The "S" Word (snow) has Invaded the South!!!

Boy, oh boy! Was yesterday a big weather day, or what?! It started out early, as I got a call from Meso Mike about 5:30PM (he was driving his dad home after a successful surgery) yesterday evening letting me know that reports from his mother in Byron, GA, indicated sleet. His dad taunted me that it was sort of like hail, so if I hurried up there, I might get my big chance. Thanks, Papa Richard. Shortly after ending that conversation, I got a call from Alabama Mike reporting that he had the "s" word (snow) falling from the sky at that moment in North Central Alabama. He has a great shot of a snowman that his sons made yesterday posted to his blog. He told me at that time that he was going to chase snow accumulation. We'll chase just about anything, won't we? At about 7PM, I got a call from my dear friend in Winder, who announced "IT'S SNOWING! MY YARD IS WHITE!" She sent me this wonderful pic of her snowman through her cell phone. Then, I got a text from my newly relocated friend up in Clemson, SC, who announced that they had 3/4 of an inch of snow up there! She sent me the pic below from this morning of what it looks like in her neck of the woods. She was thrilled.

Unfortunately, snow quickly turned to sleet and freezing rain through the night, so that beautiful snow is covered with a layer of crisp frozenness, which means that kids this morning can't even play in and appreciate what little snow they did get. The frozen rain started falling relatively early in the night, and I was given the opportunity to explain to my Winder friend the difference between frozen rain and hail. The disturbing part of all this is the forecast. The temps have risen, changing the precipitation to rain, and that should mess up the beautiful landscape, making a wet messy terrain, which should freeze tonight, which sets things up for a very dangerous ice situation, which will most likely result in big traffic problems. I noticed on TWC that, in many areas, sand/salt trucks are doing their thing, treating the roadways to prevent problems tonight and tomorrow morning.

(This pic was taken in Wisconsin by my dear online friend, Beth Ellen, who does phenomenal work with macro photography. In light of the recent snow in the southeast, it seemed appropriate to share in this post. Clicking on the pic will take you too her site.) Diving into local weather, we were fortunate to have steady rain all day yesterday. This morning, we are experiencing a drizzle, but that should settle down by this afternoon, and our mild temps (cool to me) will settle in through tomorrow when more rains preceed the approach of the arctic blast, which will bring in temps forecast as low as 29 degrees Saturday night. By midweek next week, temps should be returning to more South Georgia-like temperatures.

Toodles,
~Dewdrop