Severe Weather Has Hit Northeast Ohio Once Again

Now we have to dig out of the most recent "storm of the century" on one of the coldest days of the year. That is how this winter has been in that we get a very brief respite and then we are slammed right back into freezing our backsides off just digging out from beneath more snow. I have to stock up the wood pile, knock down more ice, and see if the car will even start in this wicked cold weather.

I stayed up late to stoke the wood burning stove again, and my electronic power meter showed the outside temperature all the way down to 5 degrees! The wildest part of that number is that the day time temperature was 34 degrees.

This winter has been very strange up here in Northeast Ohio. We live in an area that is commonly called the "Snow Belt" where the snow fall is much greater than other nearby areas. The primary phenomenon which causes this is our proximity to the southern shore of Lake Erie, this creates a large source of moisture and the prevailing winds coming from the northeast out of Canada, combined with the physical terrain all add up to some serious snow fall levels. According to the weather service data we average 106 inches of snow per season. That is almost nine feet of snow!

As a result of the most recent storms our roof has more ice and water damage than it has had in recent memory. The icicles hanging from our gutters have grown from the roof all the way to the ground in some places. I have been called out more than a few times to knock excessive ice off the gutters of some elderly folks who I help out now and again.

Now all the local news stations and the weather channel had been predicting the storm which blanketed the heartland states was swiftly heading towards northeast Ohio. This is usually not great news for us especially since we have already been pummeled repeatedly with snow and ice this winter. Today was the first time we had more than a few hours in a row of direct sun in recent memory, but the downside to this is the incredible cold that blew through last night. Fortunately we did not have any frozen pipes this morning so there is some good news!

The trouble with this kind of weather extreme is that we do not simply have a definitive snow event since the temperature and barometric pressures are constantly changing, so we typically get the joy of experiencing sleet, freezing rain, and up to a quarter inch of ice! Even when running the electric heat trace wire systems we have seen extreme ice on our eaves and gutters. I have been plowing the snow from our driveway at least twice as often as I did last year, and it seems that there is no end in sight!

So as a result of this storm warning we do our usual running out for supplies, and we stock up the few things we know we will need over the next few days, coffee, creamer, bread, toilet paper, chocolate, you know the essentials. We also put fuel in our Jeep which we use for plowing our driveway just in case. Finally we got to settle in to wait and see how much snow we really had over the past week. Staying warm and keeping off the roads is usually our safest plan when this kind of weather rolls through this snow belt area in northeast Ohio.

Northern folks who live through many of these winters are jaded and tough when it comes to this kind of extreme weather, and surprisingly it does not seem to keep many people indoors. When we were at the store stocking up on supplies we could hardly find a parking space.

Now I am headed outside to brave the cold and do my wood stockpile chores and see what else needs attention.