Batten Down, Matey...

 Well, this is unlikely to be fun, but it is what it is.  

We're being told we're staring into a double-barreled storm threat coming over the next two days.  Being a lifetime Minnesotan, I knew it.  Because today I was out and about in a light coat - in February - because we were near 40 degrees.  

Yes, much melting.  And I spent a bit of time working over the front step and front yard.  The rental unit we live in has a wonderful side door sidewalk, but it's got a bit of a slope that rises/drops about eight inches over maybe six feet.  So not ADA compliant, but it is what it is.  

 The front yard avoids that by not having a sidewalk at all.  There's a landing pad at the bottom of the stairs, but no sidewalk at all.  And once again, I found myself staring at Lake Dipshit in the driveway.  It has been there for five years now, and I believe every late/winter and early spring I announce to my son that we should buy a couple of bags of gravel and some sand and fill the damned thing in, because it's a puddle that just sits there - until it becomes a flat icy spot - every spring.  

This spring, the fiendish idea struck me to drop in rock, then sand, then some cement powder.  And let it all sit there for a bit without a vehicle on or in it, to make something solid.  Of course, that would require we have better weather than what's coming.  

Starting tomorrow afternoon, the first barrel of the whatever it is aimed at us should unload.  As we're allegedly on the south side of this storm track, we'll be spared the 6 or more inches folks north of us might see.  We should expect only an inch.  

Then round number two strikes.  Because this first load is swinging down from Canada, the clipper will roar right over the top of us, while the second round/barrel will begin Tuesday morning, and we should expect to see anywhere from 4 to 8 more inches.  

Given that we have not had any sort of accumulation of snow since mid-December, and all we've had for the last few weeks has been warm/cold cycles.  With that, and the increasing power of the sun as it begins the climb to ... well, as close as we get to over our heads, we're getting a fair amount of daily melting.

Now, if you are blessed with a lack of snow understanding, allow me to explain.  When winter hits, the ground cools and eventually freezes before it gets covered with snow.  So if you go down about four feet or so, you'll find unfrozen ground.  But the upper portion is pretty danged cold.  And so when the air warms up, it start the melt from the top.  And then we have gravity making it's play for the increased level of difficulty, because it pulls some of that moisture down.  Which then accumulates in the upper layers of the still cold snow, where it freezes.  

Thus, you get snow, with a crust of ice on top of it.  Or if you've had the sort of winter as we have, you get not a whole heck of a lot of snow covered by a thick layer of ice.  Which makes it kind of hard to get around.  

So tomorrow morning, I'll see if my work with the ice chopper and my other efforts result in anything happening.  Fingers crossed.  And I'll need to get a good look early tomorrow, because once the snow starts, we know that all of my work will be covered up.

And in a few weeks, all of the snow will be gone.  Likely to be replaced, eventually.  

It's called March, I know.  We'll get there, eventually.