Returning to normal

Rensselaer was in the band of highest snowfall from the blizzard on Wednesday. It is hard to measure how much snow we got because of the blowing and the fact that we got a wet snow that compacted. The snow on the trees shows that the wind was from the north.

The blizzard closed county roads--the commissioners declared a snow emergency with traffic on county roads banned--and all local schools, including Saint Joseph's College, were closed. Even the public library closed for two days. Roads in Rensselaer were not unusually bad for a blizzard. The crews got them plowed and we did not have the drifting that some of the county roads had. Despite the days off from school, there were no kids at the playgrounds.

 The red cedars looked sad.

The mail was delivered on both days, but the Rensselaer Republican could not get Thursday's edition to the post office in time for delivery, so they made the issue free for download from their website. The east-west highways had serious drifting. The problems on US 24 west of Remington were featured on WLFI last night.

People got to use their snow blowers to remove the wet and heavy snow, something that they have not had to do much this winter. The blizzard was the first big snow of the winter and doubled our total snowfall for the season.

 While some businesses closed on Wednesday and Thursday, one opened for the first time. Mount Hood Pizza & Grill opened for business on Thursday.

 On Thursday the temperature rose above freezing and a bit of snow melted, enough to make puddles on some of the streets. By the afternoon most of Rensselaer's streets were dry. The county snow plows struggled with the heavy, drifted snow and the ban on travel was not lifted until 6:00 in the evening. Even then, some of the gravel roads remained unplowed.

Today school is back in session with a two hour delay. There are lots of snowmen around town--the conditions were ideal for building them and with the schools closed there was an abundant labor force. The forecast is for a warm weekend, so by next week much of the snow should be gone.


Among the many snowmen I saw around town, this was the most unusual.

I meant to post earlier today but I am having Internet connection problems.