Monday, November 19, 2007

Snow!

Yesterday’s first snowfall of the season wasn’t a big one, but it still tied a record for the day, such as it was. I got about half an inch of snow from a storm that was relatively small in size, but folks who live in the middle of the storm’s track are seeing up to 10 inches of snow. I just got clipped by the edge of the storm, so I didn’t see much of it, though people even a few miles north of me saw a bit more.

The snow started as sleet shortly after dark last evening, the sound of it made me look up from my book. The weather had been cold and threatening all day, but nothing had come of it. When it was time to run the dogs for the last time in the evening, I already had a quarter of an inch or so down. I was waiting to see what they would do when the first saw it. Dog is well-experienced with snow. He likes it. We’ve camped in it together. I put the leash on and opened the door. Like the middle-aged gentleman that he is, he took one look at the snow, sniffed it and stepped outside, ready for a run. Once off the porch, he happily ran his nose through the snow and dug in it a bit, but overall he was fairly blasé since he’d seen before and saw it as soon as I opened the door. He accepted that it was there, and was ready for fun.

Baby Dog, as you might expect, was a different matter. I opened the door, and out she bolted. Her legs went every which way. She fell onto her side, chin hitting the deck and then slid down the steps. She finally recovered her footing at the bottom of the steps and then looked at me as if to ask, "where did this stuff come from?" Observant, she is not. Once outside, she launched into ricochet mode, racing back and forth as fast as she could, slipping and tripping every time she tried to turn. I hope as she gets older that she learns to pay attention to what’s going on around her just a little bit more.

This half-inch snowfall does tie the record for the day, but it’s a record that’s aching to be broken, surrounded as it is by other daily records ranging from 3-9 inches of snow. This record should be an easy one to break, but not this year.

Today’s main photo is of my snow-covered driveway. It was barely light enough for a photo when I left this morning, but I figure the snow will be gone when I get home from work today, so I had to try for at least a few snow photos. The second photo today is something I don’t know if I’ve ever had before—green leaves covered with snow. It’s not that unusual here to have snow on autumn-colored leaves, but I don’t ever remember having snow on green leaves before.

Tomorrow the temperature is supposed to near 60 degrees. I guess that means this snow won’t last, huh?

13 comments:

dguzman said...

We got a good amount of snow (probably over an inch) in Central PA, as it snowed all weekend. You can check out a photo at beginningtobird.blogspot.com.

Julie said...

It's good to see it snowing in PA!

My dog is two years old and we live in Alaska, so he sees snow quite a bit. But every day we go out in it and he has a similar reaction that your Baby Dog has! My favorite trick is when he flips the snow up with his nose and catches it in his mouth.

Endment said...

Great photos of the snow.
We got nearly two inches but mid-day it began to melt and now is rapidly disappearing.

Anonymous said...

You only got half inch, you poor thing. I got 7+ and it's still falling at 1:50pm. No work either because at 11am , they still haven't plowed out the library's driveway.

Funny thing is, they didn't call for all this snow. Just maybe a half inch at teh most. Well it was nice surpise to get up to.

Chris said...

I'm so jealous! Send some snow my way :)
Your photo is beautiful, too bad it will melt before thanksgiving :(

Carolyn H said...

Dguzman: I didn't have any precip. on Sunday until after dark--though it threatened all day.

Jule: Baby Dog didn't even realize it had snowed until her feet touched it. By then, she'd already slid halfway across the deck.

Cathy: I figured you'd get hammered with the snow. I just caught the edge of that storm. And you're right--the weathermen weren't forecasting it, but my feeder birds were.

Chris and Endment: I'll be surprised if I have any snow when I get home tonight, which is why I figured I'd better try to get a few photos of it, even though the light was still poor this morning. Better a snow photo in poor light than no photos of the first snow.

Carolyn H.

KGMom said...

Yup, you had the same snow we got.
It was heavy enough to crack off a couple branches on a neighbor's tree--still with leaves so it weighed the tree down too much.
Our dog loves snow--she doubles the amount of time outside, sniffing every paw print. You can almost see her saying--what's that, at each.

Anonymous said...

Congrats on the snow. I love the first snowfall of the year. Down here in the Cumberland Valley all we got was a little bit of sleet and some ice on the windshields. I guess we'll just have to wait our turn.
Vern

Anonymous said...

No snow yet in Kansas City, but we have been getting nighttime kisses of rain, very welcome and completely unforecasted. Cold and rain are supposed to arrive tomorrow, with a chance of snow on Thursday. Roundrock, as always, is a little warmer than KC since it is about 100 miles south.

Carolyn H said...

Vern: I'm at a bit higher elevation than you are, so that's likely what made the difference. I'm between 1000-1100 feet.

Pablo: I'm sure you appreciate the rain, even if you don't get the snow just yet!

Carolyn H.

Anonymous said...

I would give anything for a scene like this on Thanksgiving day! What a beautiful and serene photo. I wish you could send snow my way, but you'd have a long way to send it. Every 5 years or so, we have snow for a day or two. I doubt that will happen this year with the increasing climates. I'm just doing my rain dance hoping for rainy, stormy weather. So far it's still blue skies and sunshine here in Northern California.

Unknown said...

We had snow too, about 2-3 inches and I have yet to scrape my car off. Your pictures are beautiful, I can almost smell the wood smoke. I spent some time in rural New England and I too loved November because you could see deep into the woods.

Carolyn H said...

kgmon: the snow didn't last until Thanksgiving, but I didn't expect that it would.

Codenamenora: The smell of wood smoke in November is a lovely scent. There's nothing quite like it, is there?