Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Wintry mix?

It's snowing again today and apparently there's supposed to be a blizzard or "White Out!" (That's one I haven't heard before.) Weather.com stated, which I check as obsessively as my email, that today there would be a "wintry mix." What's a wintry mix? To me it sounds almost like a sweet party food covered in white chocolate. (can you tell I'm pregnant?)
Being a desert dweller most of my life, I have only known of a few basic adjectives used to describe precipitation. They are: snow, rain, hail, flash flood and humidity. In Las Vegas, that's all that ever happened.
But here in Minnesota it's a whole new world full of words used to describe what comes out the sky and Hans and I wonder and laugh at how there can be so many possibilities. For example: Flurry (no not the milk shake at Mc Donalds), iced rain (no not hail), sleet, blizzard, snow shower, lake-effect snow, snow pellets, soft hail, thundersnow, rimed snow, graupel, fog, and of course wintry mix.
Who knew?


Update: 3/11/09
Today I took the boys to school and the temperature was -4. Just getting into my van was an adventure.
#1 The doors were almost sealed shut because just 2 days ago it was 36, meaning it started melting all the snow, but that night it snowed and went below freezing causing all the water to, well, freeze.
#2 Because it was -4 and I hadn't started my van for a couple of days, it almost didn't start. I did tell the boys if the van didn't start we would all just go back to bed and sleep all day. Too bad for them and me.
#3 The windows were of course covered in frost and snow. As usual I started scraping them, but there was a third layer of icy film that made scraping almost impossible and it appeared that the inside of the window was also filmed over. I etched a 12 x 12 inch square on my side of the van and off we went. Luckily 10 minutes into the drive, the car warmed up and the defroster kicked in, leaving my view crystal clear.

4 comments:

Mason Roland said...

Hey Monica Its Mason Your Fav. Br. So you need to email Myles. He just sighned up with gmail. Its mylesperours@gmail.com
Hey love you tons
Mason

Summer said...

I would say you are making me home sick with all of that MN talk, you betcha! But I would be lying. I just don't miss -4 when the oatmeal we took to early morning seminary spilled and froze to the side of the car. Ah, the joys! Hang in there... spring is so beautiful.

Angie Larkin said...

Man! That is some serious winter action! Just yesterday I tore all my clothes off and lived in my underwear because I was roasting hot with post partum sweating spells and I refused to open the windows because the mulberry trees are fluffed out and I wasn't about to turn on the air condidtioner in March. I'm sensing you won't have much sympathy...I don't blame you. Find a sunny window and sun your eyeballs and imagine a California beach. That's what I do when I'm having winter gloom.

Michelle said...

My mind conjured up the very same idea when I heard the term "wintry mix!"
At least when it is time to have your baby, the weather will be utterly divine, whereas I will be in a sweltering death box of Vegas heat my last trimester! (okay, it's not like I don't have air conditioning, but you get the idea...)