This week has been a crazy one! If you live anywhere in the Midwest of the United States you know we have been getting hammered.
It started out on Monday with snowfall through the day of about 10 to 12 inches. School was canceled but as an administrator, I usually still have to report. @mrsbozz wisely talked me into taking the day off and just staying home.
At about 11 AM I decided it was time to get the first round of snow clearing done. I didn't want to wait until it was finished snowing because I knew by then it would be too much to handle. I put on my trusty Dickies coveralls and jacket seen above.
I am actually really happy with my Dickies coveralls, they are like Carharts, but they are much less expensive. I usually wear a t-shirt under them because by the time I am finished clearing snow I am sweating!
This little guy is such a blessing and a curse all at the same time. It makes clearing the snow so much easier, but it is also very tempermental. Many times I am exhausted just trying to get the thing started. Then I still have to clear the snow!
when I opened the garage door I was met with this sight. I got lucky and the snow blower started pretty easily for the first round. I think by the time I was done with the first round we had gotten about four inches of snow.
Due to the low temperatures, this snow was more powdery and less dense than the heavy snow. Because of that it was not sticking to things like my truck as you might expect. This made it very difficult to gauge just how much we had gotten by looking at the truck.
Once I had the driveway cleared, it was time to clear off the deck so that our dog Jovi could go out when nature calls. With out old deck we would just shove it off then end. The new deck has less of a gap at the bottom of the rails and it makes it difficult to get the snow off.
In the end I succeeded though, not that you can really tell from this picture. The snow was still coming down and had already covered some of the areas I cleared.
Around 5 or 6 PM I decided to head out and do a second round of clearing.
As you can see, we had gotten quite a bit more snow since the first time I cleared it off. I think we probably got another six inches of snow between the first time I snow blowed and the second time I did.
The snow blower decided to be a bit more temperamental for the second round. Maybe it was just cold and tired, who knows... I was able to get it started eventually and had the driveway cleared in short order.
By Tuesday morning, the snow was finished falling, but then it was the thermometers turn to drop. The snow plows had stopped running at 10 PM the other night because they couldn't keep up with the blowing and drifting snow. Most of the secondary roads were still too snowy to get a bus down so school was once again cancelled.
Most of the major roads were clear though, so I decided to head in to work. I left a little later than usual and I was greeted with this view of the sunrise on the expressway. The speed limit on this expressway is 75 MPH but most people were driving about 50 MPH.
I guess saying the road were clear is a relative term for us that live in colder climates. You can see that certain spots were anything but clear, but they were "driveable".
Apparently, I wasn't the only one that had taken the day off on Monday because when I pulled into the parking lot at work, I was met with this sight.
That is the door I use every workday to get into my office. There was no way I could get to it without going through waist-deep snow.
Here is a picture from after they cleared some of it. Luckily I am able to get into my office through the inside too, so I just walked around.
These are some more pictures of the snow outside my office door. One looking to the left and the other looking to the right respectively.
By the time I headed home, the wind was starting to pick up. As you can see here the light powder snow is being blown across the express way.
On the way in to work I took the expessway as much as possible because I figured it would be the most cleared. By the time I headed home I figured they had gotten to most of the secondary roads so I took my usual way home which is about half expressway and half backroads.
Although clear looking it only takes one little particle of snow sticking to the road to cause the other flakes to build up into pretty big drifts.
In fact on the way home I wasn't surprised to see this delivery truck buried in someones ditch. Just up the road I passed a similar truck heading towards this one. I am guessing he was coming to transfer the packages so they could be delivered.
Today we woke up to temperatures in the -35 Faherenheit range. They are actually about -10 but the windchill puts them much lower. Chicago is calling for temps in the -50's after the windchill and I think Fargo, ND was in the -65 range.
Needless to say school was closed again and all staff was told not to bother reporting. The last thing they want is someone breaking down in these cold temperatures trying to make their way to work. In fact, the whole state of Michigan is under a state of emergency and is basically shut down.
The sub zero advisory is in effect until 1:00 PM Thursday, so I have a feeling we are going to see another snow day. I will probably go in tomorrow unless I am instructed not to by either my boss or @mrsbozz :)
Stay warm everyone!
