And so, it’s back!

Winter, that is.

Except for some small piles in shaded areas, the snow was gone.

It started out looking like this (at 4:19 PM March 14):

If you look closely (click for a big version), you can see lots of white flakes as the snow begins to fall.

The snowfall was deceptively light at first. About two-and-a-half hours later (at 6:56 PM), it only looked like this:

Tempting to think we’d get off lightly. Sometimes they predict a big storm, but it ends up amounting to little or even nothing. Spoiler: not this time.

Even just before 9:00 PM, it still hadn’t really gotten going:

But it was definitely snowing. And as always, I’m impressed by my iPhone’s camera. It handles the dark pretty well.

I took another shot just before I went to bed (just after 1:00 AM):

And now the snow is beginning to accumulate. Note how those bushes along the garage wall on the right are half-covered now.

It seems there will be shoveling work to do when I wake up.

The first photo at the top is what I saw out my bedroom window when I got up. It didn’t look as nice as that. It was still storming, so it was cloudy and very windy. I had to let the wind and snow die down before there was any point in shoveling.

(All these blue-sky photos are from today, March 16. Temperatures have been in the teens, but it’s always nicer when the Sun is shining.)

I can’t explain this, but there is something evocative about a snow-piled roof:

It’s weirdly somehow similar to the feeling of being under a warm blanket.

And is there anything more winter-y than icicles?

Look at that big shelf of ice and snow extending over the roof edge. Not good. It can lead to roof leaks. It would be smart for the association to send people around to knock that down, but they seem to prefer dealing with whatever damage occurs after the fact (which offends my engineering soul — fix the problem).

I do think my neighborhood looks awfully pretty in the snow, though:

For us, it wasn’t as bad as in other parts of the state or Wisconsin.

According to the DNR, we got just under nine inches of snow (five inches on Saturday, just under four inches on Sunday):

So, the snow level got an upwards bump (and we’re predicted to get a little bit more in a couple of days).

The low-pressure area passing by to the south pulled down a lot of cold air, so our temps have plunged:

Quite a come-down from that 60° high (or the early-month high temps in general), but this is all pretty much par for the course in Minnesnowta. It’s a consequence of living on the 45th parallel far from any moderating oceans.

The best way to approach the weather here is with the firm conviction that variety is the spice of life. (As well, perhaps, as the old adage about what doesn’t kill you making you stronger. We Scandahoovians are a hardy breed.)

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This post forms something of a triptych with the beginning of winter posts And so, it begins… and And so, it’s here!

Stay shoveling, my friends! Go forth and spread beauty and light.

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