Winter Weather Hits Eastern U.S.

Sleet, freezing rain and snow. That is our weather forecast until 7:00 p.m. Friday evening. As I look out the back window this morning, all I see is ice hanging off of trees and ice hanging off of power lines. The driveway and blacktop road look like one shiny piece of glistening ice that looks so pretty from where I'm standing, yet is so dangerous from out there. The cars are slowly moving down the road and the normal hustle and bustle I hear every morning with school buses and traffic has been replaced by cinder trucks, ambulances and police.

I was awake at 5:30 a.m. this morning to listen to the latest radio happenings on the storm and the school closings were announced that early. Typically, our local school does not announce closings until the last minute so I knew it must be really bad outside. Children all over the eastern part of the United States are jumping for joy this morning as schools are canceled. Many employees are also home due to the ice storm. My house is running full steam ahead as both child and husband are shut in for the day so ice storms are not always a big hit with old mom here.

Not only are schools closing like crazy but also many daycares, colleges, technical schools, and local events scheduled for tonight have decided to lay low throughout the wintry mix.

Then around 6:30 a.m. people started calling into the radio station to announce accidents they were encountering on their travels to work. The Interstate, which is usually the best kept stretch of road to travel around here, was really bad this morning and accidents were happening left and right.

The radio host described the freezing rain as she came into work this morning as "pouncing" and "brutal" to drive in. After my husband attempted to de-ice the sidewalks this morning he said it was a "worthless cause at this point" and that we "might as well wait until it's over because there's a lot more on its way down."

So far we have been lucky and all power is still on and there have been no local reports yet of any power outages anywhere in the nearby area. Cinder trucks are out today more than I have seen in a long time. Our local area is expected to get at least ¼ inch accumulation of ice before lunchtime. Then after lunch, it is estimated that we will get upwards of 1 inch of rain. But by looking out my back window, I would say that the ice has already reached the predicted accumulation and will continue to pile up as the morning goes on.

Eastern states such as West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York has been under an official winter storm warning since yesterday morning. It is predicted that all of these state will down be hit by the mixed bag of precipitation and it will be cleared out by Saturday.

As I finish this, I can hear the freezing rain easing up and the gentle sound of raindrops falling. So much for my prediction of more ice!