple of cold grey days but spring is beginning now.

[P'ter]

Hey Anareth: would that Darcy be Darcy Bustle?

[Brenda]

Cape Girardeau, MO, where I'm attending SEMO university, got hit by an ice storm starting early Monday. It sleeted for the entire day, then went to freezing rain. Classes were canceled for Monday, Tuesday, and now today. Yesterday was fun because my dorm had a movie-and-board-game party for most of the day. I only left the building once, and that was only by about ten feet to take a few pictures.

The trees were covered in ice. There was a big branch down around the corner of the dorm. The tree by the door is a maple, and the red buds were beautiful through the ice. There was a faint creaking of ice as the branches moved.

That was about all I saw - I didn't want to try walking anywhere on that stuff, which was almost two inches thick, although the campus sidewalks had mostly been cleared. My roommate and I ordered Dominoes pizza for lunch, and had leftovers for supper.

Today the campus was only supposed to be closed until 1 pm, but it was changed to the full day. Apparently it's pretty bad out there. I know in Jackson, only a few miles from here, the power was out; there are probably a lot of trees and lines down, and even where there aren't, many streets have not been cleared. Insulated in my cozy dorm, I hadn't really picked up on all the damage.

Then today I walked over to the UC cafeteria for lunch.

It was amazing. There were trees down on campus, branches everywhere. The steps, thankfully, were not too slippery.

The ice was incredible.

There were holly leaves and pine needles encased in half an inch of ice. There were stalks of grass with little globs of ice on their tips. There were millions of icicles 2-4 inches long covering every branch on every tree, besides the thick coating of ice; and the branches had been weighed down so that the icicles no longer pointed straight down, but inward toward the trunks of the trees.

I went back inside, but later I looked out the window and the sun was out for the first time since the storm.

The trees were covered in diamonds.

I went out with my camera to get a few pictures of this new, glittering world, and was astonished at how bright everything was. And how noisy! There was dripping, falling icicles, falling twigs... the ice was melting. A little. I decided to go out to the parking lot and try breaking the ice off my car while it was in this state, but was brought up short by the sight of the magnolia tree, with each bud buried under glass. The fur was clearly visible through the ice. I hope they were still dormant and haven't been killed.

I had left my car unlocked, so it was only a matter of banging on the door until the edges were loose and wrenching it open. I turned on the defroster as high as it would go, grabbed the scraper, and went into battle.

Slamming the door helped loosen things, but mostly it was a matter of pounding with the handle end of the scraper. There was a good inch and a half of ice on the top. After a while, the car warmed up enough that I was able to loosen huge slabs and send them sliding down. It took a good twenty minutes before I was satisfied, and I was quite warm from the work!

At this point I realized it was late enough to go the library - I had seen on the computer in the dorm that it would open at 3 pm. I began walking over, still marveling at the difference that golden-silver light made on the scene. Even the fallen tree, still covered in icicles, glittered. I bumped into a pine branch and the individually coated needles rattled like maracas.

I heard a bird and spotted it in another pine tree - I think it was a robin, but it flew away before I could tell. I was just starting to feel sorry for it when I saw a mockingbird!

I have a special thing for mockingbirds.

This one was perched on the rim of one of the old-fashioned lampposts around campus. As I watched, he flew up and tried to land on the knob at the top, which I could clearly see was covered in a good half-inch of ice... he slipped around on it, trying to keep his balance, for several seconds before sliding back down to the rim, then flew across the sidewalk to a holly bush and sat there trying to regain his dignity. That would have been hard enough without his feathers being puffed up as far as they would go. It must have been a cold perch, but still! The first mockingbird of spring! A little too early!

I went on, looking down the street to where the sunlight made every tree as far as I could see look pure white. I headed on to the library, where the fountain out front was still running, splashing water into ice shapes that look like cave formations... but for once they weren't the coolest thing around.

[r2005]

It's been one crazy day, it started as snow than went to freezing rain, and now it's just rain. I have to go look and see what the over night low is supposed to be because things will be an even bigger mess if all this precipitation has a chance to freeze.

