We Got Pounded - Winter Storm Jaxon's Visit

We finally have a winter and it decided to visit for fifteen hours yesterday before retreating eastward once more. I knew we were expecting snow, but there was no agreement on when, how much, and how long. I hadn't seen so much disagreement in snow totals for a very long time, so I had a feeling this one could be bad. It was. 

In this map we're in the light yellow, but in reality, the orange was
closer to what actually happened. That meant we got between
8" and 12" of snowfall yesterday. It's moved on now, but we
got pounded. 

The weather apps ranged from a snow start time of 5:00 am through 9:00 am. It turned out that the 9:00 am people were closer to the truth. When it came down it was like a gauze curtain directly in the airflow of a floor fan. Instead of dense flakes falling down from the sky in somewhat straight lines, these were driven by a wicked north wind and were almost parallel to the roads - straight across from north to south - and heavy ... very heavy. 

The winds were wicked, causing white-out conditions outside
of the city, and serious drifting on roads within the streets
and highways of the Twin Cities. We haven't had a good
winter storm for several years, so I guess we were due. 

We eventually figured out that at the height of the storm we were easily getting an inch an hour deposited on the ground. The total snowfall in the cities probably ranged in actuality around 9" - 11" total, but with the wind blowing up drifts as fast as people could shovel or snow blow, it seemed much worse. 

We should be getting a winter warm up now, starting
today. We'll be in the mid-20's today, and by Friday we'll
have our day temp hitting 40. That will help melt down
a lot of the snow, compacting it down and getting
us ready for the next storm. 

I wish I had been able to take a photo of my car when I closed at 3:30 pm and went out to crawl my way home on slick snow-packed roads. Because of that wind, the north and east sides of my car were almost clear of snow, with the southern and western side having drifts and shelves of snow that easily were more than six inches deep, sculpted by the wind into self-supporting shapes that would have felt at home on Antarctica or Greenland. It was magnificent and quite cold to get off, but at least I didn't have to sweep the entire car because the roof was also wind-cleared. 

We had a partial snow day yesterday because I locked the shop's doors
at 3:30 pm. I'll have to shovel my walkway today and that'll take me
30-45 minutes, where usually it is 15 at the most. I'm not looking
forward to that, but losing a few more calories in exercise isn't a
bad thing. 

I shut the shop down at 3:30 pm - something I do VERY rarely. I wanted to come home while there was still light. My normal 10 minute drive home took me almost an hour, the roads were horrid and people were spinning off left and right because they were idiots and thought they were more important than the other people on the roads. Stupid! DH had managed to get the driveway snowblown out by the time I got home and said to wake him at 4:15 am and he would blow out enough for me to get to the gym today. What a guy! 

Sometimes DH comes through in spades. When it comes to snow
removal, he's pretty awesome. That he volunteered to get awakened
in a little more than five minutes from now to go and snowblow
me a pathway out of the driveway is awesome. What a man! 

It stopped snowing shortly before midnight, as abruptly as it had started. Today we begin the clean-up. The major roads are already cleared, I'm quite sure, but the side streets will be much harder to get in and out of for another day or two. It will take me up to an hour to get shoveled out at the shop. I guess I'll get a good workout today before I unlock my doors to the brave ones heading out for beads and needles. 

Have a great Tuesday and be safe. Our storm is heading on east and I'm quite sure we left plenty of snow for the rest of the nation to participate in our snowy goodness. I'll be back tomorrow and the Cities will be getting back to normal once more.