Fizzle

Thousands of Milwaukee public school children went to bed last night with visions of a snow day dancing in their heads, only to be disappointed when they awoke to three inches of wet, dirty slush. Meanwhile, places west and north of us are still suffering under blizzard conditions; in some areas around Madison, they've already had seventeen inches. Heh - they shut down the state government offices.

The plan for today's post was to take time lapse pictures of the snowfall, posting them here during the day today, while staying home with a cup of cocoa as the storm raged outside. See the previous paragraph for the destruction of that plan. The pictures from last night are impressive; the one from this morning would actually show less snow than the night before.

But not less slush. Several times during the night I awoke to hear rain running through the gutters. The combination of rain and snow meant the area around the car was more than ankle deep in snow/slush. My new boots are good, but not quite good enough to keep out all the water, at least not when you are standing in it brushing off the car.

And so winter begins. Two more inches this afternoon, then strong winds, nasty wind chills and high temperatures for tomorrow all of eighteen degrees, not warming into the twenties again until Saturday.

Spring, summer and fall are beautiful seasons in Wisconsin; in winter, we pay the piper for those beauties.