Winter Weather Update

My father is probably the strongest-willed man I've ever met. When he sets his mind to do something, it gets done.  The past few weeks, it's hurt me to see him almost broken.  For you see, it's been over two years and he has yet to get to use his snow blower that I bought in January of 2005. 

We've come very close in the past few weeks - promises of at least 2 or 3 inches of snow, but the storm fronts have either stopped or just shy of Louisville or either moved north or south and avoided us all together.  So far this winter, I'd venture to say we've gotten maybe 3/4 of an inch of snow in the 4 snows that we've had.  The latest disappointment came on Tuesday.  For the past week, the weatherazzi had been saying this was going to be a whopper of a snow.  On Monday evening, they even said that Louisville was in the 3-5 inches range.  As soon as we heard that, we were giddy with excitement.  Dad went out to the garage for the umpteenth time, and made sure the snow blower was by the garage door ready to be fired up.  But no dice.  Tuesday's snow came and went and we barely got a dusting.  How disappointing is that?

The weatherazzi and the school systems were in full blown proactive mode on Tuesday.  Hell, they were proactive the day before.  Tuesday morning, a co-worker that lives just across the bridge in southern Indiana said that on Monday, his son's elementary school sent home a note saying that they would be letting school out at noon on Tuesday in anticipation of the snow; the snow that never came.  Here on our side of the river, schools let out early and activities were cancelled for Tuesday night, but the snow never came. 

So this brings us to almost mid-February.  Just last week, the official groundhog Punxatawny Phil did not see his shadow, so that means winter is almost over.  Incidentally, if the groundhogs that live here at The Compund had come out, it was cloudy and they would not have seen their shadows either.  So time's running out on our window of opportunity for snow.  Maybe we should pack up our snow blower and drive out to Denver or to upstate New York.