Not as Bad as Predicted

Last night was a night of freezing rain. When I woke up this morning, the ground, our house, the trees, and anything else that could not move were covered in about 3/4 of an inch of ice.

At first I thought we had received a mix of sleet and freezing rain, so I did some research and discovered the difference. In the process I also discovered the difference between light, fluffy snow and heavy wet snow. (Ain't the Internet wonderful? Well, at least for some things!)

Here is what a pine tree in my front lawn looked like early this morning. As of the time I am writing this (1:38 PM), it doesn't look much better.

The picture of the maple trees below does not do justice to how they really look. Each of the limbs and twigs of the ice-covered trees actually sparkles, even in the limited light allowed by the cloudy sky. Beautiful!

According to the weather forecast yesterday, we were supposed to have a heavy snow followed by several hours of freezing rain, with the added possibility of loss of electrical power because of ice accumulation on the power lines. I have seen what freezing rain can do to power lines. When I lived in Eastern North Carolina in the late 1960s - early 1970s, I saw lots of power lines down, not just isolated problems but long stretches of downed lines between adjacent sets of poles. Fortunately, we did not lose power here, but it did happen in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and a lot of other places.

The university in which Cheryl teaches closed yesterday but only delayed classes until 10 o'clock this morning. The problem with that is that the roads and the danger for drivers is, in my opinion, much worse today. Hopefully, the roads will have been cleared by tomorrow afternoon when I have to leave for class.