Our First Snow of 2010

For those of you not familiar with the weather here in the Texas Panhandle, my niece (she's 16 now) always says, "Never go to Amarillo without snow boats and a coat!" She's right. Just two days ago it was 77 degrees and then yesterday it was about 65 degrees or so, but still sunny and warm. The weathermen had predicted some rain and a light dusting of snow. Boy were they so WRONG again! We had major thunder storms last night with heavy flooding. It was my usual bedtime of about 1:00 am and the storm was still raging. This morning at 6:30 when Kevin got up to let the dogs out I heard him exclaim "Oh my goodness." (Really that is what he said, no expletives. Really!) I said, "What?" He said, "You've got to come see this snow. It's incredible." And it was huge flakes the size of silver dollars or bigger. The big wet heavy snow. We already had a good two inches by then. I thought about getting up and taking pictures, but was too warm and lazy in my comfy bed. Then when we got back up about 9:30 I still didn't want to leave the warm comfort of my bed, but knew the snow would be melted by this afternoon so I decided I better get up and get moving. It is amazing and judging from the stacked snow on the chair rails and the garden lanterns I'd say we got about 5-6 inches of snow in our yard. It has already started melting so I'm glad I was able to take these photos.



This snow is the super wet heavy kind that really damages the trees and causes the branches to break from the weight of the snow. Thankfully we only lost a few this year, but our neighbors were not as lucky. I even shook the branches I could reach to lighten the load.

Here is a photo of the trees in front of the house. Since I shook them off, they are almost standing straight up again. Hopefully the snow will melt soon and they will spring right back up to their correct position.

This is our side yard and the trees there have the most damage. This elm tree had elm beetles really bad this year so I guess it couldn't withstand the weight. Still not too bad.

My poor little plum tree. It has really had the stress this year. I don't think it's going to survive, but am hopeful.

Looking out across the street. It is really beautiful though.

Like I said earlier, my neighbor's trees didn't fair so well. They are all bent almost to the ground. He didn't seem to care though as I saw him get in his car and drive away. Maybe he was in a hurry. Who knows.

You can barely even see their porch there are so many branches in the way. I know some of them are broken, but still hanging by a thread.

 Our neighbor across the street lost several branches.

 And looking down the street you can see lots of bent and breaking trees. One of my friends just stopped by and she said it was a real mess and most streets are only passable for one car at a time as you have to drive weaving around all the broken branches all over the streets. I know the city street crews are out trying to clear the roadways because I heard them. 

Here's the lantern by our patio. See a good five inches stacked up there.

Every tree and every surface is covered in the beautiful white stuff.

I heard a rumble out in the street so went back out and the street crews were on our block.

There were at least three trucks, the front loader, and two vans of men. They were only getting branches from the street. Too bad we didn't pull ours out to the street. Now we will have to pull them to the alley for later pick up.

One of the sayings around here is "If you don't like the weather, just wait a little while it will change." That is so true. My sister Lavonna is doing a jury trial right now and the visiting judge and lawyers are visiting from Dallas and Austin.She asked them yesterday, "Did you bring some winter clothes?" They all said, "We have a sweater or long sleeved shirt." Lavonna told them they better go buy jackets last night, but they said they would be fine. "How bad could it get?" After all it was sunny and bright yesterday. Well, all I have to say is "Welcome to the Texas Panhandle!"