First Blizzard

So a real, true blizzard hit us on Monday. This is Friday evening and we are still digging out. Here's a few examples :

It's the first time I have seen a "no parking because of falling snow" sign, but as you can see from the snow almost reaching the sign, they aren't kidding. When it falls, it's not going to be a light dusting. It could be up to a ton of snow falling at once. There's no way to predict how much will fall.

Remember earlier when I said I had never seen it rain for days on end until I hit here? Well, it doesn't rain a whole lot at a time, but it rains and rains and rains in a gentle fashion. Truly, it's like a soft, drenching fog. Well, add in freezing temperatures, and 50-80 MPH winds, and suddenly it's like walking in a snow tornado.

There isn't a lot of snow falling in any one hour, but when you talk about a week's worth of hours you are suddenly talking about metric crap-tons of snow. See that third picture down? That's a shot from our apartment windowand the snow nearly makes it to the bottom of the window... which is about six feet off the ground. That's a lot of snow.

Let us know if you would like to have some, and we will see if we can ship it down your way.

Riding the Storm Out

So it turns out we have ridden out our first storm in Alaska. It started about 36 hours ago, and is still raging outside even as I type these words. Were it not for the absence of power in our apartment when we woke up this morning, we never would have known of it.

"How can that be?" you ask.

Well, let's just say the threshold for what is and is not a storm is a bit lower in Dillingham than in Iowa. What we are being told by the locals is a storm is known by another name in Iowa :

Good kite flying weather.

I have been through some storms in Iowa where I was thanking God for inventing houses, and let me tell you - I wish ALL the storms in Iowa were this fierce. Which is to say, as hard as a rose petal. I imagine a sailboat would be able to cross the lake in record time, but storm? C'mon!