Snow Flurry in Cameron Park

Marty and I drove up to Shingle Springs this morning to see the snow. There was still a trace on the ground in El Dorado Hills at about 11 a.m., and in Cameron Park, there were several inches on the ground, the rooftops, the guardrails and road signs, the trees ...

We went one stop farther, to Shingle Springs, before we decided the conditions were getting a little dicey for us, since we have no chains. Although the roadway was clear, the off-ramps were not, and we had to drive really slowly to avoid sliding around. After we turned around and were passing Cameron Park again, we drove through this snow flurry. What surprised me was the no-color-ness of it all - there was only white and shades of gray. It looked just like a Christmas card! Exciting stuff!

Snow?

The excitement is building, whipped by the animated storm maps of the meteorologists on every television channel. A very cold storm arrived today, dumping enough snow in the foothills to warrant closure of Highway 80, one of the busiest trans-sierra routes. There have been over 45 storm-related accidents in the last 4 hours up there!

But why the excitement? Because the storm is so cold, there is a good chance of snow here on the Sacramento Valley floor - anywhere from a trace to 3 inches! The high temp tomorrow is forecast to be somewhere around 41 degrees, and the low on Tuesday morning in the mid-20s! As I write this at 10:30 p.m., it has been raining for about 45 minutes, and that is supposed to change to snow tonight. If so, I'll be out there with the video camera in the morning! If not, there will be a lot of disappointed children, myself included.

White Minnesota

When we got below the clouds, the view of Minnesota was spectacularly ... white! There is still snow on the ground, and the lakes are frozen. There is even snow on the sidewalks of the city. It was cold this afternoon (33 degrees), but the wind stings cheeks and makes eyes water. I should have taken my coat and hat!

I met two of my colleagues for dinner at Palomino, and we tried to get back to our hotels via the skywalks, but found that they close at night on Sundays. So we had to go to street level and walk back to the hotels. It was only a couple of blocks, but I was glad to get indoors again!