Ice Storms Archives

The forecasters were pretty much right. They promised us a wintery mix, and we got the whole gamut: rain, freezing rain, half an inch of ice and about five inches of snow here on Kingsway in Cape.

Here is my standard photo looking across the street to the Bolton house.

Wib’s emergency

When the weather started to look iffy, I figured I should journey to Wib’s, remembering when I made a similar pilgrimage in 2013.

An outside combo, with French fries, slaw and iced tea fueled me up for a trip to grocery stores.

Empty shelves at Schnucks

I went to Schnucks specifically looking for key limes and bacon-wrapped pork steaks. They had neither.

I asked the guys in the produce and meat departments if they were hiding any, but they said the supply truck hadn’t arrived, but it should be there the next day.

I thought there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in Hades of that happening with the forecasts for the rest of the week.

A combination of supply chain issues and panic buying left many shelves virtually empty. Click on any image to make it larger, then use the arrow keys to move through the gallery.

Studded tires will start you, but not stop you

1966 minor crash on icy street

There was a time when I would have fired up the old 1959 Buick LaSabre station wagon and roamed all over town documenting the wintery weather, but I’m older and wiser, and the Buick has long since gone on to its eternal reward. (Dad gave it to one of his workers to haul firewood on his farm. It was a straight-ahead vehicle, meaning that it no longer worked in reverse.)

Here is where I learned in 1966 that studded snow tires might help you get started on ice, but they didn’t do diddly when it came to stopping.

The guy in the black car was on the wrong side of the road when I was heading down the hill.

Roughly five inches

While I was visiting family in South Carolina and Florida over the holidays, the birds emptied about 2/3 of the bird feeders in the back yard. The ice storm froze the ropes and pulleys I use to hoist them past the squirrel zone, so I couldn’t do much for them.

I saw some woodpeckers looking at the few pitiful scraps of suet block, so I managed to replenish that feeder.

I used a measuring cup to fill a feeder down low, then promptly left it hanging on a Shepard’s crook. When I went outside the next morning, it had about five inches of snow in it. I couldn’t get any wind or precipitation readings from my weather station because it was a solid block of ice.

Heated water dish

Before Phoebe the Bleeping Cat was granted indoor privileges a couple of winters back, I kept a heated drinking dish for her. I bought a kiddie pool to hold water for all the back yard livestock, but it was frozen so solidly that even a posthole digger wouldn’t break the ice.

The dish stays liquid even if the rest of the world is a white, solid mess.

Cool mailbox

After a distracted driver mowed down my mailbox, I replaced it with this bigger one so the carrier doesn’t have to make as many porch deliveries.

USPS has this cool app that lets me see what mail is coming, so I didn’t have to wade through the snow to see there was nothing in the box that was urgent.

Snow covers a multitude of sins

Nothing like a fresh blanket of snow to cover up all the ugly parts of my front yard.

Older and wiser, remember?

I walked the perimeter of the yard checking for damage, but I was pretty much OK except for some minor limbs down.

I saw several people leaving stores with sleds under their arms, but I opted out of trying to sled down the hill on the west side of the house.

In fact, when I was in Buchheit’s last week, I saw some handy ice cleats that were nice to stick on my rubber boots. I have some hip pain, but I’d prefer not to break what I’ve got.

Weather forecasts for SE Missouri had something for everyone in a week’s time. We had warm temps, single-digit temps, 4 inches of rain, thundersleet, freezing rain and snow.

There were reports of trees down and power outages scattered all around, but 1618 Kingsway dodged a big bullet (so far). Trees and bushes got a beautiful decoration of ice, but wind that could have caused serious problems didn’t materialize.

Frozen flag

When I looked out the front window the night the rain was freezing, I was surprised to see my American flag looking like it had been starched, then ironed flat. It was frozen into a solid sheet.

By the next morning, it was still mostly frozen, but there had been enough wind to create cracks in the coating.

The only casualty (so far)

I did a quick walkaround and saw a few small branches down, but this bent-over bush with the split trunk may have been the only fatality.

Still, though, the temps will be below freezing for another day, so there may be other trees and bushes that’ll crack under the continued strain.

Green covered with ice

Some grass and mosses were turning green under the warmer than usual winter, but they got a serious shock when they were covered with sleet, snow and ice.

I was surprised to see half a dozen robins wading in my front yard the day when the rain was coming down the hardest.

I ordered a generator

I bought a 3000-watt generator after Hurricane Hugo in 1989. It sat in my backyard shed unused except for annual test firings until the 2004 hurricane season when three storms passed over us, leaving us without power for multiple days.

After the first storm of the series, I ordered a 7,500-watt generator and added a kit that would allow it to run on gasoline, propane or natural gas. I also put a tap on our electrical service panel that would let me power most of the house.

Florida hurricane supplies

We keep all our hurricane supplies in a shed in the back yard. They include aluminum panels to go over the doors and windows, the generator, spare oil and filters, mounting hardware, and tarps (up to and including 30-footers).

Here’s a link to more detailed disaster planning that might be helpful even if you aren’t in the tropics.

We’ve been through the drill enough times that we can have the house battened down in an afternoon, with the help of Matt and Grandson Malcolm.

The smaller Hugo generator went to Son Matt, who used it at his house.

He rewired his house and bought a bigger generator, which made the old one surplus again. I reclaimed it and have it parked under my basement stairs in Cape “just in case.”

I had the electrical panel in Cape house upgraded from a four-fuse 60-amp box to a modern service panel. That started me thinking about a generator big enough to feed the whole house, if I was careful to balance my load.

Tri-fuel generators are hard to find

I dithered for months, but the ice storm caused me to pull the trigger. Once capable of running on gas, propane and natural gas are hard to find. I’m going to have to drive to Marion to pick one up the first week of March.

Even if it sits silent for as long as the Hugo generator did, it’s worth the comfort of knowing its there. (I think I paid $300 for the 3,000-watt unit. Three hundred bucks spread out over about 10 years was painless.)

Pretty ice photos

You can take a tour of my yard by clicking on any image to make it larger, then use the arrow keys to move through the gallery.

My old high school teacher and pilot used to repeat the old adage, “There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots; there aren’t any old, bold pilots.”

I spent a lot of time in the ink-slinging business being a bold photographer, but now that I have achieved the status of an old photographer, I’m not quite as bold. Not too many years ago, I roamed Cape shooting weather photos. This gallery was all taken without backing the van out of the driveway.

Here are some links to weather pictures and stories when I was younger and bolder.

Tag: Ice Storms

Rain, freezing rain, ice & snow