Thaw!

Today it was warm. Warm! Up to fifty degrees warm, leave the car in the coat warm! Grass could be seen by the road, and we drove through water puddles instead of snow slush!

And here I found the snow on a tin roof sliding off like so much warm icing on a cake.

I'm Having Trouble With My Mailbox

 

I can't get to my mailbox. We've had continuous snow cover for over a month now, two major snowfalls, and several minor ones. Where the snow is flat on the ground it does melt down into the ground, slowly, but on the sides of the driveway the piles turn to ice. And we must have piles on the side of the driveway, because every time the snow plow comes past it scrapes a wall of slush over the mouth of the driveway. Sure, we could just shovel it back into the street, but the next time the plow comes past we are blocked in again.

Meanwhile, our street is growing narrower with every snow. The mailboxes stand on the edge of the curb, which is now about two feet from the clean edge of the snow. It's worse on the other side of the street. More than a yard. Two cars must pass very carefully now, and there is now passing the school buses.

 

In the parking lots, the snow is piling up even higher. We will have snowmounds for a long time. I think I should start a contest as to how long before this one, which I have nicknamed the Mountain of Madness, will remain.  Place your guesses in my SFF.net newsgroup and the winner will get a free ebook/pdf of any of my novels that he or she chooses.

The Mountain of Madness

 

Snow Crystals

I went out to clear off the car the other day. There had been enough moisture in the air that snow was threatened, but it had been too cold -- below zero -- to snow. Instead of frost or snow I found my car was covered with these giant snow crystals. They looked like delicate butterflies waiting to take off, growing as they were away from the car like wings. I could not take the time to photograph them, but when I got back from my errand I found that a few were still sticking to the leeward side of the other car.

Here's a close-up of the crystals: