Winter Weather 2009

So far, Winter has been an incredible foray into wind, snow, and incredible ice storms. It's only December 28th, and we've already
had as much Winter as we normally do. One week ago, we were graced with a 2 foot snow storm, then on Xmas morning, we had over an inch of ice that devastated the area we live in. (Photos follow)

The current forecast is for another blizzard that will equal the 2 footer of snow we had 1 week ago! Over the past summer I took it upon myself to talk with lots of local people about the weather, and most agreed that this winter; 2009-2010 would be similar to the 1960 winter. Which I understand was incredible! It supposedly snowed every week, without fail, for nearly 3 months. Please email me if you have further information, and I'll include it in this post. Anyway, there were several "signs" that indicated this was going to be a very rough winter; the size of the squirrels tails, the depth that the bees made their nests in the ground, the amount of nuts that the chipmunks and squirrels gathered (don't know how that would be determined), the thickness of the corn husks, as well as the layers of the corn husks, and the thickness of the vegetables, mainly the potatoes. All of which, apparently were indicative of a heavy snow-fall winter. It's panning out to be true so far.

Back to the ice-storm on Xmas. Watauga county was declared to be in a state of emergency, over 60% of households lost electricity, and we in particular, lost electricity for over 36 hours, some people still don't have electricity. After taking a drive around the county, it looks as if someone sheared off all of the trees at the tops, entire trees have uprooted, and branches are everywhere. It's a disaster.