Winter

We've had a remarkably mild fall and winter this season. Although we received a lot of snow up in the mountains, we haven't received much snow down in the cities. In fact, the news once reported that this has been one of the driest falls/winters on record. Although we might have had a dusting of snow, we didn't get any significant snow until the week between Christmas and New Years. Things warmed up quickly after that, and the snow melted within a few days.

Yesterday we got our first significant snowfall. It was snowing when I woke up at about 9:00, and it continued to fall for most of the morning and early afternoon. There was a break in the snow for a few hours, but then it started to pick up again at around 4:00. I was looking out my windows and by dinnertime there were about 3 or 4 inches of snow piled on my patio fence. The snow then started to fall faster and heavier, and reports on the news said that it would continue to snow for most of the morning.

I woke up and it looked like there were about 6 inches of snow on my patio fence, but while watching the morning news they were reporting that Boulder got about 10 inches of snow. With that amount of snow, I thought that the schools would surely be closed for the day. You probably wonder why a person without kids cares about school closures. Well, our office closure is often based on school closures. When the schools are closed, it's a good bet that our office will be closed. There is an odd logic behind it, but I won't get into that. Anyway, in spite of the amount of snow we had, the schools were not closed, therefore our office was open.

I was all dressed and ready to go, so I left at more or less my usual time. When I got to the parking lot, I was happy to see that it was, for the most part, plowed. There were still huge amounts of snow between, behind, and in front of the cars, but at least most of the lot was cleared. There was, however, a huge amount of snow on top of my car. It definitely looked like 10 inches. It took me a while to brush all the snow off, and, yes, I obsessively brush all the snow off my car. And then it took me a while to scrape the ice/frost from the windows. Once my car was cleared off, I was ready for the white-knuckled drive into the office.

I was expecting a horrible drive into the office, but thankfully it wasn't as bad as I anticipated. The roads looked like they had been plowed, but there was still some snow and slush on top of whatever was cleared during the evening. Although it was still a bit slick, there was still enough snow to cover the ice that might have been underneath. I think that extra snow might have made things a bit better and might have given a bit more traction, if that makes any sense. I still drove cautiously and carefully, naturally, even when an impatient, big jerk in an SUV tried to pressure me to drive faster, and fortunately I made it into the office safely.

When driving home this evening, the roads seemed much more clear. You were actually driving on the road and not on snow and slush. The only danger with this, though, is that when the temperature drops tonight—and it will drop—things will start to ice over, and that's when things get really dangerous. But, I'm hoping, fingers crossed and knock on wood, that the drive tomorrow morning will be an easy one.