The last 36 hours have been very dicey here in MN. I left my office at noon yesterday (Thursday) knowing it was going to get bad! I am lucky to have the ability to work from home. It was raining on my way home and started to snow shortly after I got there. The afternoon was big heavy flakes that stuck to everything. Even in poor weather Jimmy normally has a decent commute, but I think a lot of others were going home early because it took him over an hour to go 10 miles.
I went out for round #1 of snow removal after dinner. So optimistic at this point! I wanted to get the layer of slush and heavy snow off because temps were going to drop that night!
I was going to go out for round #2 around 9pm, but the wind had picked up significantly and I knew that anything I removed that night would end up drifted by morning. Woo, it was howling!
I told Jimmy to wake me up if the snow looked too deep so I could help him leave for work. He thought he might be able to make it, but got stuck. I had been watching out the window and started getting dressed as soon I saw the tires spinning. We got him out and he was only 3 minutes late! I stayed up and cleared the rest of the driveway and sidewalk. During a normal snow I can usually finish in about 35 minutes, but this was no normal snow! There were drifts knee deep in the driveway and the sidewalk was almost waist deep. We have a small electric snow blower which normally does the trick, but not this time. I was able to use it for most of the time, but had to shovel the walkway. My attitude had changed a bit by this point (see below.)
In my defense, I had been outside for over an hour and it wasn't even 6 am yet! I did luck out and have the plow come by shortly after finishing the rest so I was able to clear that too. I was still planning to go into the office, but I had a message from my dad saying the roads were like ice rinks, cars spinning and sliding everywhere! My boss also sent out notice that we should stay home, at least until roads improved (they did not.)
I did try to take some pictures of the drifts and snow depth, but white is hard to photograph! This is out our back door, that drift is a couple feet above the door sill.
The corner of our sidewalk and driveway always ends up with a big pile, but this is the first year it is as tall as me! It is always the last spot to melt...it will probably be there until June!
The pile on the right below is close to 6' tall! This is the biggest snow pack I can remember seeing!
It doesn't happen often here, but MNDot was advising NO TRAVEL all day. The freeways were glare ice and cars and trucks were getting stuck everywhere. Semis were jackknifing and getting stuff on ramp and inclines (even small ones.) The pictures from traffic cams was scary! Daycare is just down the street so I was able to work from home again today since our side streets had been plowed. They said on the news that it could be a couple days before the roads improve because of the depth of ice present and the low temperatures. The chemicals don't work well below zero and it will get that cold overnight for the next 5-6 days. Just for fun I took a look at the traffic map at 9 pm today and it was mostly still yellow and red!
We did have big plans for date night, but hunkered down and ordered pizza instead! Parker also had some indoor fun. He did not want his pants back on after his last diaper change...
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