More ice than snow

I woke up this morning to the sound of D telling the kids that, yes, in fact, school was cancelled - in spite of the fact that there was only about 1/4 inch of snow. There was barely any snow on the yard where I had raked and none on our driveway and nothing that we could see or feel on the road in front of the house. However, no school due to "icy conditions". We thought it a bit silly.

Later in the morning, we walked down to a friends house to look at the ice on the lake. Not so much ice as yesterday, she said, but still quite a bit for our area. We amused ourselves for a while throwing sticks and rocks out onto the ice to see if we could break it. Mostly not. We did crack some right near the edge and see that it was only 1/2 inch or so thick. Lots of warnings to the kids about not going out on the ice! There was some ice in an old rowboat on shore that got up to about 2" thick - its been plenty cold here.

On our walk we did find several patches of ice on the roads, even after noon when we were walking back home. And the radio kept announcing icy patches and accidents all over the metro area, so I suppose it really was a good idea that school was cancelled. D's poker night was cancelled too, as the roads were still bad near the host's house.

Since it never broke freezing (I think we hit a high of 26), a reasonable amount of the snow is still around, and I'm afraid that there will still be icy patches on the road tomorrow. I guess I'll hear tomorrow since D and M have to head out early for magnet interviews and testing in the morning.

Snow?

Well, yes, technically I think it is snowing now, not just sleet or "wintery mix", but it is a very light snowfall. It does not appear to us that school will be out tomorrow, but I suppose we won't really know until morning.

The weathermen have been playing up this storm for days now, with it slowly getting less and less predicted snowfall. As late as 2 pm today, the prediction was for it to snow for 7-8 hours. We have had off and on snow/sleet/winter mix since about 3 pm today, but the actual predicted snow has really just started. It will probably snow until about midnight. It has started sticking on the deck and on the holly leaves so far. I can't see much more than that (and the steps are starting to get icy).

Earlier today I predicted we wouldn't have school tomorrow, but because of ice, not snow. Now I think we will, but if not, I still think it will be for icy roads. Time will tell...

Back to School

Today was back to school day, hooray. OK, the hooray was just from me. I was glad to get a little peace and quiet in the house today, just me and the cats. And since it was COLD today, the cats were inside virtually all day - periodically they would venture briefly out and come dashing back in. Bus time temps were in the upper teens, with wind chills around 7F. Brrr!

I did my good deeds by driving the kids down to wait for the bus, and then inviting into the car the others who were also waiting. I did venture outside this afternoon to blow off the driveway and the deck and do a little raking - all because the weatherman says there might be snow later this week. Of course, I've probably jinxed our chances, now that I'm ready for it, but its so much nicer to roll snowballs when there isn't all that pinestraw and sticks in the snow. We'll be watching the weather closely...