Our weather porecaster is saying highs of just above freezing. Ready or not, here it comes. This past week of above normal temps and SUNSHINE were bound to end soon. We might get snow but expect it to stay north of us.

Get ready east coast, we are sending it your way.

Brooke

Ya'll just keep that white stuff up there!!! :) It's supposed to go down into the upper 50's and lower 60's here, which is quite a lot lower than the mid to upper 70's we've been having. But, thank goodness, no snow in our forecast, just some rain. :)
Jan

We're supposed to have pleasant weather (50s to low 60s) for another couple days, then a return to more normal temps (highs in 30s, lows in 20s). No serious snow forecast, though. Our son (age 8) is praying for a good 10" of snow - he wants to build a snow fort. I'm sure he'll get his prayer answered sometime this winter, probably several times over.

Laurel

I am ready for it as long it is SNOW and not ice, unfortunately the rains we are getting tonight are supposed to turn into sleet overnight turning to snow in the morning here. The weather man is predicting 6-10 inches of snow by tomorrow night! My kids are praying for it! LOL! Got the intertubes ready for sliding! What amazes me is it was 70 degrees today and we'll be lucky to see 32 degrees Thursday! I'll post pics if we in fact get the pretty white stuff!
Nancy

Well, the ice, snow, and of course the WIND, is here. Currently the temperature is 16F with a wind chill of minus 20F. It started snowing last yesterday evening....had thunder and lightning with the snow throughout the very late evening (it's really pretty when we have the lightning when snowing - the lightning is pink!). Anyway, don't really know how much snow we have received as it has blown and drifted. Couldn't believe that so many of the school districts around here closed, as they usually have class even when we have 6"+ snow and ice. Even the university where I work closed. Must be because we have a new univ. president who is from New Orleans, and he is the one who is suppose to get out on the roads and decide if classes will be called off!! Anyway, winter is finally here after a beautiful fall and unusually warm weather throughout the fall. Just hope we don't have a real late winter - I've seen what blizzards in April are like and would prefer not to have that. It also makes the propane bill for the greenhouse horribly expensive!

Anyway, today will be spent mainly out in the ghse finishing up rearranging plants currently in there and getting ready for all my plugs that will be coming in starting in Jan. and dang....it is going to be so crowded I'm not sure that I have room for starting any of that crisper drawer full of dl seeds! Guess next time DH is home he is going to need to start getting the other ghse up (all those arches laying on the ground isn't any help this year!).

Anyway, rambled enough. I really should stay in the house and do cleaning in here, but - fresh pot of coffee just finished, boots by the door, phone is charged - ghse here I come. Too bad there are no dls blooming in there right now - (sigh).

Everyone keep warm if this front comes through where you are!

Mary

Batten down the hatches, here it comes! (To the East/Northeast, at least - gmatx/Mary has already had her first serious dose of winter.) It looks like the weather will be absolutely FOUL up here, especially tomorrow afternoon. Our son is usually afraid of storms, flooding, lightning, and high wind (all of which are in our forecast), so this could be difficult.

Take care, everyone!

Laurel

EGAD!!! Rain last night and WIND!!! At 4:00 this morning it was 63 degrees. It's now 45. Clouds that look like springers with twins are flyin' across the sky and the trees are whippin' like crazy. I guess we're really lucky that the leaves are already off the trees or I can bet there'd be a bunch of 'em on the ground by now. I sure am glad that we're not supposed to get the white stuff. At least not enough of it to count. Not to fear though. Just in case there's half a porch of wood and I got the infamous bread, milk and toilet paper yesterday!

How 'bout it Nancy? Did you get any of what Mary got?

Janet

We got rain and lots of wind. There was a tornado reported in east Alabama. The temp started out in the 60's here this morning but is dropping fast. It's supposed to be in the lower 40's by afternoon.
Who's snowed in out there?
Jan

YEP WE GOT IT! Yesterday into this morning. The storm has moved Northeast and headed y'alls way! IT IS NASTY! Started out with FREEZING RAIN so underneath this 5" of snow is about 1/2" thick sheet of ice! WE ARE COLD, COLD, COLD! Luckily no power problems or anything here for me.
Nancy
{{gwi:636460}}

Sorry you got snow Nancy and as Janet said, we will only get a blip of it. Watch out northeast of here.

We have 35 mph winds with gusts to 45, temps in the low 40's and over night we are to get in the low 20's. A 40 degree differential between this a.m. and tomorrow a.m. I don't think we get above freezing for the next week.

Laurel likes the four seasons - I am sending winter your way today along with nasty wind and my leaves that didn't get raked. Use them wisely and make your garden pretty!

Brooke

Shore am glad I'm not livin' with Nancy right now. I'm sitting here watching the tree outside the window whipping back and forth like some banshee is shaking it but at least it's a dry tree and there's not snow on the ground. Last I looked the windchill was 22 degrees. Not pleasant but liveable. Sure am glad there's no cows to freshen tonight. I could sure see babies in the basement with a wind like this.

