Frigid King County: 21 December 2008:
Happy first day of Winter!! [What? It seems as if Winter has been here for a few days already, right!?]
Yesterday, after a day or two of no more snow, the youngest son, Darrell, volunteered to shovel the driveway for his Old Grumpy Dad. A pathway (see previous post) had been cleared so we could go up and down to get the newspaper (what newspaper -- it never came!) and the mail ("... through rain, snow, sleet or hail ... "). But, as this picture shows, Darrell really did a big job!! Grumpy actually smiled!
But as night fell, forecasts of "high winds" and 2-5 inches of snow threatened. During the night, we heard some wind -- not a lot, but enough so that when daylight arrived and a new walkway was cleared, it was obvious from the widely varying snow depth (2" to 6") that there had been some new snow, but also some drifting of the old or the new. The old snow was certainly light enough to be wind-blown and the new was as well. Sometime during the night, however, after the drifting had occurred, there was a period of rainfall: the surface of the new snow was covered with a 1/4 inch crust of ice! Now the snow became quite immovable.
The photo on the right is interesting because of the sharp line of snow formed on the side of Grumpy's Red Rocket. The demarcation is caused by the fact that the sheet metal has a horizontal crease from front to back at that level. The very slight change to vertical resulted in the dusting of snow sticking above this crease and falling past the lower area (except note the snow on the top of the door-bumper strip!).
Grumpy just had to add some "before" and "after" photos showing the picnic table on 20 April this year and again as it is this morning, the 21st of December. Not too impressive if one considers that the additional amount of snow had eight months to accumulate.
Grumpy's snow stories and snow depths pale in comparison to those posted by Amboy. And Grumpy doesn't even try to approach the tempting visions shown on "The Swede's" blog.
Happy first day of Winter!! [What? It seems as if Winter has been here for a few days already, right!?]
Yesterday, after a day or two of no more snow, the youngest son, Darrell, volunteered to shovel the driveway for his Old Grumpy Dad. A pathway (see previous post) had been cleared so we could go up and down to get the newspaper (what newspaper -- it never came!) and the mail ("... through rain, snow, sleet or hail ... "). But, as this picture shows, Darrell really did a big job!! Grumpy actually smiled!
But as night fell, forecasts of "high winds" and 2-5 inches of snow threatened. During the night, we heard some wind -- not a lot, but enough so that when daylight arrived and a new walkway was cleared, it was obvious from the widely varying snow depth (2" to 6") that there had been some new snow, but also some drifting of the old or the new. The old snow was certainly light enough to be wind-blown and the new was as well. Sometime during the night, however, after the drifting had occurred, there was a period of rainfall: the surface of the new snow was covered with a 1/4 inch crust of ice! Now the snow became quite immovable.
The photo on the right is interesting because of the sharp line of snow formed on the side of Grumpy's Red Rocket. The demarcation is caused by the fact that the sheet metal has a horizontal crease from front to back at that level. The very slight change to vertical resulted in the dusting of snow sticking above this crease and falling past the lower area (except note the snow on the top of the door-bumper strip!).Grumpy just had to add some "before" and "after" photos showing the picnic table on 20 April this year and again as it is this morning, the 21st of December. Not too impressive if one considers that the additional amount of snow had eight months to accumulate.
Grumpy's snow stories and snow depths pale in comparison to those posted by Amboy. And Grumpy doesn't even try to approach the tempting visions shown on "The Swede's" blog.
I did something similar. Saturday, I spent 2 hours chopping down the high spots (that area between the wheel ruts made when the snow was just barely low enough to drive over) in the road with a rake, in hopes that I'd be able to drive to work on Monday. Then it snowed Saturday night and Sunday so much that I am positive I can't go anywhere without damaging the car.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to have to telecommute today.