The trees were covered in ice. There was a big branch down around the corner of the dorm. The tree by the door is a maple, and the red buds were beautiful through the ice. There was a faint creaking of ice as the branches moved.

That description reminds me of the Ice Storm of January 98, and that brought a lot of trees and branches down throughout the entire state.

[mawra]

Kibbie has very loudly informed every one that it is SNOWING!

[r2005]

My driveway was a big sheet of ice this morning, and all the roads are really slippery.

My father gave me a ride this morning, and there was an accident on one of the on ramps to the interstate, so we had to take the scenic route.

[Cheryl]

Ice pictures from yesterday:

[Deb]

Well, up here we got yet another dump: another 6 - 8 inches came down. At least it was light and almost fuffly this time so shovelling was not the nightmare it could have been!! The snow drift beside my driveway is about 4 1/2 feet and the ones in my backyard are almost 6 feet high!! (I have to shovel my back deck and a small section of ground for my dog!! He hates getting his tootsies wet! Such a brave soul!)

[Brenda]

Cheryl, that pine tree could be the one I mentioned!

Here's what it's like today:

It really warmed up - up to the fifties F. So everything was melting, and was glittering more then ever. It was blinding in the direct sunlight. And the air was filled with the sounds of dripping and tiny icicles shattering, and occasionally a louder crunch. The ice has been dropping steadily all day. There's a bit of breeze, which allows it to slip off, and then of course as it falls it knocks against other bits, so it's a fairly constant rain of icy chunks. The ground cover has melted and softened, reduced to the individual tiny pellets that fell as sleet. This makes walking much easier, especially when one is trying to avoid getting icicles dropped down one's collar.

And the mockingbird's perch is cleared again.

There are still tons of trees and branches and lines down across the area - the governor actually sent in the National Guard to check on people and make sure they're okay. The local paper said a lot of people had to move to shelters in schools, etc.

[P'ter]

Well, at present we'vw got the warmest Feb on record. Folks were swimming in the sea!

[Brenda]

Well, things are getting back to normal. All the ice is out of the trees, and what's left on the ground is rapidly being overtaken by reappearing grass. But there are still branches and downed trees everywhere.

It's cold again - not quite freezing, but just above - and the sky is a little strange. It's overcast, but a very thin layer, so that the sun still shines through... and somehow those clouds make the whole world look so much colder.

[sjslack]

It's been /so/ cold yesterday and today...;_; I'm going to need to get gloves at this rate.

[P'ter]

Sara: you keep your bad knee warm. Damaged bits need all the tlc they can get.

[P'ter]

We haven't had much (any) snow but the recent rains gave us a new version of 'drive through'!

[Brenda]

So, yesterday was less cold - mid to upper 40sF. Most of the ice was gone, but in some sheltered places there were large patches that were still thick, covered with tiny bits of broken ice like sugar on frosting. In the places where it was melting, every stick and twig was down in its own hollow, as the ice melted out from around it. There were a few perfect circles surrounding sweet-gum balls, but only a few - most of last year's sweet-gum balls got frozen as flowers.

Today there is a wind advisory. The flags are flapping like crazy, and the fountain is doing strange things. Every branch that had broken and not fallen is going to have fallen by the time this is over - the trees are really moving around. It's dark and overcast right now, threatening rain, but the clouds are still moving fast. This morning they weren't joined together yet, and they were really racing by - big white puffs, dark underneath but bright around the edges, with a few patches of blue in between... Every few minutes the sun would come out and make it really feel like spring. Despite the rain that started the day out.

All the ice is gone now except for what's left of the mounds that were piled up along the roads - and those won't last much longer.

I heard cardinals singing yesterday. My Missouri Natural Events calendar (from the Mo. Dept. of Conservation) said just a week or two ago that cardinals were supposed to start singing. The males are claiming territories. The week after an ice storm. This is gonna be some spring.

[Sandi]

The most active birds in these parts just now are chickadees and titmice. And there seems to be a lot of duck traffic overhead. Tornado warnings have become so frequent they're becoming downright boreing. This time the line formed almost right over us very early in the morning so the worst of it was to the east. It was noisy, though. The hail was very small this time and I don't think there was any damage in the immediate vicinity but it is still tearing up other parts of the state even as I type this. They're still threatening snow flurries for tomorrow.

