The weather prognosticators have been predicting all week that we were gonna have a big, bad ice storm over the weekend. The first wave began last night just after the rush hour, with temps falling just below freezing. It poured down rain much of the night, with the water freezing to the trees. The good news is that the roads are too warm still to have much accumulation.

The trees are another story. Our neighborhood looks like a war zone, and there are limbs and trees strewn about. We haven’t lost power, but we have had some large limbs (6″ +) snap from the trees in the front yard. Fortunately, we’ve had no damage so far.

There’s another wave due in tonight. With the colder weather yesterday and today, I expect that wave may have some ice that sticks to the roads, and makes things treacherous. With that, and the rest of this crazy front that’s on top of us, the weather dudes and dudettes are saying this will continue through Monday morning.

So, when faced with freezing rain and ice, what do I do? Well, I’ve been out photographing the ice. There’s a lot to take in, and photos just don’t do the damage justice. However, the macros shots are looking very nice!

Dunno what this means for the opening reception tonight at Framations. With some luck, it’ll stay away long enough to get that in, and then we can huddle up in the house, basking in the warmth of the family.

On the heels of one of the malls having a skylight collapse into its food court yesterday, I came in to work to discover that the second floor had been converted into a water feature. Apparently, the melting ice found a way through the roof, and showered the foyer, buckling drywall and collapsing interior ceiling tiles.

The good news is that the data center was spared and the building’s still habitable and available. While I don’t believe we were in any danger of any kind of structural failure, the data center area was a big concern for me and everyone else who saw water pouring from the ceiling.

The good news is that the highs this week will be in the 50s, with the nighttime temps staying above freezing. That’ll melt the last of the ice, and should keep the weirdness down to a dull roar.

This morning, we awoke not to 5-9″ of snow, but to 3-4″ of snow… on top of a ton of ice.

Yesterday, it iced and sleeted for almost 9 hours. I’ve never seen sleet like that — pellets the size of BBs, and loads of ’em. Being out in that was like someone shooting at you. The news described it as the ground being covered with snowcone ice, and that seemed pretty accurate. There was about 2-3″ of this ice on the ground before we switched back to rain again around 10pm. Then we froze again, and the snows came.

So, if you’re keeping score at home: 2-3″ sleet, rain that then froze on top of that, and then 3-4″ snow as icing for this cake.

We’re supposed to have strong winds just behind this front, and that’ll start knocking down even more trees and taking out more power. Ameren’s already reporting over 450,000 folks without power this morning, and I fully expect that number to go up. We’ve been lucky, and have only had a couple of brief interruptions during the night.

Given all that, Beck and I decided to stay here and avoid the mess. It’s been cool to watch though, and has been absolutely gorgeous.

As promised, the last 24 hours have seen a huge change in The Lou.

Yesterday, we were up to 71°, but there was an obvious change on the way. This was the last day in a string of days that had us 15-20° above normal with the threat of a BIG winter storm headed our way for today. Well, they were right. We’ve dropped to 25° and have a half-inch of ice on the ground, planning for 2″ of sleet tonight, and then 5-9″ of snow overnight here with pockets of 12-20″ not too far away.

Wow.

So, the Company cut us loose officially at 3pm (although Darla and I made a smarter move and left about 2.30pm). That was smart, but the roads were already nasty by then. Our normal 25-30 minute commute took about an hour…. and that’s before the really bad stuff and really heavy traffic hit the streets. Frankly, I’d be surprised if we even try to go in tomorrow.

And tonight, the low will be 21° with the high tomorrow below freezing and a low tomorrow of 12° in the city — that’ll mean about 5-8° out here in the sticks. It just ain’t gonna get any better for a couple of days.

As if hammering St. Louis with a storm literally from out of nowhere — only about two hours notice — this morning, we had a more traditional severe storm line run through the area. We’d gotten hot again, and that, along with a front moving through spelled trouble again.

By this morning, there were only 300,000 folks without power. After the storm, the number was back to over 500,000 again. Beck’s folks had been without power since Wednesday’s storm, and had just had it return, only to lose it again in the midday storms. There wasn’t quite as much damage in the immediate local area, but it was still a blow to folks who were trying to get the infrastructure back online.

My hat’s off to them, and my heart’s out to those who are having to deal with the fallout from these storms in their lives!

Last night, not long after I got back home from my ride, I noticed the wind was really blowing outside. That seemed weird, as it was pretty calm when I got home. I’d been watching for the Cards game to start, and noticed that it hadn’t yet, which was also weird as it was after the start time. Then I heard the wind strongly gusting outside, looked out and realized we were getting ready to have a really, really bad storm.

