October Snow Storm Wreaks Havoc
Posted: Saturday, October 29, 2011
by Jack H. Schick
We’re having our first snow storm of the season today. It’s been coming down steadily for about seven hours, since about nine this morning. At least that’s when I first looked out and noticed it. Everything was already covered white. There’s probably three inches sitting on the on the flat roof of my Jeep right now. A lot of it melted as it hit the ground, so I guess we’ve had close to twice that so far.
We can never be sure of our weather forecast. It’s often completely different than the Philly TV stations predict; even when they’re right. The City might get rain and we get snow. The weather system might not even make it over Indian Ridge and Penn Ridge and they get it and we don’t. Allentown’s a lot closer, but the mountain s between us, so their weather forecasts are not reliable for us either. I go with the weather rock I learned about in the Boy Scouts—you hang a rock on a piece of rope from a tree branch or something. You look at and touch the rock. If it’s swinging; it’s windy. If it’s wet; it’s raining. If it’s wet and cold, like it would be today; it’s snowing. It’s infallibly accurate for local conditions.
October 29this pretty early for a snow storm like this. As my wife likes to mockingly joke, “It must be because of global warming.” If it’s true, it’s certainly inconvenient. I had outdoor plans for today. It’s not that we aren’t concerned about climate change; it’s just that 40 years ago, when we got married, all the “experts” were panicked over global cooling. Another ice age was coming. It blew over, before they got us to spend too much money on it.
It’s a heavy wet snow. All the tree branches are sagging. This is nothing like Wyoming, where I lived for a dozen years, though. My first year there we had seven inches of snow on June 19thand six inches on September 11th. That fall, by November 1stit had snowed 11 times. Of course, we were at 6,500 feet in the Rockies. This is south eastern Pennsylvania, and it isn’t even Halloween yet.
At lunchtime I took the dogs out for a run. We had a day of small game hunting planned but decided against it. I drove them over to a favorite patch of woods hoping to find a few ducks on the creek or a few squirrels out looking for nuts. We were the only nuts out there. Every thing was muddy and wet. There were a couple inches of snow on the ground and all the trees were plastered white. I got spooked a few times when the general silence was broken by terrific crashes as heavily laden branches, and in one case, the whole top of a tree splintered and fell to the ground from the weight.
I got a robo-call from the borough this afternoon, telling me to stay off the streets and to not set my house on fire if I lose electricity because of downed trees and wires….
{I got up from keyboard for a second. I went out to the living room to see if it was still snowing. When I looked out the picture window I discovered that two large branches that still had leaves on them broke off the pin oak tree out front and barely missed my wife’s Mustang. They were hanging against the guy wires between two power/TV/telephone poles. We got dressed and went out. I lopped off a few of the lower, smaller limbs to assess the situation. She managed to get the car out after some serious scraping and digging (the snow is very heavy and wet), and parked it up the street where there are no trees over head. I leaned a ladder up against the guy wire, attached a rope to the biggest branch, tied it off to the hitch on the front of my jeep and pulled them down. We have a heck of a mess to clean up when the weather clears. My jersey gloves were soaked in a few minutes and my fingers quickly got numb and useless. When I got inside I submerged them in some cool water. I could hardly stand the pain as the circulation re-established in my fingers. They’re okay now (obviously-I’m typing), Oh yeah…it’s still snowing. They predict another four to six inches before it quits}
There's one good thing about this. I got an email form the ski area. If they get six inches or more snow out of this storm, they are going to have a drawing for two free season passes. Anyone who bought the early-bird ticket (I got mine yesterday), will have a chance to win. That would be nice, and it looks like it could be a long season. Of course this could be the only storm of the winter--you know, global warming and all....
{I got interrupted again! The power went out. It was still light enough to see outside. I was glad to see the rest of the neighborhood was dark too. I was afraid it might be another one of my branches, and just my place out. We’re sort of prepared for that sort of thing. We don’t have a generator, but we’ve got a propane lantern and candles. They warned us to not use open flames in the borough robo-call, but we did anyway. The power was out for about 45 minutes. My “Word” program recovered this document. I give up. I’m just going to submit it the way it is}
By the way, it’s still snowing.
[Update: Ten minutes after I posted this article we saw flashes up the street and the power went out again. Probably a branch coming down and shorting out a wire. It gets cold in a hurry. It was out for over an hour this time.
It quit snowing. The cat's at the pet door with his head out. I bet he comes back in.]
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Top-level comments on this article: (4 total)Be careful up there, and I don't envy you at all. Global warming...lol hahahahahaha, sorry, just my humble opinion. Enjoy some quiet time with your wife, while the power is out.Thanks for reading and commenting
Hope the power stays on for you, Jack. Jean is visiting her parents in Maryland this weekend and she's been without power for a few hours now, too.
Sure glad Jean and I moved away from PA. I'll take drought over snow, any day!Thanks for reading and commenting
Thanks for the update. I used to live in Johnstown, and I hear Blud Knob collected multiple inches. Hang in there.Thanks for reading and commenting
Wow, Jack, you poor thing. I think you definitely deserve to win that free season pass!That would be nice- thanks for reading and commenting
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