Today's Weather in Your Garden - 12

It does!!!

On the brighter side, with all these jammies days I've been getting, I have a nice clean house.

We just went thru a mini ice storm on Wed. everyone thinks the tree's are so pretty covered with ice. I hear them cracking and the beauty goes away real quick. I am just thankful the rain fell fast as we were in the right conditions for a repeat of 1998 ice storm. The weatherman said the fact that the rain fell fast and didn't have time to stay on the lines and tree's is what saved us. We still have alot of people w/out power, but all should be restored by Sat. Just in time for the next storm!!

Bright and sunny, 39°F Winds are WSW at 17mph and will get to the high 40's. I am still slogging through my spring cleaning inside, so no work outside. Drat. But my good Buddie and his daughter are coming on Sat night for the week and he loves playing outside as they live in a 4th floor Brooklyn apt. They haven't been in a few years, but last time he was here he helped us rebuild a stone walk.

We go down to visit them when we are in NYC, often. He lives a couple of blocks from a great street of food vendors, Atlantic Ave, so we stock up on goodies. While they are here we will go out for a boat ride with them and see the seals, to the museum, out to the beach, but mostly she wants to play with the dogs, so that will mean her dad, DH and I can be outside doing projects. I have enough brush cut for another all day burn pile. We have an old fence to take down as well as some major chain sawing of some downed trees to do still. I am so excited to have help. Plus he does really love to do physical work as he works for the NY T's so nothing but mental work ever for him.

Off to clean my last closet, but it is a doozy, then starting my taxes. I have my last major spring plant order to place, but I am being so good about holding off until I am done with my taxes. Painful. Patti

We have to move this to the Whats in a name topic Painful Patti :-)

Ugh! We got 10" of snow yesterday ( which isn't bad on it's own),but it was spread over 14 hours - so it was a 19 hour plow day.

Sunrise while snow yesterday morning

that is beautiful, al! i love the colors.

Thanks.
The view away from the 'sun' was nice, the pic is kind of noisy though.

Really magical colors - and i like the glow of orange to the right. Someone's house?

thanks, those are street lights.

How do you get purple skies? Never it that color.

I see it now and then, but usually as part of a sunny sunrise and not a uniform color. Foggy/snow night shots get diffused and take on darker more uniform hue I think.

Al, lovely picture, but too much plowing. It is 45 degrees and sunny, still in my closet, needed a break. Patti

Beautiful photos Al!

In the Chicago area, I believe that we are 2 snowstorms away from the most snow in 100 years!
At least it insulates my plants from the frequent 0F and below temps.

I much prefer it like this!
Only three more months

You have my sympathy, plantaholic. Great home!

3 months is too long.... I want it NOW :-) Welcome aboard plantaholic

Tell me about it! That's why I got a greenhouse- and why I have about 5,000 seeds starting ; )

A really nice day today ,44, & puffy clouds. Can't believe temp will drop 20 deg. tomorr. Got back from wound center early, & am taking my walk across the dam!

Nice shot, Robin.

Thanks, Victor--I finally submitted a pic by myself! I guess I don't need help--until next time!

Feel free to ask, but it's easy once you've done it.

Beautiful photos, Al, Plantaholic and Robin!! Glad to have you with us, Plant!!!

Al - these may be among my favorites of yours!! But Man....that's a heck of a lot of plowing!! And snow!! I don't guess you'll be missing that plow this spring and summer!???

great photos everyone... thanks for sharing

Planatholic - quite a difference there. The only winter I remember like this in my life was in '77 or '78.

Robin - Cool spot. Can you go out on the walk on the left?

Thanks all.

I recently had a panic attack when it started to rain and freeze. My brain keep thinking we were going to be stuck like we were in the 1998 Ice Storm and it sent me into waves of panic. I found a slide show of some of the images here in Maine during that very difficult time and wanted to share them with you. Maybe you can undertstand why I went into panic mode!
http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/news/slideshows/icestorm_1998/

That brought back memories!!