I flipped to one of the local channels, and realized that we had a huge gust front moving through from the north, and it was right on top of us. At that time, they were talking about winds in excess of 60mph. This morning, it was reported that winds in the city were clocked above 80mph. All I know is that these were the strongest winds I can remember seeing from our house. The trees in the back yard were bending farther and farther, and I was certain we would lose some. Limbs we lost, but no trunks, and that’s a good thing.

The rain came beating down about ten minuts after the gust front was through, and it was monsoon-like, torrential, with still-strong winds. The sirens began to go off, and the news began telling us that there was rotation in clouds not far from us. The good news was that, if they continued travelling straight south, the worst would remain to the west of us. Nonetheless, we piled the two of us and the dogs off to the basement, where we could watch the storm through the basement windows, and keep the TV on.

This was not the little cell in Rolla that I had seen. The big, bad storm on the Iowa/Missouri border had made a really big right turn, and was marching right through the city.

As the news kept coming in, it was obvious that this was a bad, bad storm, and that we really hadn’t experienced the worst of the weather in Ellsiville. That was reserved for downtown St. Louis, where 50,000 folks were sitting in Busch Stadium waiting for the game to start. To my eye, this stadium doesn’t have the overhangs and shelter that the old Busch did, so I don’t know what they did with all those people as the storm struck down there. BTW, the game finally started around 9.30pm, and the Cards won, breaking a little losing skid to the Braves.

There was a lot of damage. The airport had part of its roof blow off, and into the adjacent interstate. Three semis were blown over on the I-270 bridge. There are buildings downtown that either collapsed or had walls collapse. This was bad stuff. The mayor got on the air last night, and indicated that this was the worst storm to hit the city of St. Louis in recent memory. I’d believe it.

So this morning, reports are that there are half a million homes without power, and folks all over the area are cleaning up. Today, the forecast is for potentially the same kind of weather to hit us again, as the temperature will be 102-104, with a heat index of as much as 120 in the city. Those folks without power are gonna really suffer today. Hopefully, we’ll get some clouds and rain to cool things off, but without the severe winds.

This morning, we woke to a little electrical storm, which was mostly gone by the time I left for work.  However, with the sun rising, and rain having moved to the east, we had all the right ingredients for rainbows this morning.

I took a few shots from the house, and through the camera in the truck, just in case.  Just in case came.

The farther I drove toward work, the brighter the rainbow got.  I finally pulled over on the side of one of the country roads along my drive, and I looked back toward the rainbow.  It was a double, and from my vantage point, I could see both ends and everything in between — it was amazing!

The only down side was that I didn’t have my wide angle lens.  I did what I could with my 28-135, but it would’ve been nice to grab a few shots of the whole thing.

This was probably the most dramatic rainbow I’ve seen in several years.  Even the radio stations were fielding calls about it!

Finally, the snow I’ve been waiting for all winter has arrived…. and I’m stuck in a cubicle in a building with widely-spaced 6″ cubes of glass for windows.  Doesn’t it just figure!

The drive this morning was gorgeous, and I so wished I could just stop the world and my morning, and pause to listen and photograph the wonderous white landscape before me.  Last night, when the ice and sleet came down as a precursor to the overnight snowfall, I opened the back door, and just listened to the sound of the fall of winter from above.  There’s no sound better than that, except perhaps the sound of big snowflakes falling on a cold winter’s day.

I expect by this afternoon most of the fun stuff will be gone.  We only had about 2″ at home, with places 50-75 miles north of us having 6″+ of snow overnight.  However, just having the beauty of winter clinging tightly for the first day of Spring certainly has energized my imagination.

This morning, we awoke to temperatures in the 60s.  In fact, by 3pm, it was 74 here.  In February?!

Reality struck quickly though, as a front passed through just after 3pm, bringing high winds and loads of hail.  In fact, it hailed for nearly fifteen minutes at the office, creating “haildrifts” against the building that were 2-3 inches deep.  I stood in the 2nd floor cafeteria, face almost against the wall of windows, and watched the hail falling from the sky.  It was as though someone skyward was lobbing small rocks at the Earth, and image was so cool.  From that vantage point, and at the angle the hailstones were falling, it was easy to lose yourself in the visuals of the storm.  By far, this was one of the coolest storms I’ve been in.

The cold came in quickly behind the front, and by the time I finished with tennis at 8pm, it was 30 and snowing.  Truly, if you don’t like the weather in the Midwest, just wait a few minutes — it’ll change!