Snow Watch 2011

As I write this posting, I should be preparing for a business trip to Miami leaving early this week.  Instead I’m staring out the back door waiting for the winter weather to blow in and expecting my trip to get cancelled.  The Weather Weasels are predicting several inches of snow followed by a thick layer of ice.  This is not a good thing.  As a kid growing up in South Carolina winter storms were a luxury.  It was such a rare event we didn’t care if it were snow or ice as long as something white fell.

I’ve lived in Georgia most of my adult life and the amount of snow we typically get is more than what I remember while growing up in central South Carolina, I never considered it to be significant by anyone’s standards – until recently.  I’m convinced the amount of snow we’ve been getting over the past several years has progressively increased.  It snowed here on Christmas Day!  Never have I seen a white Christmas!  A friend told me I should take pictures of the house in the Christmas snow.  I told them I had tons of farm snow photos from last year’s January snow fall that left 3 inches and then the 6 inches we got in February.  Not to mention the year before. 

I’m afraid we are entering a new mild ice age due to global warming that is negatively affecting the world’s climate.  I blame Dick Cheney.  Not because he did anything I can name to deliberately cause this condition, but he didn’t do anything to better the situation either.  Besides, I blame all the world’s problems on Dick Cheney.  But, this is not a political blog so let’s move on. 

In the past our local Weather Weasels could title the once a year snow storm as Storm of the Year and not be lying since it was usually the only one.  Looks to me like we’re headed down the path of monthly disasters – Storm Event January or Storm Event January - Week Three!  I’m particularly concerned about tonight’s impending winter catastrophe.  If the Weasels are correct there will be ice.  Ice is a problem.  Not only because our region does not have the equipment to clear roads of snow, much less ice, but the ice is a real issue for our landscape.  About seven years ago we had the front and side yards landscaped and added dozens of columnar magnolia trees.  A year later, we replaced half of them after they were broken by Winter Weather Watch 2003.  Two years later we had to have them severely pruned to reshape them due to damage from Stormagedan 2005.  The last couple of year’s Storm of the Year were snow, no ice and our trees have managed to rebound and look great.  So I’m hoping the Weasels are wrong as usual and we’ll avoid the ice. 

If Storm Surge January 2011, 10^th – 12^th” breaks one single magnolia branch, I’m suing Dick Cheney.

Here are some farm photos from one of last year’s Snowtastrophe 2010.  I’m not going to bother to take any pics of this storm - if it happens.  It’s all too routine!