Storm Follow-Up

A few more details on our first big winter storm of the fall.  Everyone seemed really excited on Friday, as the forecasts predicted lot of snow... so much so that I was certain it was going to be a bust, and we'd get barely a dusting.  Not so.  Sleet started to fall around 8 on Friday night, wetting everything down before it quickly turned to snow.  Snow falling on wetness meant it stuck to everything -- more on that.   It was really hard to determine how much snow actually fell, since the ground wasn't frozen.  It melted on impact and when it started to stick depended on the surface.  On our deck -- which has air flowing under it so gets cold fast -- where the snow stuck immediately, we had a foot and a half, easily, by the time the snow stopped falling mid-Saturday.  On the driveway, I think it was closer to 8 inches, the bottom 3 of which were slush... which weighs as much as water.  Which is heavy.  Which made shoveling really, really painful.  

The way that the heavy snow stuck to everything was really lovely and magical.  This oak tree image captures that...  

It was also rather destructive.  These trees (and many others) bent under the weight until they were literally touching the ground.  

They were the lucky ones... all over our neighborhood were trees like this, that lost huge limbs which couldn't bear the weight.  Especially heavily hit were those species still carrying leaves.  I don't think there was a single Callery pear in the neighborhood that didn't lose at least some major sticks.  

Sunday was sunny but cold, so not much melted at all... today, if it gets above freezing (which is predicted, though not by much) things will be treacherous.  All those tree limbs still carry snow/ice.  I hope I'm not standing under any when it decides to fall!  It's supposed to be in the 50's by Thursday, so we'll be losing this all, I assume, and we'll have really wet feet!