Friday 1-11-13 1am

1pm- My trips to the town garage for a couple of pails of sand found very different conditions than last night on the roads. The road crews had been out salting and sanding, and at least Hwy C is a lot better. There are still patches of ice, but it wasn’t the skating rink with water on top that it was last night.

The driveway was a different story. Like last night’s roads, it had 1/2″ to 1″ of ice, plus some water on top. It was pretty nasty. The only good thing about it is that at 38 degrees salt is very effective. The NWS is expecting a low of about 40 for tonight, so hopefully the melting of roads and driveways will continue.

People with cabins that plan on visiting this weekend might want to bring a little salt and sand to improve driveways and walkways. Until we get a little snow on top of it that bonds to it for traction driveways will be ice covered and slippery.

That same 1/2-1″ of ice will make a dandy trail base in the places that it freezes in once it gets cold Saturday afternoon.

When I looked at the GFS this morning I counted 7 chances at snow for us in the 16 day reach of the model. The ones for this coming week are a parade of smaller clippers, but there are a couple for later in the model that look like bigger storms. Hopefully that all works out somehow and we won’t be down for long.

RJB

1am-There is rain freezing to the roads, it is very nasty out there. The roads ( Parkway from X north to C and Hwy C to C & F) were solid smooth ice with rain adding to it. It couldn’t get much slipperier.

Do not drive unless you have to. I had a really wild ride home from work, especially on the big hill by the Silver Cliff Fire Department. Up wasn’t bad. Down totally out of control with the big ravine ditches was a wild ride.

There was a car wiped out on the X bridge over High Falls, and one in the ditch closer to here.

I just saw that Iron Snowshoe closed trails south of C yesterday.

I will be back later this morning.

RJB