Perpetual Ruminations

Winter is Back

I reckon I better write this now or it's going to turn to five days again.

Two days ago, when I wrote in here last, our snow was almost gone, I had most of the ice chipped away and the sidewalks were almost all dry. Even the driveway was drying out nice, but still pretty soft. We had a few places where the snow was piled that hadn't melted completely, and of course, in the thicker trees where the sun doesn't hit, there was still some snow, but the yard was all grass.

Yesterday about noon, a storm system moved in. The prediction was for a few inches to a few feet of snow, depending on where the heaviest band of the storm was going to hit. "This is a real downer, man!" I thought as I read the forecast. But, we have had a pretty mild winter and in this part of the country, March is often our most snow month. So, I moved some items inside and put others in the garage before the snow hit. I made sure there was gas for the snow-blower and prepared for the worst, hoping for the best.

By noon the snow had started, but it wasn't coming down hard at all. A few times during the afternoon it did get worse, but not for long and by four yesterday afternoon the snow had stopped. There was about an inch on the sidewalks that I shoveled off, and there was a light cover of snow on the driveway and yard, but most of it had melted as soon as it landed. "Not too shabby." I thought as I relaxed on the deck with a smoke.

By six it was snowing again, but like before, hardly any was building up. With it cooler now, however, it was sticking around and things were getting white. By seven, when I had gone out to smoke after dinner, there was about an inch where I had shoveled earlier, and maybe a couple of inches total. I didn't foresee getting much more since the storm was forecast to be out of the area by midnight. With the sun out today and temperatures at least ten degrees above freezing, both my wife and I thought the snow would be gone again by the end of the day.

However, when I went out at nine, it was snowing hard, there was at least another two inches of the stuff, and the wind was blowing it sideways. I looked at the weather app on my phone and it had not changed, so I looked at the radar and there it was, the system was rotating right above us instead of moving along its way. When I got up this morning there was at least six inches of the wet, heavy, and unwanted stuff to shovel. Everything is under a blanket of snow again, and it's looking like I'm back to ground zero for water and ice build-up on the sidewalks.

I went out around nine and cleared the worst of it from between the house and the garage, then cleared the sidewalks and the patio. It's melting, but not as fast as I'd like. I don't mind snow, it's part of the winter season, but by this time of the year, I'm always glad to see it go. The part I really don't like is the season of wet, muddy thawing between winter and spring.