We’re in the middle of a winter storm here in Georgia. The first wave hit Monday night. When we woke up Tuesday morning, there was snow on the ground and it was still coming down. By around 10 AM there was three and a half inches on cold surfaces. This was the view out of our bathroom window.
I took the dogs on a walk around the house as usual. Later I took Zeke for his regular walk down Fouche Gap Road. Lucy is too sensitive to cold, so I left her at home. On the streets up on the mountain there was a layer of snow over a layer of slushy ice.
I made Zeke wear his winter coat.
It stopped snowing around noon. The temperature rose a little and just reached freezing by afternoon. The roads on the mountain were essentially free of snow by mid afternoon. There was an interesting dynamic at work on the roads. The roads were above freezing when it started snowing, so the snow melted as it hit the surface. Enough snow fell that the melted snow formed slush. By afternoon, there was enough solar heating, despite the total cloud cover, that the snow mostly disappeared. But by then, it had been cold enough for long enough that the slush was freezing. As I write this at 8 PM Tuesday, the temperature has actually risen to just above freezing, but I think by Wednesday morning the slush on the roads will be solid up here on the mountain. But that will be OK. I’m retired now, so I don’t have to worry about getting stuck in Huntsville.
Forecasts call for a severe ice storm with the northern boundary just south of us. We may get more snow, but it looks like the worst of the ice will miss us. That’s good. If the area south of here gets as much ice as they call for, things could get very ugly. The last time there was a really bad ice storm here was back in the early ‘60s, and we were without power for about a week because of downed power lines.
I don’t think we’ll lose our power, but just in case, I was able to find some more oak for firewood. It’s a little green, but the aged cedar I cut up a few days ago burns so well that it helps the oak.
We’ll see what we see when we look out the window Wednesday morning.
I’ve been thinking of you two (and your furry friends) ever since I saw the GIANT headlines about the catastrophic ice storm headed to Georgia. I sincerely hope that the storm was over-hyped, or in any case doesn’t cause too much damage or hardship for anyone. Keep us posted.
Robin Andrea — We’re in the middle of it (4:15 pm) and I’m still not sure whether it was overhyped. There are power outages in the Atlanta area, and probably east of there, too. It’s hard to know because the Atlanta TV stations are concentrating on the Atlanta metro area. They are still forecasting ice accumulations of more than a half inch east of Atlanta, which could cause serious problems. We had about 1/16 inch of ice on surfaces this morning when I took Zeke for a walk, and by a little after noon it was 1/4 inch. Right now it’s either raining or sleeting; it’s hard to tell which. Our thermometer says 31F, so it should be either frozen precip or it should freeze on contact. I think it must be right at the freezing point, because water is dripping off ice icicles hanging on the roof, but they’re still growing. The pine limbs are drooping, but fortunately, at this point the ice doesn’t seem to be getting thicker on the trees. If they get much more ice, some limbs will probably snap.
So, at this point, for us it’s just miserable weather but not a catastrophe. The forecast is for more of the same overnight, so we’ll see. The conditions improved this morning as Zeke and I walked down to the bottom of the hill, so it’s probably better in town than up here.