It's a mess here. The winds were incredible, maybe 45mph sustained over 24 hours with 70 mph gusts. Windspeed is still 25mph here today, continually drifting the snow. The power flickered off a few times yesterday but held. The windbreak is laying down in spots. Bare patches surrounded by 4 foot drifts. We spent 3 hours snow blowing the driveway only to have the plows and wind fill it back in overnight. We'll blow it out again, but not in time for me to go to work today.

On the plus side, i have a tray and labels ready to sow pepper and eggplant seed.

Be safe!

Barb’s not far north of me, so pretty much the same conditions here! I’m not sure I had gusts quite all the way up to 70 mph, but it must have been pretty close! Barb’s up on the Wide Open Country and I’m down in a typical urban subdivision, so that makes some difference in providing windbreak. But when I was outside one time walking into the wind and snow I could hardly keep my eyes open enough to see!

It started out as rain for a few hours so when it started snowing everything was already wet and the snow glued itself onto absolutely everything! After the snow started it was hard to even see out of the windows with the snow plastered over the screens and the windows themselves—I went out one time with a broom and swept off a couple of the screens so I could try to see what was happening!

I had filled up the (eleven) bird feeders on Tuesday, but the ports got filled up with snow as soon as it started snowing, so, even when they successfully landed on a feeder in the wind, they could only get to seed in a couple places on the leeward side—and even that side was pretty well covered with snow/ice. I went out one time and poked the ports back open and brushed the snow off of the wire mesh feeders, but with horizontal snow everything quickly plastered over again. Overall it was a pretty bad day for the birds!

I have a smallish privacy fenced backyard and even back there I had some two-foot drifting—while other areas still had some grass sticking out here and there! When I measured in the driveway out front—one of the levelest places I have—I came to the grand conclusion that I had between 6” and 8” of actual snow! When I brought the rain gauge in a couple hours ago there was between 6 and 7/10” of water frozen in it, so that must have been how much rain I got before the snow started, and when it was melted down it came out to just under an inch of precip! I’m sure we got more than that, though, because the snow was plastered across the opening on top so no more could go into the gauge, so I’m assuming I got at least a full inch of precip—and probably more than that! I was really surprised to see how much rain there had been before the snow started! If all of that would have been snow we would have REALLY been dumped on!

I-70 east to Kansas is still closed! I just checked Limon and they’re still having gusts up to 55 mph! The noon news said they’re not gonna even try to plow till the winds die down. Right now they’re digging all the wall-to-wall cars out that got stuck out there yesterday with a front end loader—one by one! One guy on the news said he was “ten minutes from home”—he spent the nite in his car last nite! I also checked Burlington, Kansas, and they have CURRENT gusts of 59 mph! I expect nobody’s getting east out of Denver until at least tomorrow!

It sounds like the airport is trying to get back in operation today! It was closed yesterday for only the fourth time since it opened in 1995! Apparently there was ZERO visibility out there—it’s out on the plains—half way to Kansas!

As it “started to stop” here yesterday, and it was starting to think about going out to SHOVEL, I looked out and saw that the walk past the front of my house was already shoveled! I assumed it was my one neighbor who often shovels my walk (for Little Olde Me) if I don’t get out there first, but when I went out to shovel the walk up to my front door I discovered there were tire treads on the front sidewalk, so apparently some other neighbor with a blower got it this time! I have NO idea who it was! My “shoveling” neighbor shoveled my whole driveway this morning! Every now and then when he and I go out at the same time to shovel we “argue” about who’s gonna do the shoveling—each using the argument that we need the exercise! This time the snow was wet and heavy, and I was glad to have it done for me! I did have to shovel off my deck—which faces west—the direction the wind was coming from!—and I had up to 8” of snow there—which had to be shoveled over the railing!

Today I’ve had “usable sun” pretty much all day! It’s coming thru high clouds, but it’s strong enough that it’s already starting to melt things off! The deck is still in shade most of the day and it’s still looking pretty frosty out there!

I’m sure those of you who HAD to be someplace won’t agree with this, but I don’t remember a “good spring blizzard” for several years, and I thought it was kinda fun! Yeah! All I had to do was sit inside and look—and try to keep the birds happy! But it’s spring—and it’ll all be gone again in a few days!

Hope everybody was safe yesterday, and able to stay snug and warm inside!

Skybird

We had a 7-hour power outage, longest I have had since I've lived in this house (20 years). I will say that a power outage in the winter is much easier than in the summer. We packed up all the freezer food into coolers and set them outside. We put all the refrigerator food into storage bins in the garage. Shoveling the heavy, wet snow sucked. The wind was creepy. But fortunately, we had no damage here.

We don't get a lot of "true blue" blizzards here, but this was sure one of them! At the house we had 1/4 inch to 4 feet, depending on where you step. The barn out behind the house was completely erased by the wind blown snow. Most of the day the Weather Service doesn't even have recorded wind-speeds, but my guess is we were at sustained 30-40 mph with gusts I couldn't even begin to guess. I couldn't even see the trailer which is only 10-20 yards across the driveway from the house. Even after the skies mostly cleared by the next morning, the winds were driving the snow from the open fields across the roads and many spots were still "white out " conditions until I hit Ft. Lupton and Brighton (where buildings were able to block the drifting). This was a pretty impressive storm, I have to say.

Work was closed Wednesday, I was able to get all new smoke detectors put up in the house haha. Thursday we went in to do damage assessments and snow removal. Our brand new solar panels had turned into kites and blown all over the refuge, lost a lot of signs. We buried a dump truck in a drift along the wildlife drive and even the big front end loader couldn't get it pulled out.

Yikes! We only had about 3” of snow, and maybe 2-3 hours of bad winds. Yes, there was a layer of ice under everything, but it really wasn’t too bad at my house. My crocuses that were blooming before the storm acted like it weren’t no nothin’.