Yup, ice seems to be a lot more difficult than mere snow or rain. Everything being equal, I wouldn't have minded if it was all snow that we got. We lost some sort of power on a couple of circuits for a while Wednesday night. My engineer DH said the power supply had lost one of its "legs" and would be repaired but in the meantime we were not loading up our circuits....it also blew some part in our GFI plug, so DH fixed it to put us back in business. An odd thing happened though....I started seeing the flash of an EPIRB (Emergency Positioning Indicator Radio Beacon) used solely on boats, and it was in the dark right across the street...but I was confused by a massive flood of LIGHT everywhere, I mean INTENSE....our street light had gone out too....But meanwhile in the back of the house, unbeknownst to me....DH was watching out the BACK door the lights of a USCoast Guard rescue helicopter casting about with some high power bulbs.....just above the trees, and DH could read the letters and see the red stripe on the fuselage so no doubt what it was....just what was it doing over our house. So see, DH had half the puzzle and I had the other half, and it was almost simultaneously that we lost power on those circuits. Of course, I realized that I was right about it being an EPIRB flashing and on such a stormy cold night, the USCG scrambled to save a vessel in distress....which was no vessel but was simply the beacon rolling around in the back of a car parked in front of a house...very careless. About 30 minutes later, the beacon stopped flashing....you know they identified the location or the owner of the EPIRB and told them about it. But you know, I am always inventing stories... I had several possible scenarios written featuring this EPIRB event. I thought it was pretty unusual. And just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they are not out to get me. :) (one of my favorite sayings too) Well, we had 3 nights straight down super cold with sleet/ice/snow and there remains a bit of ice and snow in the yard. One patch of frost (there this morning) on the roof of DH workshop had melted every place except for a wide diagonal patch of tree trunk shading it. I noticed tonight that with the brightness of the day, all my solar yard lights were twinkling brightly. Hopefully we'll be warmer tomorrow night. DH has some frostbite on his fingers, even with gloves he said. And now I'm thinking he's coming down with the flu or ague or some kind of virus. He, a native New Englander, says he has never been so cold in his life, he cannot get warm. I know that is what folks always attribute our moaning about being cold due to our normally high humidity with the cold...but that happens other places too....so I think he is getting ill.

The NWS has issued a Winter Weather Advisory for overnight Thursday that includes the Oklahoma panhandle. Carol, I suppose the snow has reached you by now? It is nice and wet here, so we are very happy. No snow or sleet is expected here but we might get some more rain after midnight. There's 1.5" of rain in the rain gauge from yesterday and today, so I'm pretty happy about that. At least the cool season crops will have a chance to grow. It is hard to plant in dry soil with no rain falling and have high expectations, so the rain is a blessing. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Winter Weather Advisory For The Panhandle

Mother Nature may know what she is doing, but she keeps me confused some weeks. I have had daffodils just absolutely buried in snow and come through it looking fine. Sometimes, though, and I think this ocurs most often when we drop from very warm to very cold very suddenly......they will droop a little and look bad for a day or so, but they then perk right back up. Still, since your MIL is completely disabled from MS (and I am so sorry to hear that), it would be so sweet of you to take her a bouquet of daffodils and Flowering Quince. I am sure she'd enjoy having a bit of spring brought inside. (Maybe tomorrow you could bring her a snowball?) Thanks for the tip on wunderground.com....I'll check it out. I hate that your hubby's days off are going to be ruined. But, hey, this is March in Oklahoma, and if it wasn't snow, sleet or rain ruining his days off, then it probably would be tornadoes, hail or flooding, right? And, yes, sometimes we get them all in the same week, don't we?

I'm in wisconsin. We got our nasty weather several days ago. Had a foot of snow on the roof, then 1.5 inches of rain fell on it, then the temperature fell to zero - Bah humbug! An ice dam developed on the west facing roof of my house. A wet spot developed on the ceiling of room underneath the ice dam, then another wet spot began to develop around an electrical outlet on the wall - That can't be good. This means that when the weather clears later in the year, I'm facing the cost of redoing the roofing job that was done only 6 years ago. Gotta install an anti-ice dam sheet. Had a sheet of ice on the driveway and sidewalk. Been chipping away at that for a week. got snow piled up everywhere. Had to cut down the pile at the end of the driveway so we could see to back out on the roadway and spot any short people comming down the sidewalk. I've used up my melting salt supply. I need to look for more tomorow. It's scace and the price has climbed. My snow shovel may not last out the rest of winter. Its wear strip has worn back to the edge of the aluminum. When the wear gets down to the rivets, its goodbye shovel. I've really made use of my 4-wheel drive Jeep this winter. I'm ready for spring already, but that is 2 months away. I dread getting the gas bill this month - its going to be a big one, even larger than for January. The only bright spot is that we are having a string of 4 days of very clear, sunny days, the first that we've had all winter. I think I'll curl up and hibernate for another month.