Oh Snow

All this week the meteorologists have been predicting a big snowstorm for the weekend. It was one of those storms where they kept adding to the snow totals as the week went along. What started out as 4-8" gradually grew into 12-18" of snowfall. The snow was supposed to start on Friday afternoon, but didn't actually start until late that evening.

When I drove to work on Saturday morning, I had about 6" of snow to clear off my car. The good news was that the ground was warm enough that there was only a few patches of minor slush on the roads. There was only a minor dusting of snow on the ground when I got to work and it started to seem like this was the usual case of the meteorologists making a mountain out of a molehill. 

My co-worker and I were standing outside just before 3PM and about ten minutes later when we were inside, you could see that it was not only finally snowing, but that it was blowing sideways. Out of nowhere, the wind was blowing very hard and it was practically whiteout conditions. Before I left work a couple hours later there was a few inches of snow on the ground and the roads were starting to get pretty nasty.

On the drive home, I passed a box truck just off the side of the highway laying on its side, facing oncoming traffic. I didn't encounter problems until I got off the highway. I couldn't get going after coming to a stop at the top of the off-ramp. My tires spun and I just kept slipping and it took a good 45 seconds to finally get traction. The same problem happened at every stop I had to make the rest of the way home, which was fortunately only about a mile away. I don't even want to know what would have happened if I didn't have a good set of snow tires.

This morning I woke up to probably around a foot of snow in the yard (it's hard to tell exactly because the wind blew the snow into drifts all over). I shoveled off the back patio area so that it doesn't turn into a skating rink for the dogs. While I shoveled, they ran around and played and I was glad that someone could enjoy the snow. As for me, I'm glad I don't have to drive in the snow today or tomorrow. I guess it's a good day to read or have a Netflix marathon.