snow berm

I woke up early this morning and just couldn't get back to sleep, so I made myself some hot chocolate and took a gander out the window. There are inches of new snow this morning, and it's still coming down. We have a spruce tree by the garage that was hanging a bit lower yesterday because of the quarter inch of ice sitting on it. This morning I could probably walk up and kick it because it's nearly touching the ground. The snow has brought the branch down about 8 feet. I'm not sure if we had more freezing rain during the night or if the snow is just really heavy, but the poor plant life is suffering.

When daylight comes I'm going to stick a measuring tape in the snow on the walk and find out exactly how much we got overnight. Ken had to sweep the walk again last night so people could make it to our house, and looking out right now you can't really tell that the snow was ever removed.

If all those weren't signs that this storm is very different from others I've seen, the news this morning clinched it. I turned the t.v. on and the announcers were taking a look at a car that was high centered on some snow. The anchor used the term "snow berm" which I'm pretty familiar with from winters in Alaska. That's the first time I've ever heard that term used here. The guy also made an amusing joke about changing the name of the program to "Good Morning Fargo".

Snow berms. It's official... we're not in Oregon anymore.