Greetings and welcome!
I just came back in from plowing the driveway. I wanted to let the snow set up on top of the ice base for a day or two to get it less slippery and it did to some extent. Mostly it was about cleaning up by the mailbox and where the county left a pile at the end of the road. The snow plowed easily.
While I was out there we had some dandy snow squalls.The flakes varied from very small to pretty big and were driven by a strong wind. Between the light stuff that has been falling all day and the squalls I would say that we picked up a solid inch today. Added to the couple of inches from the past few days there is about 3″ of fresh powder.
Moving it was easy. Yesterday I did some of it with a leaf blower. The snow blower did not struggle at all, even going fast. The last big storm you could have pumped the snow with a trash pump. This was the polar opposite.
Speaking of polar..
The next week looks cold. Really cold. The polar vortex is coming to town and it has some seriously cold air. The snow today was the arrival of the very first of it.
The first wave will come tonight. Depending on who’s forecast you listen to it will be between -9 and -20 with some wind to add to the chill. Tomorrow we might get above zero, but not by more than a degree or three. Saturday looks nicer with +7 for a high, and Sunday maybe +1F.
The really cold stuff comes next week. The prediction is that Wednesday could have a high between -9 and -3. That is the high temperature. Looking at my upper air maps we will be 20ÂșC colder than up by the north pole.
In among all of the doom and gloom there is some upside. The cold waves could be punctuated by a few clipper systems, and a inch or two of snow is always welcome. We definitely won’t be seeing any melting, even on sunny days. The third thing that comes to mind is that it is hard to make whoopties and stutter bumps on the trail when it is that cold out, even with heavy traffic. The snow just won’t pack enough. One other aspect of the cold is that wheeled trail users don’t leave such a big impression on the trails. It might be unpleasant but there is some good in there too.
Bundle up. Its January.
Have a good night and thank you for visiting!
RJB