We were without power for 14 days. It was so sad laying awake at night listening to it "raining" branches.

So you understand why I went into panic mode!! LOL

ICE STORM COSTS
Total cost:

$320 million

Residential and commercial property:

$77 million

Electrical utility systems:

$81 million

Municipal and state government:

$48 million

Forests:

$28 million

Telephone systems:

$26 million

Thanks for the support--I usually take granddaughter pics, not scenery, but the fog was intriguing--the scene was better earlier--the fog was in ribbons on the hills, but by the time I went home, got my camera, & got back, the fog had come in over the impoundment. No, Al, you can't walk by the tower--it's fenced off--the top of the dam is a paved half mile, & is just below our house. It is 1 of 3 in our town, but ours is the nicest! Unfortun. come May 1st, the dirt bikes are in the impoundment area until Oct. when the hunters come in--they used to let snowmobiles in when the snow was deep enough, but they don't allow it anymore--there is a model airplane club that has a runway on the far side of the impound. Water is only kept back there during high flood times--right now the water & ice level is very high!

Wow - no wonder you felt that way, Celeste. 23 and sunny here.

Victor, how bad was it for you?
I know NY and all of the New England States plus Canada was hit with the Ice Storm also....anybody have photos or slide shows of your State during that time?

I don't remember it so it must not have been too bad. The year I got the house - '95 / '96 was the heaviest snow year in decades.

Nope must not of been too bad or you would of remembered. Especially the part of being without power for a week or two!

This message was edited Feb 16, 2008 11:32 AM

I can recall stories of how these wonderful linemen came from all over to help. Had to take the ones from Hawaii and down South to LL.Bean and get them outfitted in warm clothes first!! They kept saying "is it always this cold here?" "You folks are crazy to stay here!"

That's a special person who does that job!

We could never thank them enough...I know a few dinners gave free meals to any lineman that came in. It wasn't much, but we didn't have much to give at that time.

It's 22, sunny and cold with a high expected to be only 32.

In the mid Hudson region, we sometimes get ice storms which cut power for several days. However, on October 4, 1987 my area was hit with a freak snow storm that dumped 17 inches of heavy, wet snow in our small area. My youngest son was 3 months old and I was sick with mastitis. Since the trees still had their leaves, they couldn't withstand the weight of all that snow and started snapping, taking down the power lines with them. The tops of some of the poles snapped as well and trees blocked the roadways. My husband needed to get a prescription filled for me but since there was no power here, had to go to Fishkill. He brought along his video camera and filmed the disaster. Just a few miles south of us, it was absolutely clear! Do you know it took 6 1/2 days before we got our power back? It turns out my neighborhood was the end of the line and some of the damaged poles were located way back in the woods. Central Hudson got one of their trucks stuck in the mud at one end of the road (had to bring in one of those humongous tow trucks to get them out) and actually used a canoe to access another across the creek at the other end!

Until the newspaper printed the story, many didn't believe our claims. They said it was the worst disaster (at that point here valley) since the hurricane in the 1950s.
They termed this event, "Snow Leaf". 25,000 in East Fishkill alone were without power out of a total of 80,000 when the storm hit. The only saving grace for us was that it happened in October and it melted quickly. We bought a generator shortly after that!

On April 1, 1997, we got another storm very similar to "Snow Leaf" which was called, "Snow Bud". That time we lost power for only 4 1/2 days.

bigcityal-
I remember a 3' snowfall in '78 in St. Louis, where I grew up. Even still have a pic somewhere of a measuring stick in the driveway.

pixie62560-
St. Louis was ice storm central when I was a kid, but nothing like that! How horrifying.

The worst weather damage I've ever witnessed was this July when we got hit by a storm system with 80mph winds. A ton of damage in the space of 20 minutes.

Temp 29.5°, wchill 20.3°