Friday, February 14, 2014

Will It Never End?

St. Valentine's Day dawn
My Western readers are probably tired of hearing about the snowy travails of us Easterners.  Well, we're tired of it, too.  The latest Mid-Atlantic Nor'easter dumped 11 inches of snow on my preserve from Wednesday evening into Thursday morning, then the precipitation changed to light rain and drizzle for the rest of the day, which made the snow heavy as lead.  Fortunately, the temperature stayed just above freezing, so the paved surfaces we cleared of snow stayed free of snow and ice all day.

Then, after dark (i.e., Thursday night into Friday morning) we got two more inches of snow, and the clearing started all over again on Friday morning.  The temperature in the wake of the storm got to around 40 degrees and skies were mostly sunny, so some paved surfaces even dried out.

This storm officially made this the 5th snowiest winter on record in the area.  And, guess what?  The forecasters are promising two-to-four more inches of snow for Saturday morning.  Our precipitation total for 2014 already is 40% above average.  
My back yard just after I shoveled the walk.  The snow mounds in the background are six feet high.
View to the (frozen) pond and beyond from my back door
Beckoning for a hike - on snowshoes!
Sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua) "balls" (fused seed capsules) against the morning sky
Kali and I are off to a concert by singer Martha Redbone in central Philadelphia tonight.  Thought we didn't plan it purposefully, the concert will be a nice way to celebrate St. Valentine's Day - and to take our minds off this seemingly endless winter.

4 comments:

packrat said...

Beautiful photos, Scott, but I must admit I appreciate them more because I don't have to be there.

Martha Redbone? Any relation, I wonder, to Leon Redbone ("Without My Walking Stick")?

Scott said...

I emailed one of the snowy images to my brother-in-law in San Diego. He responded, like you, Packrat, that it would be nice to enjoy the snowy weather--for one or two days!

Martha Redbone is not related to Leon Redbone. (I'd wondered about that myself.) She is half African American, half Choctaw Native American from a coal mining family in Black Mountain, Kentucky. Her music is heavily inspired by American "roots" music, folk and blues, but it goes beyond those categories and is very diverse. She was accompanied by a quartet (which included her husband). We really enjoyed the concert (about 2-1/2 hours with a 15 minute intermission)--a nice St. Valentine's Day surprise.

Anonymous said...

I had been wondering if this winter was breaking snowfall records there. It just seem so endless. I sure hope spring arrives on time, or even a little early this year to give everyone, including the hungry critters, a break.

Scott said...

Robin Andrea: We had four more inches of snow yesterday (Tuesday, February 18), but it was fluffy and most of it melted under sunny skies and temperatures in the mid-40s during the afternoon. However, before we received the latest accumulation, the winter of 2013-14 was already the third snowiest on record here. I don't know if the 4" on Tuesday tipped us over to the second snowiest or not.

Part of the problem has been that temperatures have remained below freezing for three weeks. Accumulated snow that would normally melt between storms has remained on the ground, and each new storm just adds a new layer. We're supposed to get above freezing during the day each day for at least the next week (we may even reach the mid-50s on Friday), but it will take a long time for this much snow to melt away.