We haven't had what I'd consider actual blizzard conditions, but it's been snowing pretty steadily since last night, and with enough wind to create some drifting. We've had about 6-8" so far, and the Winter Storm Warning is in effect until 8 p.m. tonight.
The tricky part here is that Margie is off to the airport on a business trip as of early-early in the morning. So we'll be monitoring highway conditions and all that good stuff.
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I shoveled about 14" off our neighborhood's side of the school crosswalk approach (no tree coverage – our partly shaded driveway had 6-12" depending on proximity to trees). Roads are slicker 'n snot here – despite wearing a pair or Sorel boots with pretty good tread on them, I still slipped a few times walking down the road and back.
We're supposed to get dumped on starting tomorrow night. Not looking forward to it.
I spun badly on I-25 coming back home tonight from Denver. Ended up in the ditch, narrowly missed hitting the guardrail. Didn’t need a tow thanks to 4WD, but I was really lucky that there weren’t any other cars nearby. I think a gust of wind spun me, because I wasn’t braking, accelerating, or turning when I spun. I was going at what I thought was a moderate speed (40 mph), and I didn’t see anything on the pavement that looked like ice. I imagine it will be more slippery tomorrow morning. I’m lucky there was no significant damage done, but I’m thinking I should not have gone to Denver in this weather, or I should have driven much more cautiously. So, learn from my mistake: be careful on the road!
YIKES!
Glad you are okay. One of the most terrifying (and surreal) moments of my life was, early days here in Denver, getting onto I-25 at the Dry Creek onramp in my old Saturn SC2, hitting a ridge of snow, and doing a slow, elegant Speed Racer over into the #1 lane (“Hey, those are the headlights of oncoming traffic! Cool!”), and then torqueing back into the verge and snow.
And five minutes (and much heavy breathing) later, some kind soul coming by in a pickup, pulling me out of the side, and then heading on his way.
Again, very glad you are okay, Dave.
I’m glad too. I was very very very lucky that it wasn’t more serious. The thing I don’t understand is how other people, who were going faster than I was, did not spin. I drive smoothly. I have M+S tires, not real winter tires, so perhaps that has something to do with it, but I’m still concerned that I don’t know for sure what caused the spin. When I said it was wind, I’m really grasping at straws, because I just do not know what caused the spin. Did I mention how lucky I was that it wasn’t worse? Sorry for hijacking your comments to blow off steam.
No problem, @DaveN – plenty of steam blowing to be done.
What can cause a spin-out on snow and ice is hard to say. And, yeah, it amazes me when I’m driving and feeling the vehicle move around in ways it shouldn’t, yet others seem to go blithely sailing past nary a perceptible problem. Not having a clear reason would, I well understand, create a general anxiety level that’s difficult to address.
Remember: The better pair of tires goes on the rear axle!
Don't bother circulating them, it does no good if they're equally worn down. If the front tires are worse than the rear tires, it stabilizes the vehicle.
Did not venture out until this morning to go to the Dentist, and traffic was all sorts of messed up, took an hour to get to the office in Boulder. 36 was a parking lot and the side streets wern’t much better, but the were at least moving at the speed limit.
Yesterday was very cool finally able to get real snow. Two rounds of shoveling yesterday and one this morning, mostly to lower the mound of snow plowed up into the drive way by all the snowplows yesterday.
Well, there were still some icy/snowy spots on the ride over to Kay’s concert this evening, but for the most part things were in pretty good shape. Though the parking lot was like a solid sheet of black ice.