Most people who read this (for the most part people who don't live here) have never seen an ice storm before. I've posted images and info about the huge amount of snow we have up here (more than in the city), but ice storms are different. I used to experience them back in college in the midwest, but not so much since then.

Well, It’s been holding at 32 degrees here for a few hours, up from 15 degrees last night. That means rain instead of snow, since a (very) warm front is moving in.

But the rain is freezing to anything it lands on. That’s not so good. It means an ice storm.

Snow at high elevation passes through warm air and changes to rain. As it continues to fall, it passes into cold air near the ground and freezes. If it doesn’t freeze in the air, it hits the ground, trees, etc. and freezes there - ice storm.

Needless to say, I am stranded here at home. It wasn’t too bad until this morning. Art that time there was about half an inch of ice on everything. Now, everything - including the ground and roads - is covered in an inch or more of wet ice.

The only really amazing thing so far is that we have not lost power out here, since we live in the forest. Last week we lost power for several hours one cold night due to the winter weather. If you think about it, it's amazing electricity transmission is as reliable as it is!

Hopefully it won’t be a problem overnight and we’ll come out of this relatively unscathed. I have had to work from home two days now, and at this rate another day is entirely possible. Unless it melts. I'm not holding my breath.

If the temperature drops overnight (fingers crossed and hoping not), it will be worse.

But hey, I’m sitting at home in font of the fire and getting a lot done, so it’s not so bad.