Snowflakes arrive

Spotted downtown this morning - a crane and crew hanging giant lighted snowflakes across the street.

Hail!

A very intense thunder-and-lightning storm was capped off by what seemed live a very long period of hail, quite largish, bouncing and pounding. My new seedlings are quite flat.
The spectacular violence of midwestern weather is something I'll never get used to.

Signs and Portents

Eerie clouds early this morning surged and swirled like an upside down sea across the sky, capping off yesterday's hundred degree heat. I'm not mentioning the humidity.

(See more of the world's sky at Skywatch Friday, http://skyley.blogspot.com)

Memorial Storm

Wild storm last weekend, the Three Rivers area spent Memorial Day mostly without electricity. Cleanup is ongoing, many huge trees down, some landing on homes, but no injuries. The newspaper reported a kayaker missing on the Portage River, but later found uninjured. In this photo is an immense ancient oak, uprooted and tipped onto the old schoolhouse at Day and Hoffman. Tornadoes reported in Moorpark and around Portage Lake, but minimal damage inside the city of Three Rivers. Also see Helen's photos at "Day-by-day in Fabius".

All wet

A birdy rides out the storm that is filling up Three Rivers' three rivers.

Ice storm and flowers

Big ice storm coated everything in ice. The weight brought down some big tree limbs, but it is beautiful. I'm not going out there! This is a metal sunflower blooming in my garden.

A good day to stay home

This is for my friend Kris who moved to a warmer climate - instead of 1 degree F (-17C) it is a toasty warm 40 there!

Snowy highway

Taken on the first (yesterday) in advance of last night's big storm. We were fortunate, maybe only a foot of snow, but it's blowing around. The driveway is a problem.

Much better!

This is the same tubing hill as in the January 2 photo - only with snow and full of children (and "big kids" too!)

Beautiful ice

4 degrees this morning (-15C). Along the rivers a frozen mist settled on the trees.

Hope the highway looks better than this

14 degrees (-10C) and I think it is below the point where the de-icers stop working. This is a main street, not a side street! (Portage Ave.) I waited at the light even though it changed to green - and guessed right, the pickup truck coming the other way couldn't stop, and spun lazily through the intersection.

Snowy little lighthouse

Scidmore Park's alternate lighthouse, with ducks. Cold duck?

Reaction to snow

Ah! snow in big puffy flakes made travel home last night hard. But the fire makes up for it...

Waiting for snow

Must be the famous January Thaw. A walk in the park revealed the sad sight of tubes on the tubing hill - no snow. Just grass.

Balmy

One day snow, the next day the sun is shining. Children play in the park and couples stroll in the sunshine. Trees suddenly show soft clouds of new leaves. A young woman in a summer dress bicycles past me. Winter never existed.

People keep using the word "balmy".

April (snow) showers

Snow this morning, on the flowers. The native plants - like these violets - are a more sure sign of spring than the showy non-natives; the indigenous plants seem to "know" more about the weather and don't leaf out or flower too early.

But sometimes even they guess wrong!

Windstorm

A huge but very short windstorm swept through Three Rivers on Monday night, bringing trees and tree limbs down on the roads and highways - and fences.

Now, about those arms...

Sun and blue skies after yesterday's storm. This fine snowman showed up, jaunty despite some rather strange anatomical details!

The marshmallow snow was dripping off the trees in balls of ice. Crack! Crack! falling bits ricocheting off my car while I was driving down the street.

Marshmallow Snow

Big change from yesterday - a storm with lots of heavy, wet snow, globbing all over everything like marshmallow sauce. This is looking down Portage Avenue. The highway was awful.

The picture that didn't come out: while I was waiting for a light, four big snowplows went by in a line - followed by a little tiny pickup truck with a plow on the front. Looking very much like the little brother tagging along with the big kids!

Horse Waits in Snow

At least he has a blanket!