Winter Bomb, Bomb Cyclone, and Cyclone Storm were common terms in the weather reports this past winter. The worst one came on Feb 24. It was also is the worst storm we’ve seen during the 6 winters we lived in Minnesota. Oofta!!
Before the storm arrived, we managed to take the family cross country skiing at the Hormel Nature Center on Sat Feb 23. It’s a good thing we made it because the Winter Bomb made the trails inaccessible for awhile afterward. This became our one ski trip of the winter, and it was Leighsa’s first time ever! We all did really well. Even Jeremy, who had a really hard time staying up before, got the hang of it this time on the open meadow trails. The boys, as in the past, sailed away only after a couple falls getting on the trail.
When we got to the forest, Tanner wanted to go down a sledding hill on his skis. Dallin tried too, but neither of them were very succesful. When we were good and tired, we made our way back to the lodge, and although the boys were pretty whiny at this point, I was so glad we got back in one piece!
That night, the bomb arrived. The next day, it exploded. And the following night, it hung out for more fun. Luckily, it did not entail -55 and -65 degree windchill like the storm in January (that we missed by being in PR). This was a more bearable temperature of -20 and -30 degrees. Instead, it was the snowfall and snow drifts that made this storm insane!
Wind gusts were 55+ mph, and snowfall was 10-14 inches in our area. The wind made white-out conditions for hours on end. Toward the last part of the storm, the winds formed enormous snowbanks on the highways and around homes and buildings that were 5 to 8 feet deep. Church was canceled. All highways in the entire region, including the big interstates, were closed for more than 24 hours, and some were closed for several days. School was canceled Monday and I think Tuesday, too. Some of our friends were buried in their homes by the snow and another friend had to get helpers to shovel their roof, which was damaged from the weight of the snow. We were fortunate to only have the big drift at the front door, which was an easy climb out. This one was 4.5 – 5 feet deep from the walk way. We got a huge drift by the backyard fence that was 6 feet tall, making it really easy to roll over the fence into the neighbor’s yard.
Backyard drifts.
Drift at the garage entrance on Sunday midday. Tanner tried to explore a little bit on the driveway, but the wind was still raging, so he didn’t stay out there more than a minute or two.
Jeremy went out to snow blow on Sunday evening when things calmed down a litle. But it was still snowing and still frigid winds. I begged him not to waste his time. He really wanted to get the toughest work out of the way so he could get out to work before ten oclock on Monday. (Unfortunately, Hormel does not close down for winter bombs).
The snow bank grew during the night.
Well, by the following morning (Monday), the wind had blown snow back onto the driveway, with a huge drift down by the curb. Jeremy snow blowed the whole driveway again and worked another hour on the entrance to the road. A day or two later, he had to dig out the mailbox, which took an hour. And then about a week or so later, he tackled the rest of the entrance to the driveway, which took about 2 hours. Each time he tried to get through anything at the curb, it required using a garden shovel to hack at the 5 and 6 foot icy piles to loosen them up. Then with the snowblower, he would plow at the looser piles he created. These pictures don’t give his work any justice. You really can’t understand the magnitude of how much snow we were dealing with unless you were standing in it trying to get it out of the way.
You can see how Jeremy had to carve through about 2 feet of snow from the edge of the road that was shoveled to the actual edge of the road to where our mailbox was. And yes, the mailman refused to deliver our mail until we uncovered the mailbox.
The boys had fun exploring the storm’s effects.
I got out and had some fun, too. I felt rediculous trying to walk up and down the snow drifts because no matter how hard you try, you get stuck in unexpected places and the unsure footing makes you feel like the earth is moving!
On our snow day home from school, we built another pirate ship in our living room. The yellow couch was already moved in here with the brown couches to make more room for my music studio, so we had an extra large ship! I was the princes and the boys were the bad pirates that kidnapped me and held me ransom for the King’s jewels.
Later in the week at one of my teaching jobs, I watched a school bus try to turn a corner. It just couldn’t make it around the snow banks. The left bank got wedged up under the middle of the bus so they couldn’t move. I thought it was crazy how the bank on the right is as tall as the school bus.
This was taken a couple days after the storm to show the canyon that leads to our front door.
Here’st the boys waiting for the school bus that week. The bus couldn’t see the boys because the snow banks were too high, so they watched and waitied at the top of these hills. I took these pictures from my car in the road because most days that I substituted, I had to be ready to leave for work as soon as these kiddos were getting on the bus.
While this was the worst storm we’ve seen, there was more snow to come. Stay tuned!
