Old Fashioned February

We’ve been having a good old-fashioned Minnesota February this year: bitter cold and lots of snow. It harkens back to the days of yore. (Of your what? Of your yore lore, of course.)

The icicles are coming off the south (rear) side of the building, above my “porch” (read: small ground-level concrete slab). The building across the way is another condo unit.

Backing up a step, the view looks like this:

It’s not obvious, but those drifts just outside the window are waist-high.

In my post about Bentley, several photos show her in front of this window/sliding glass door (which I rarely use and never in the winter). In one (looking out), those snow drifts are over her head.

It sure made walking a challenge (for both of us):

Poor thing! Imagine having to go outside to do your business. Just look at that bit of bare belly and those little ears. I don’t know how she does it!

But she was a real trooper!

Moving to the north (front) of my condo, “The Tree”:

“The Tree” is the name of a photo album on my iPad where I have a collection of roughly similar shots taken out my “office” window.

I take one when I think of it, which isn’t very often; there are only 59 photos over three years. Still, it’s a nice window of time, kind of a very long time-lapse. I am considering stitching them together into a video.

The collection does let me look back at what things looked like last year:

Last year was also a snowy February!

But 2017 wasn’t:

We did have some snow in January that year, but it was gone by February!

As an aside, they sometimes talk about the “heat shield” large cities have and how it can distort the weather pattern around a city, in particular seeming to shield the city from storms.

I’ve seen this happen with both rain and snow storms, but usually it’s more a case of the edge of a storm missing us more than expected. We just don’t get the storm predicted.

But I’ve never seen it work quite like this:

Which really cracked me up when I saw it on the radar.

(There’s probably more going on with that weather pattern than just city heat shield blockage, but it’s pretty funny how it went around us on both sides.)

I’ll leave you with this final shot:

Which really doesn’t convey how the wind yesterday was swirling the snow around. You can kind of see the effect in the pattern on the snow.

We had high winds yesterday (and cold, so dangerous wind chills), and it really blew the snow around. I had to go out and shovel the walk again just because of the blowing snow.

It is around February that winter starts to get old. Climate shift has resulted in milder falls and early winter, but we seem to see more snow on the back end than we have previously (or so it seems to me).

My old bones have been cold, and I am looking forward to spring! (The heating bill has been kind of a killer this year, and my friend is getting killed on snow removal fees. I’m achy and sore from shoveling.)

Still,… it’s kind of impressive. I’ve always been a fan of Mother Earth’s amazing power. She nurtures and provides for us, but she can kill us in seconds (in, oh, so many ways).

Loving, but stern!

Stay warm, my friends!