@ P'ter, that looks like the snow we've been getting here today!

[bisbe]

We've had so much snow here that we've set a new record that being broken with every new snow fall, including todays!
Even my snow loving dogs are tired of the white stuff!
It doesn't help that I have 2feet of snow in my yard.
But I'll take the snow over ice any day!

[r2005]

We just got another 2 inches at least. I think the weather report said the total accumulation was supposed to be between 2 and 4 inches.

That was just enough to make the roads a little slippery. My mother and siblings were planning on going shoe shopping today, but they punted on it when they realized the road conditions werent' good.

[AnnMarie]

We got another 4" yesterday. Unfortunately, there is ice under it in spots. Kid next door (Actually in his mid-late 20s) almost lost it taking the corner by our house...and this young man does NOT whip around corners. Dancer fell while we were out with the dog. I don't mind the snow (not yet, anyhow) but I can do without ice.

[r2005]

We got hit by a clipper yesterday, and it dropped another six inches or so.

I keep praying that we don't get any type of a snow storm in April, and I'm sure I'm jinxing it by thinking about it.

[Brighid]

We've had pretty hectic weather to, last monday it was 68F and by tuesday we had freezing rain and about a 1/4-1/2 inch of ice coating everything wednesday morning. Snow I like, ice, not so much. Not even half hour ago I managed to get a layer of ice plus 6inches of snow off my car to pull around in the driveway and realize I was leaking something.....now I'm stranded until I can figure out what's leaking

Ah well, it'll bring warm again soon, besides now I can make some rice crispy treats

[Deb]

Yup...another storm.....in the past 24 hours we've gotten about 6 - 8 inches, and it's not finished yet!! Although not too much has fallen since I shovelled last, it's still blowing around lots!!

[r2005]

I think we're due for more snow soon....but it could be snowing in the northern part of the state. I'd have to look and see, but it's mostly been rain today. I'll have to look and see how cold it's supposed to be over night because if it gets below freezing before the roads dry up, I can see a lot of icy roads in the future.

[Cynth]

OMG! We have just had the weirdest weather for our area...here I was potting up plants and seeding flats in the greenhouse, getting a new veggie garden prepared, when in the space of an hour everything goes grey and dark, we get light showers, then a deluge of rain, thunder and snow!!! Which is absolutely crazy!
And today I am looking out my window at beautiful sunny skies with a covering of snow everywhere...the sheep are all hiding in the barn!

[r2005]

It's officially spring, and we got some light snow here the other day. It was Friday because I went to my piano lesson, and I waited for a bus for 15 minutes and never did catch. (I might have missed it by like two or three minutes.) The top of my head was covered in snow, and I kept thinking when will the snow disappear. It's the end of March, and the snow is supposed to be melting away, not continuing to come.

If more snow comes in the month of April, I'm warning all of you right now that I might have to start screaming. This winter has had the most snow that I can remember in several years now, and I'm tired of it. I want it to feel like spring.

My worst nightmare hasn't even happened yet, and I'm already started to rant and complain. This is not a good sign.

[Allana]

We're moving into the rain phase, now. Too bad I misplaced my umbrella...I'm going to get wet today.

[Deb]

I've still got a 5 foot snowpile in my backyard that is slowly melting!! The bare patch on the ground is all muddy. I think I will "borrow" from the snowpile as my brave dog doesn't like to get his feet wet!! Other than that, it's not actively raining yet, but we got slushy snow from the skies the other day! I heard on the news that on Wed it's going up to 14 degrees!! (For those of you who deal in Fahrenheit: that's 57 degrees!! Today it is 4 or 39) *shakes head* Crazy weather!!

[r2005]

There are some really muddy places around here, but I avoid them. I suppose seeing the muddy spots does give me some hope for spring since those are signs of that season that comes between winter and spring....mud season.

Yes, there are five seasons in Maine, summer, fall, winter, mud, and spring.