Groundhog Day, Digging Out

Right here in the immediate St. Louis metro, the dreaded historic three-day ice, snow and wind storm was much milder than predicted, for which we are thankful and feel very fortunate. Predicting these weather events is very tricky, because when storms approach St. Louis they tend to veer one way or the other, or sometimes just part, go around, and regroup on the Illinois side of the river. Some locals are griping, as though they feel cheated we didn't get 500,000 power outages (as we did in 2006) or 14 to 20 inches of blowing snow--as did Tulsa and Columbia, respectively! Here are some pictures of our event. Above, the redbud in the front yard had about 1/10 inch of ice clinging to it as it started to get dark on Monday afternoon. It turned out that batch of freezing rain was only supposed to be the warmup for the Main Event on Tuesday.

The finch feeder toward the back of our yard wore a bonnet of icicles that I kept warily watching all afternoon as the freezing rain continued to fall. All the birds were feeding furiously Monday morning before the precipitation started. We rounded up the kerosene heater, the sterno stove, batteries, flashlights, matches, candles and long underwear in case the worst happened. The weather service at this point thought we could have 1/2 to 1 inch of ice by Tuesday night. We felt certain that if the ice reached 1/2 inch we would be in for an outage because somewhere a line would break, despite all the recent tree trimming by the utility company.

Our electric company learned some hard lessons from the two storms in 2006, one in summer, one in winter, that crippled St. Louis for days--and kept some people in the dark for a week or more. They trimmed a lot, buried some lines, upgraded poles (and raised our rates to cover the expense.) On Monday they had called in extra crews from some other states so they could be ready to respond as soon as things started to happen. At 4:30 p.m. on Monday, this is what the view from the back door across our neighbor's yard looked like. We fully expected that it would be a lot worse by morning, or at the latest, Tuesday evening.

The big surprise on Tuesday morning was that the view was much like the night before, our ice forecast had been canceled and we were now under a blizzard warning for heavy, blowing snow. I have never been so glad to be under a blizzard warning in my life. I knew that even if we did lose power, the response would probably be swift, and as the day wore on, we were less likely to. The photo at left is the same view as above, taken at 10 a.m. today (Wednesday.) We did get more ice--a total of about 2/10 inch, but what helped was the sleet that fell most of the day on Tuesday, with only a little freezing rain.

Even so, the ice could have been a problem if we had gotten 40 mph winds last night, but those didn't arrive, and neither did the 7-10 inches of snow. So I could actually appreciate the beauty in this view. As usual, our fickle weather changed course as it approached the metro. Go 20 miles south of I-255, and there is a lot of icing. Go 20 miles west on I-70 and last night the highway was closed at Wentzville all the way to Kansas City because of deep snow and whiteouts. Go 20 miles north, same thing. People are still digging out, although 70 opened this morning although it was still snowpacked. I imagine the many trucks that had to idle overnight at truck stops in St. Charles County took care of that as they rolled west.

The best thing about sleet is that it doesn't stick to tree limbs and power lines. The worst thing about sleet is that it packs itself very densely on the ground, streets, roads, and sidewalks. It looks like snow, until you try to shovel it. This morning, an ice pick would have been handy. This front walk is partly clear because all day yesterday, every time Norm took Ava out front for business, he moved the sleet along with a snow shovel before it could harden. The total depth was about three inches by this morning. It took a man from our church and two teenage helpers over 4 hours to chip out our driveway and our walks and steps--as well as Barb's.

Meanwhile, the juncos and other birds were keeping the back yard dining table filled. There are little tracks in the 1/2 inch or so of snow on top of the sleet. Yesterday they were having trouble standing upright, the footing was so slick for them.

Our street went untouched yesterday. The schools were all closed, even the University two blocks away. But early this morning the snow plow and salt truck started making passes and by 11 a.m. the sun had come out briefly and it was enough to finish melting the street down to its bare surface. Our driveway isn't perfect, but clear enough to navigate now.

After a busy morning of supervising the shoveling crew, Norm and Ava curled up for a well deserved nap after lunch. I can still hear our other neighbor's drive being scraped and shoveled outside the windows as I type. We will have a very cold night tonight but maybe not as cold as first forecast--they are saying 1 above instead of 5 below. It is supposed to stay cloudy and not clear, which will help. As if at that temperature, 6 degrees really matters!

We also will welcome Barb home tonight; she finally got a plane out of NY. In this storm, as in others, we have been reassured by the way neighbors along the street stay in contact and check on each other and offer help if needed. Patti up the street took Ava for a walk on Monday when the walks were slick. She also offered to let us sleep over if we lost power, since her furnace has a switch to let her run the fan off a generator, which she was ready to use if need be. Although we have a generator, it is of more use for warm weather outages, since our heating system is boiler and hot water radiators, and not easily converted to run on auxiliary power. We are going to look into getting a gas-log insert for our non-working fireplace. I'm also considering replacing our aging electric stove with a gas one. And we are definitely ordering some yak trax or other cleat slip-ons for our shoes so we won't be in terror (well, so I won't be--Norm is more sure on ice than I am) of slipping and falling if we need to leave the house the next time one of these storms hits. Since climate is changing and making storms in all seasons more severe (just take a look at what has happened in Australia this season) we probably should begin to expect these kinds of events as the new normal. Today we are thankful for warmth, food, light, good friends and neighbors and above all, the loan of a warm puppy.