Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Winter Storm

Along with a large area of the US, Cincinnati was hit with a large snow/sleet/ice storm. This was our first major snowfall of the season. There were a lot of closings and the roads were a mess.

Yesterday I decided to stay home and use a vacation day I carried over from last year to avoid the crazy drivers. Overnight we got about a half inch of ice. When I woke up and heard the weather forecast for several more inches of snow, I realized today was a work from home day. I spend most of my time on the computer and phone anyway, so it isn't difficult to work at home. It turned out to be the right decision as Hamilton county declared a level 3 snow emergency -- only emergency vehicles on the road -- to allow the plows and salt trucks space to do their thing.

It took Dianne and me about 45 minutes just to shovel our way out of the house and get to my car to clean it off for tomorrow. I heard on the news that in the last two days we received 7 inches of snow and a half inch of ice. I know that's not much to my Minnesota readers, but it causes a lot of problems in this area. At one point there were nearly 50,000 people without power -- mostly due to tree limbs covered with ice breaking off the tree and taking down power lines.

About an hour after the snow stopped today, the sun poked out from between the clouds and lit up the ice covered trees. I took a couple macro photos of the ice covered trees outside our place (per Erika's request). If the forecast holds, it might not be until Sunday before the ice melts off the trees.

Snow on Ice

Encapsulated

Frozen Cluster

After the Storm

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great minds think alike! I was out as well this morning, though some were taken inside looking out. I love ice encased limbs and buds.
MissPrint's Dad

Black-n-Bluegrass Rollergirls said...

Great pics! I was wishing I had a decent camera today, to get a nice shot of the Weeping Cherry tree in my front yard...

Erika Jean said...

I really enjoyed that post! Thanks SO much for posting some pics :-)

I do miss that CraZy snow that Cincinnati gets, but I sure am thankful I am here and not there! That is more ice than I had thought!

Angie said...

Your pics are beautiful.

I'm just really getting sick and tired of seeing snow. Can we just have a warm day? Just for one day... Please?

Anonymous said...

Love the shots! It was very ice of you to share the cold with us.