Random Acts of Living


Thursday, April 2, 2009

Blizzard of 2009

Last week Kansas was hit by a blizzard. It's been a few years since we've had one. Long enough, apparently, for people to think that this is unusual weather for here. We may not have had blizzards every year, but most years we had substantial snow cover. I remember a winter in the early 1980s that the snow drifted so deep that I could walk straight out from my back porch across the top of a snow drift. My chow dog sat out at the end of this drift with his back to the north wind, it was frosted. I called to him and he just glanced at me over his shoulder, never moving his body and then ignored me. I had him in the house the day before and he begged to be back outside. It was just too warm in the house for him. Below are pictures I took the first day after the blizzard. You can barely see the logs around my firepit...
...with all the white, it's hard to determine depth.
See the pile of snow across the street? The snow is to the top of our bales to the right. We didn't have near as much snow here as they did in a lot places. I believe Pratt had the most at 28 inches.
Maybe this will give you more of an idea of how much snow we had.
By evening the streets were pretty clear, but we had a drift across our drive plus what they plowed up at the curb.
The street is clear and open all the way down.
The next day I went out and shoveled the sidewalk. This wasn't that easy since there was a layer of ice on the bottom.
Got it nice and clear all the way to the drive.
Then I made it all the way to the end of the drive and as soon as I broke through the snow at the curb my drive filled with water.
At that point I quit. My winter banner was still out.
This is the next day. Most of the water in my drive is gone along with the snow.
All that's left are spots that are in the shade and big piles that are melting down.
Here's my firepit, the snow had nearly buried those logs around it.
For good measure, I put out my spring banner, though it's still cold here. But the snow is gone.

3 comments:

Peter said...

Hi! Before I read this, I thought how neat it was for the snow not to fall on the pathways! If only, right?

You may be clearing snow, but it sure beats clearing up fallen trees after a storm!

Take Care,
Peter

Bob Johnson said...

Wow, I am hoping we don't see any more snow for a while here.

Fingers crossed, I am looking at going out a week from Monday and Tuesday to look for the Saskatchewan Meteorite, 75% of snow cover gone here.

Moonshadow said...

Peter, there have been time that I've seen snow on the ground and the sidewalks clear. That was when the weather had changed suddenly and the sidewalks were still warm. The snow has to fall pretty fast for that to happen or it melts on the ground too. We were lucky to not have downed trees this winter. I recent years past we've had ice storms that has taken down huge branches and some trees.


Bob, This storm was a couple weeks ago, but we had a little snow just the other day. It melted shortly after it fell. Good luck on your meteorite hunt. Is this a personal expidition or with a group of other meteorite hunters? I was just reading, "Property laws in all other provinces, including Saskatchewan, specify meteorites belong to the person who owns the land where they fall." So I assume you have permission.