Selene

Inspirational song: Snowblind (Styx)

And this is why I haven't set any tender plants outside yet.

I wasn't sure I believed that the storied "spring blizzard" was really going to happen here this year. Sure, I expected a little snow here and there. I wasn't surprised when it snowed a few inches on St Patrick's Day, and I was even less surprised when it melted a day later. They told us a storm was coming for today, but it wasn't until late last night that they started really using the B-word. The system was moving more slowly than they thought at first, and they promised that overnight things were going to get icky. They sure did. I couldn't sleep last night (it's becoming a disturbing trend), and I heard the rain blow in somewhere around one or two am. The wind howled, and the rain sounded vicious. I peeked outside a couple times, to see whether it was icing up, or just raining. I woke up a couple hours later, and looked out to see heavy snow. Another couple hours later, and it was a little after six. The house was still mostly dark, so I was surprised it was as late as it was. I got up briefly, and looked out the front window. In the span of about four hours, from when I first looked out and saw rain, something like five or six inches of snow had piled up. That was only the beginning. Heavy wet snow piled up, weighing down the trees and bushes, sticking to the vertical surfaces of fences and posts, and making strange snow-art on the sides of our vehicles. I think I spent the entire morning staring out the window, watching it snow. I certainly didn't get anything more productive accomplished than that. Good pictures, though. At least, I thought so.

I heard snow totals ranging from 16 to 25.5 inches fell on Boulder, so I don't know what to believe over there. Near the tail end of the storm, the man measured our yard as 10.5 inches in the front (where the wind blew straight through most of the day) and 14.5 inches in the back. That seems to align with what I heard for our city. Suddenly I'm less concerned with how our snowpack compares to averages.