It's warmed up a bit... (updated)

It needed to be a little warmer before it could snow. We got up into the low 20's today but that was accompanied by what will probably qualify as a blizzard.

A blizzard is a snowstorm that is accompanied by at least 3 consecutive hours of 35+ mile per hour winds. It was very windy and our Acuweather app indicated wind speeds greater than 35 MPH for several consecutive hours. We'll see what they call it tomorrow.

It'd be tough to say how much snow we had today. It was very dry powdery stuff that tended to blow around (especially into the driveway). Some spots were very deep and other spots didn't even have enough to cover the footprints in the old snow.

We went out twice to blow the driveway. The first time was at noon and we probably cleared 6-8 inches. The second time was at 4:30 pm and was probably another 8-10 inches. It's still snowing lightly so we may be blowing the driveway again in the morning.

-JC-

Followup on Friday morning: We did get out bright and early to clear the last of the snow. A new cold snap has set in along with some pretty heavy winds. It's a clear blue sky but the wind chill right now (10am) is -26.

I did hold out long enough to take some pictures:

Taken from the small porch on the South (left) side of the house. Kristen walked around here through waist deep snow to shovel the porch.

Taken from that same porch.

Also from that porch.

And one more. The cleared path from the street is so that the fuel oil guy can get to the fill pipe.

With the dry powdery snow and high winds, there was hardly any collection on the roof.

The roof over the farmers porch was the exception. The collection here was partway up the windows so we got the roof rake and pulled most of it off.

I scared the birds away when I went out on the porch to take the earlier picture. This is taken through the kitchen window. The birds go nuts when it's cold. In yesterday's blizzard, they were on every perch and lined up on the ground and in the trees. It was something to see them battling the wind to get to the perches. They were flying into the wind but getting pushed backwards and still landing where they wanted to be.

-JC-