Snow no

Forecasters are calling for more snow, about six inches in some places, for parts of northern Minnesota tonight and tomorrow. The melt off to this point has already flooded many roads up here. This brings to mind an interesting question. Should I be building an ark and, if so, should it have skis?

The Senate District 3 endorsing convention is tomorrow in Bovey. This is the only district in the state influenced by the Twin Cities, Duluth and Fort Frances, Ontario, media markets. I'm thinking driving in this wet spring snow will be a big problem on Saturday. Stay tuned.

Snow Day Roundup

Schools are closed across Northeastern Minnesota today, including the college where I work. I get another day (two in one week!) to catch up my ungodly to-do list.

• One item on my to-do list is to compile the results of the Dylan Days Creative Writing contest. We should be announcing winners soon. We run five categories (open and student fiction, open and student poetry and one-act plays) and got about 750 entries from all over the world. The quality of the entries this year was excellent. Stay tuned. (And check out Dylan Days, May 22-25 in Hibbing).
  
• The PUC was supposed to meet yesterday to render a couple somewhat important decisions about Excelsior Energy's Mesaba Energy Project. I'm trying to find out what happened.
  
• For national political junkies, I am now of the opinion that Barack Obama supporters need to brace for a Pennsylvania disappointment. I still think Obama is likely to win North Carolina and has a good shot at Indiana, but I am getting a big time "Ohio" vibe from the Pennsylvania tracking polls. Clinton's numbers, even during bad news cycles, remain rock solid at 48-50 percent. The only real chance at knocking her out of the race will come in the first week of May with N.C. and Indiana. After that comes a string of Appalachian primaries where the Clintons are revered like Hillbilly royalty. She can run the table and would still likely lose the nomination, but oh how the press will chatter. I am an Obama fan but my desire to end this primary "contest" has more to do with party well-being and the potential stomach ulcers that come from watching too much cable news these days.

All this and more shoveling today ...

Thank you, sir, may I have another?

The TV weather people are being administered oxygen on the air. See, there's a blizzard coming to northern Minnesota. All this after last weekend's oppressive snow storm. And in April! Here's what I'm hearing around the region.

I hear it's the storm to end all storms!

I hear the snow from this blizzard are the frozen tears of a dying Zeus!

I hear this blizzard will cause us to convert to an ice-based economy!

Which of these is true? Only the weather of the next 24 hours will tell. But for everyone who reads this blog, let me answer all your repetitive small talk questions.

Yes, I heard that it might snow. Yes, I heard that it might be a lot of snow. Yes, it is too bad that we haven't seen spring yet. Yes, it would be nice to have Friday off. No, I am not driving to the Cities on Friday. Yes, this sucks. Yes, it's supposed to nice in April. No, I don't know how many inches we'll get. Probably a lot. Or else not as many as they're saying. No, you can't trust the weathermen. Yes, maybe they'll be right this time. Or not. No, I can't believe the Twins are building an open air ballpark. Yes, I bet they regret that. No. No. Yes. Uff-da. Eh? Random grunts to indicate interest.

Enjoy the blizzard, people.

* Graphic from Duluth News-Tribune, 4/10/08

Snow Day!

As I mentioned yesterday, we got walloped with a blizzard over the weekend. We got about 25-27 inches in my driveway and I am still trapped here at the house. That's OK today because my workplace cancelled classes, but we'll see how the rest of the week goes. Over on the East Range, Virginia "won" the snow battle with 32 inches over the weekend. This was easily the biggest snow of the year and single-handedly turned a dry year into an average one. All of my father-in-law's mechanical snow plowing devices have been foiled by the white, drifting snow menace, so there remains some question if I'll be able to leave this week without outside aid. (Don't worry. I have enough beer ... for now anyway. If you don't see me in town by Wednesday, send one of those dogs with the XXX neck kegs like from the old cartoons ... bonus to anyone who can tell me what those things are called).

Meantime, enjoy these images of me and the kid taking care of business this morning. Henry likes to shovel, but does not yet fully understand that the point is to NOT put the snow from the bank onto the sidewalk. And yes, that is the infamous "MoDog" in the picture below.

Rural electric cooperative, don't fail me now!

Did I say "just over half a foot of wet, heavy snow" in my last post? Now that I've shoveled, I can attest that it's at least a foot. And we just heard that we're getting another foot tonight. What had been a somewhat dry winter in northern Minnesota is going to be moistened rather quickly here in late April. Wet blizzards like this one cause rural residents like myself to just stare at the lights wondering when a ice and snow laden tree is going to fall on a power line and put us in the dark. Come on big green! Hold on through the night!

I work at a college. Snow day tomorrow? I hope so because driving my Ford Focus in this crap is like crossing the Sax-Zim peat bog on a riding lawnmower. I swear, the tires are like what you see on a drink cart.

March: In like a ?, out like a ?

As I was walking through brown, crappy snow and lamenting the fact that I picked the wrong kind of jacket to wear ... again! ... I had a flashback to first grade at my now-defunct Forbes Elementary (My elementary school closed in 1988 and is now a bar called "The Boondocks"). We would make these construction paper lions and lambs during the month of March in honor of the old saying, "If March comes in like a lion it goes out like a lamb," and vice versa. In northern Minnesota sayings like this are both common and extraordinarily incorrect. March goes in and out like it damn well wants to, it doesn't care if you like it or not and if you ever get tired of the crusty cookie dough snow that clogs driveways and parking lots, March is the first to tell you that you'd better just be glad it's not February again. May? You want it to be May? May is a f'ing pipe dream. Bring an extra jacket because it's going to snow tonight, punk.

OMG! March is Hillary Clinton!

I still want it to be May, though.

Iron Rangers: a fickle weather lot

Like I said, we got our first big Iron Range snowfall this past weekend, about 8-12 inches. The previous week had been very cold so the first sheet of ice was forming on our lakes; however, most of the ice wasn't thick enough for vehicles yet. Then came the snow. I now learn from many sources that this creates a long period of slushy lakes -- poorly suited for snowmobiling, four-wheeling, or ice fishing -- as the snow melts and re-freezes atop the thin ice. I've been a part of or overheard four conversations about this topic in the last six hours. I expect there will be much more of this to come.

Apparently, you just can't win when it comes to weather around here. Some guys' snowmobiles haven't been started since the Spice Girls broke up because of low-snow winters. Now, well, we have a slush problem.

First big snow

We white-knuckled it through the first big snow storm of the year last night. We averaged about 20 miles an hour from Hibbing out into the Itasca wilderness where we live. We made it, but it wasn't easy.

I was just informed, however, that we left our winter boots out in the car. Which means that I have to shovel in cold boots.

The toddler has a thing whenever he sees snow where he says, "A lot of snow!" (pause) "What a mess!" (pause) "Clean up!" We'll see if he puts his tiny cute shovel where his mouth is when I take him out to shovel snow with me today.