BLIZZARD WARNING!!!

I don't normally get hyper over the threat of weather, unless it's a tornado that's just down the road. Hail is not fun. Thunderstorms are oh so interesting and gives me goosebumps all over.

I hate ice storms.

Blizzards on the other hand, as long as I don't have to go out in them are the icing on the cake so to speak. I'm a naturalist. Weather is exciting for me to watch develop. If I were able to I would go chase a tornado. I'm about that crazy.

Living in the mid-west I grew up when winter was not mild as it has been around here, as of late (last 20 years). I lived through the Blizzard of '79-'80. Now, if you want to know how bad that was, look at what they are getting out east. Yeah. It was that bad. There was no place to put the snow, except in the center of the roads down town, and everyone began putting little things on their car antennas so that people would see them coming. My father drove semi and he was stuck out east for a whole month. That was crazy. He couldn't get home. I remember it was New Years Eve when the amounts of snow came down so quickly, that I had relatives unable to get home, on the other side of town, sleeping in my father's living room (when I still lived there)

So, when I hear this blizzard warning--the very least will be 14" of snow. But the amount of snow is not the hazard. The hazard is the blowing. A blizzard occurs when sustainable winds are at least 35 m.p.h. That's what will happen and this is coming in on Tuesday night into Wednesday. At one point the snow--they predict--will be coming down at 1-2" per hour. Add this to the blowing this equals white-out conditions.

My husband and I live in a rural area. A country road that is somewhat hilly. Our driveway is situated in a way that I've seen anything from 3 to 4 to 5 foot drifts created by the blowing winds off the field across from us. Even though my husband's other job is working for the forest preserve, and there is a truck with a plow on it, we won't be able to dig out and venture out on the morning of the blizzard. That would be crazy.

Since our jobs of driving the bus is in conjunction with NIU, and we believe they will shut down that day anyway, we are not going to be going to work. We've learned our lesson the hard way and almost didn't get back about 3 or 4 years ago. In fact it was insanity driving into town on a day when the snow was so bad we had to stop 3 times to clear the windshield wipers of snow. And get to work only to learn that NIU had closed down. (We at least got payed 2 hours for showing up).

So, it's quite possible we will be staying home on Wednesday. I will be working on the third book. I've got a gob of ideas to flesh it out. Not good that we loose pay, but you don't want to be driving in a blizzard. I don't even think we'll be able to get out of the house, in fact. I've seen where the drifts have accumulated up against the door!

Well, I hope the rest of you have better weather than we will. I'll be checking in later.

Ciao