This has been an unusual storm for me. I have been watching from the edges instead of the mountain. Based on past experience and looking at other area totals, I am guessing that the snow that I will not be shoveling is probably somewhere from ten to twelve inches.
I will probably get some better numbers tomorrow, but it does not matter a lot when you will not have to shovel it. While Roanoke gets its share of snow, much of North Carolina where I am hiding goes years without seeing much snow. It has been fun to watch the excitement.
We have a lot of relatives in Yadkin and Surry counties in North Carolina. They have all seen from seven to ten inches of snow with substantial sleet mixing in with the snow. They do not expect schools to open before Wednesday or Thursday of this week.
Our youngest daughter who lives near Cornelius, NC saw five inches of snow in the first hours of the storm. They have lived just north of Charlotte for five years and have never had this much snow.
My son who lives up near Washington said the four inches of snow that they got was so light and fluffy that they used a broom on it.
There has been some chatter on the Internet about Norfolk and Virginia Beach seeing some significant snow for the first time in a while. Snow on the beach is something that does not happen often.
Our friends in Pulaski sent us the photo in the post. They live a long way off the road and their driveway looks to be a huge challenge. They had eleven inches of snow in the middle of the afternoon. I hope their cross country skis are in good shape.
Here on the North Carolina coast, Carteret County was one of the very few counties to not have a winter storm warning. Even in New Bern just forty-five minutes from us, there was a lot of icing. At one time tonight, the Highway 70 bridge there was closed.
Reports from Greenville indicate a real mess with lots of ice breaking limbs in the pine trees. We were very lucky. This morning when I got just before sunrise, there was some ice on the dock and few high branches on the pine trees. It only took a couple of hours, and we managed to get a few degrees above freezing and the ice melted. When I came home from work at 5 PM, there was no ice on the roads, but it was a very chilly 36F and raining steadily.
Just before midnight we have slipped below freezing here on the Crystal Coast so there will be some icy spots tomorrow morning. I noticed that it is already down to 19F and on the way to 9F in Roanoke.
That's pretty cold for Roanoke, so I hope everyone is okay and that this might be the last snowstorm for a while. I guess this winter proves that both North Carolina and Virginia still have the potential for some serious snow.
My friend up on the New Jersey shore said they were only going to get a couple of inches. He is used to the big storms while we usually get the couple of inches. I think he might be jealous.
As I used to tell my kids, something like this builds character. I did not say that to my friend who was flying from Maui to Roanoke this morning. He made it as far as Charlotte. I did ask him if he had a snow shovel in his car at the Roanoke airport.
Being a good Canadian, I always carry a snow shovel in my car when I fly in the winter. There are times that the snow shovel has been an essential tool. Today would have been one of them if you could find a plane flying into Roanoke. Even the airport in New Bern here on the coast canceled all flights today.
Tomorrow we deal with the after storm cold. Hopefully that will be gone by mid-week
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