Cold Enough For Ya?

Let's talk about the weather.

It iced the first weekend in December, so I couldn't go visit little Evie (and her parents :)...). That was my first vexing weather situation.

The second weekend in December we were all on call and I did rounds with my RA's each night. My building does not have interior hallways or stairwells. It was cold cold cold. And then, for our 2 AM rounds on Friday, it rained. It was 25 degrees and raining. And all of our students came back right at that time from off campus parties and were real loud out in the courtyards and walkways. So we had to stand in the cold rain and chase people down. Then guess what happened? All the wet rain froze overnight! We almost died walking around in the frozen tundra on Saturday. I have a renewed appreciation for my RA's on duty.

Then on Monday, dire weather predictions were all over the place. Ice and Freezing Rain everywhere, they said. So when I went in for my staff meeting at 8 PM, it was pouring. And freezing. Certain injuries to come. My staff and I went out in the rain and salted the hell out of the place to no avail--salt dissolves and washes away in rain. Then halfway through our meeting, we learned that classes were canceled and the campus would be closed Tuesday. Chaos ensued. And we were pissed, because it was finals week, so those tests had to be rescheduled for Saturday, extending our closing time frame. Then we all holed up for the evening, with flashlights and an emergency plan just in case. Thankfully the power only went out for one hour on Tuesday morning on campus. Such was not the case for the rest of St. Joe. 3/4 of the town was out of power until Wednesday. Thousands didn't get their power back until Sunday. Then on Tuesday night we learned that campus would be closed again on Wednesday. Major suck. That meant finals wouldn't be over until Monday, and we couldn't close until Tuesday. Go figure that the once in a decade ice storm that closes campus hit during finals week. Anyway, we got a total of 2.25 inches of rain, which accumulated to 1 inch of ice cover on everything. Of course, I took pictures.




So then on Thursday it warmed up to 50 degrees and all the ice melted. It was lovely out again on Friday, until it dramatically got really cold and started snowing. It snowed until Saturday afternoon. Yay snow. Especially for those poor folks who still didn't have electricity.

The following week went by without much weather, until Saturday. Dire predictions went out on Friday, both in St. Joe and in Ft. Madison, where I was heading on SAturday. My travel plans were in limbo, and my Mom and I were getting different forecasts from different sources. I woke up on Saturday and discovered nothing was happening. So I took Midnight out to the kennel, and by the time I came back and packed the car, nothing was happening. I called my Mom, and nothing was happening there. So Tyler and I took off for Iowa. It rained off and on during the trip and by the time I got to FM it was pouring. About an hour after I got there the rain began to freeze. I heard from Jen in St. Joe that the weather turned nasty there about an hour after I left. Nice. I told the Lord I appreciated His help on this one. The rain quickly turned to snow, and it snowed until Sunday afternoon. With the blowing snow, I might not have made it home until Christmas Day if I hadn't left exactly when I did.

It snowed again the following Friday. It was a little ugly for a minute, but it wasn't too bad. Only a couple inches.

My departure day was Monday. The forecast was for light snow in the Iowa part of my drive, but clear pretty much the rest of the way. I woke up and it was snowing. By the time I got all ready and packed up the snow had lightened up enough that I wasn't worried about driving. So I took off. Had another thank you Jesus moment when I slid right through a stop sign across a well travelled highway. I made it to the other side without dying and continued on. A little snow here and there, until I got about to the halfway point. Then I hit blizzard conditions. WTF? Tyler and I drove on anyway, and at about the 3/4 point we broke through the snow and had sunny skies the rest of the way. But when I called home, my Mom told me that since I had left 5 hours previously, they had received up to 4 inches of snow. WTF? I missed being snowed in by an hour again.

The low this morning was -1 degree. Wind chills kept us at an arctic state all day. I'm just wanting to know where all this came from? And ask again, what happened to fall? I'm still waiting for it. There are still leaves on the tree outside my apartment. They're still waiting for fall too.