First Winter Storm Warning

Last night we had the first winter storm warning of the year. Of course all the local weathermen were falling over themselves. It started on Friday. They began with forecasting 1-3 inches. Then Saturday it had changed to 2-6 inches, and yesterday morning they had amended it again to 3-10 inches. While I will keep from ranting about how local news/weather tries to hold you hostage with the severe weather warnings, I will say that it was pretty crummy last night with blowing and some drifting.

So this morning, I get up early and get out at 5:30 to fire up the snow blower and shovel the porches. It went relatively quickly. I finished at about 6:15. I come inside to take off my wet coat and jeans to toss in the drier while I get ready for work. As I am walking up the stairs to get showered, I hear the snow plow come through, not more than 5 minutes after I finished. So now I need to go back out and blow out the end of the driveway so I can get my car out. I go back and forth between wanting to curse these guys. I know that it is their job to plow the streets, but why is it that they always seem to do it right after I finish clearing out my driveway?

I went back out after I finished getting ready and fired up the snow blower again. Luckily it wasn’t too bad so it only took me 5 minutes to clear out. Usually the plows come through a few times during the day so I am sure that by the time I get home tonight I will have more work to do.

This makes two years in a row now that there has been snow (and several inches of it at that) on the ground come December. Wasn’t global warming supposed to have prevented this?

Winter Wonderland

Last night was the annual Menomonee Falls Christmas parade, and as we have for the past 3 years, the Riverside Girl Scouts marched. So after watching the Packers blow yet another game in the final two minutes, we set out for the parade. The snow was coming down nice and heavy, but hey, what more could you ask for, it’s a Christmas Parade right? Well it was miserable! It wasn’t a nice snowfall with big flakes coming down softly. It was more like a mixture of frozen rain and snow. Plus, the temperature was right at freezing so it was half melting and half icing over.

And to top it off, there was about a 20 mph wind blowing, so the flakes that were hitting you in the face actually sort of stung. The parade didn’t start until 4:30 p.m., and we had to be there at 3:45. By the time we started walking, it was probably 4:45 or 5:00, so we got to stand around on the street in the staging area for a good hour beforehand. By the time we finished walking, we were soaked and freezing. The hot chocolate when we got home really hit the spot!



Some of the parade-goers decided to pass their time by building a snowman.


Riverside's Daisies carrying the girl scout banner.


Troop 2671 getting ready for the parade.