The Storm Goes On

The third and largest storm arrived last night. It should continue until noonish on Saturday. The forecasters say the worst will hit tonight and pound us all through tomorrow.

The second storm dropped 8 inches of new snow on us, but then some rain melted much of it off. Yesterday we had another fairly nice afternoon between storms. Sarah even went out and built this snowman during the lull.

Yesterday we spent the morning doing heavy housecleaning. Then I drove to WalMart to buy hardware for the kids' bathroom, which we're remodeling; Sarah met up with her friend Emmi; and the boys went off sledding on a steep hill in Pinetop Lakes Country Club.

The country club is located at the highest point of Pinetop-Lakeside, on the southern-most end of town, which I'd guess is close to 7,500 feet.

Elevation plays a big role in how much snow we get. We live just north of town (the low end, at 7,000 feet) and we got 8 inches. Jacob and Dylan tell me the snow level at the country club was up to the middle of Dylan's chest. Dylan is as tall as I am, mind you (5' 5").

I took these next 2 pictures at 1:00 this afternoon. It has been snowing steadily all day, but the accumulation is limited because the snow is still mixed with rain (which is called sleet).

We had our first power outage at 7:30 this morning, but it only lasted 2 hours and 15 minutes.

That's not very long, but during that time, the temperature in the house dropped from 72 to 64 degrees. That's the biggest concern when we lose electricity.

Tonight the rain is supposed to stop. That's when the snow will begin to pile up. The prediction is for 2 to 4 feet of new snow.

Unfortunately, they also still predict high, damaging winds and the probability of wide-ranging, long-term power-outages. Cross your fingers for us!

We haven't had any school this week, and it's pretty much guaranteed that there won't be school tomorrow, either. Our school calendar has 3 snow days built into it, but we'll have used double that by tomorrow. Hopefully the state will exempt us from making those days up. I don't think I could bear it if they made us work through Spring Break or the first week of my summer break!

Meanwhile, a new storm may be headed our way the middle of next week...

For now, despite the related problems, I'm going to relax and enjoy watching the beauty of falling snow!