I think I see a round of housecleaning coming this weekend. Maybe I'll go to my mother's and do daughter duty and wash her cabinets. Mine won't be clean but at least her's will.

Janet

BRRRRR so C OOOO L D here! A high of 30 degrees today. We will be in 20-30s for the next week according to the weather man. I won't be going outside much! I have noticed myself looking out the window quite often tho....SOO VERY PRETTY! The kids are really bummed it is not the wet, heavy snowman building kinda snow, but they can slide, and WORRY me to death! LOL! STAY WARM EVERYONE!
Nancy

The rain here has passed but the bitter wind is hanging around. When we got up this morning it was in the low 60's. Now we are in the mid to upper 30s. Brrrr!! After all of the heat, the cold is a shock to the system. I have no idea what the wind chill is but I am sure it would not make me happy.. Stay warm and think of spring....Ellie

Thanks, Brooke! I can always use leaves (in fact, I didn't scrounge any from my neighbors, the city leaf-sweeping patrol was efficient this year, and I could use a few more bags for a new lasagna bed. . . .). The worst of the wet weather skidded north of us, but we'll get a good dose of the wind tonight. At least our area doesn't need to worry about flooding again. We're still above 60 (it was almost 70 earlier today), but it'll go down quickly overnight.

Laurel

My DH has a cousin that lives in St. Louis, and her husband made these photos after the ice storm, around the city. If you missed the news photos, or just want to see some good closeups of the storm damage, take a look.
Jan

Here is a link that might be useful: ice storm damage in St. Louis

Oh my, Jan. That's awful. It's just like the big ice storm that happened when I was living in Rochester, NY, many years ago (15+). Absolutely devastating. At the group home where I worked, a large tree that became coated with ice ever so slowly leaned over and encased my co-worker's can in its branches and ice. The tree didn't break - it just gracefully bent, and lay down on top of the car, and froze in place. We were under a state of emergency for a couple days, and the amount of damage all over northwest NY state was incredible.

I hope your DH's cousin and her family are doing okay.

Laurel

Well, it came here to the Pacific Northwest, and, no, I wasn't ready! I was determined to get one last daylily bed planted, so took that project on over Thanksgiving weekend. On Sunday, I finally had all 11 of them in ground, edged the garden with rocks, and was just putting down mulch when the snow started coming down. I was determined to finish, and it became a battle between me and the snow. I would throw a handful of mulch down, move along, and the snow quickly covered everything up. I couldn't tell where I had mulched, so I just kept throwing it out quicker and quicker. If anyone would have seen me they would have thought I was a little nuts, but I was determined to get those daylilies planted and protected!! Well, the snow just never stopped, and we ended up with almost a foot on the ground, trees toppled everywhere, and no power for 4 days, no school for 3. We have trees down everywhere, a bunch fell across our driveway, and 6 fell on powerlines.
But, we are all safe and sound, made it through the power outage (played a lot of games and ate a lot of woodstove grilled cheeses) and things are getting back to normal. It was an incredibly gorgeous snow, though, and very unusual for us here. When my daylilies bloom next summer, I will always remember planting them as the snow came furiously down!

Checking in from the St. Louis area here. Boy, what a storm it was!! We've still got a quarter million homes without power in this area (they've restored power to about 3/4 million already), and it's been getting soooo cold - got down to 12 degrees last night. My ex had power restored on Saturday (after it going out on Thursday evening), and it got down to 40 degrees in his house before the power came on - I can only imagine what other people are going through!!!

I'm extremely lucky that my power didn't go out, and I had minimal damage from all the trees/limbs falling (a big limb on my fence, but that's all). The pictures tweetypye showed are typical of walking down the streets around me. I've been kinda homebound as there is a power line down across my street since Thursday night, and it's a deadend - no other way out. The power company is letting it go 'til one of the last ones to get fixed because only one house is without power because of it. But it has trapped about 6 of us on the end of the street :(
Some are driving over it even though the sheriff put the yellow "Do Not Cross" tape across the street to block it off.

As Sharon said about the snow - the ice is absolutely gorgeous.......imagine all the trees around being crystal - it's breathtaking!!! Most of it should melt tomorrow with the heat wave (up to 45) coming in.

I hope all our dl buds who've been affected by this storm have stayed safe & warm!!

Tammy

Hey Nancy it snowed all over your daylilies ROFL..ok here is what it did in Fort Worth about 4 days ago. Got up at 6:00 and it was raining and 32, couple of hours later it was 30 and the rain all froze, THEN it sleeted for about a couple of hours on top of the ice. THEN a few hours later it started snowing big ole flakes. Then by late afternoon the sun came out. Go figure, typical Texas winter weather..but it was cold and windy also. High today was 50 and sunny.

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