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It’s a beautiful day outside — so long as you can admire it from the window as you sit in front of a roaring fire. Pooh would call this a very blustery day.

The roads aren’t too bad either, so long as you have decent tires and keep it slow. I slide around in the driveway a little but only because I got tired of shoveling and decided to just drive right through it.

In just the past couple of minutes the wind has really picked up.  It appears to be snowing from West to East rather than straight down. With all this sudden gusting wind, I’m concerned, not only about possible power outages but about the most recent Mymotherlode report:

The National Weather Service has issued a Significant Weather Advisory for the Motherlode through 5:30 PM.  

The line of storms were last reported just west of Milton in Calaveras County and moving east at thirty mph.

Small hail was reported with these storms along with very heavy rain. Funnel clouds will also be possible.

If threatening weather approaches your area, take shelter in a sturdy building.

While there is no mention of Tuolumne County that doesn’t mean we are in the clear. Sometimes I really miss not having television.

Many people are still without power at this hour.

Thursday Afternoon Power Outages

PG&E Spokesperson Nicole Liebelt says there are currently 4,945 customers in Tuolumne County without electricity mostly in the Twain Harte and Mi Wuk Village areas. 1,580 are without power in Twain Harte, 1,300 are in Mi Wuk Village, 680 in Pinecrest, 675 in Long Barn, 400 in Sonora, 200 in Groveland, 80 in Jamestown and 30 in Tuolumne City.

In Calaveras County there are just over 500 residents without power. These PG&E customers are mostly in the Arnold area with 475. Avery has 50 customers without electricity and 15 are in Valley Springs.

I will try to provide updates as often as I can but if this weather keeps up, we will have more power outages and worse. Twain Harte is really taking a beating up this way. Most people in the area are not prepared for long-term severe weather. I am worried about some of our more elderly neighbors, who may be struggling to get out for needed supplies.

Just moments ago PG&E restored power to some in the Twain Harte area. The entire area surrounding the  Twain Harte Shopping Center currently has power. It will be nice to do a load of laundry and bake a pizza.

Though I must say, Bob at the Twain Harte Pizza Factory treated us right when we dropped in for some chow after spending hours shoveling our driveway, so we could walk to the store. Due to a fallen tree blocking Michele Lane snow plows had been unable to clear the road. Many vehicles got stuck in the snow trying to back down the road.

I ordered the chicken and dumpling soup, I was expecting something hot, to warm me up, nothing more. The soup was incredible and the plain ham and cheese sub was pretty awesome as well. My guys split a Hawaiian pizza, which they gobbled down without any prompting at all. They both declared it to be sensational! We all left happy and more than satisfied, with our meal — and really the entire experience.

Of course, every person we ran into mentioned the weather in passing. It was wonderful seeing neighbors working together to clear the snow. The snow plow drivers were totally awesome. They made several attempts and managed to clear that big old tree out of the road — it looked like one snowplow had completely driven over the tree at one point.

Just as we got our drive shoveled out enough to get our car out, the snowplows came. Once the tree was removed, they came up from the bottom of the hill clearing the street really well. We were thrilled to have them finally clear our road. But then, they swung back, headed down the hill, we could see the writing on the wall — our freshly shoveled — clean down to the pavement drive — was about to be covered with chunks of dirty nasty, very heavy pieces of the “Sierra cement” — ice.

My arms ached so bad, I could have sat right down and cried, but I put on a brave face and watched as the snowplows neared our drive. The snowplow drivers were very careful (considering what they were driving) and didn’t do nearly as much damage as they could have. I waved and thanked them for a job well done and went back to shoveling — the guys had gone for gasoline for the generator.

I was mildly irritated, but it was nice to know that the snowplow drivers had a heart and weren’t maliciously blocking driveways.  🙂  There was a time when I secretly thought that.

I started back to work shoveling the snow, cleaning up the mess the snowplows had made, when suddenly a truck (with a plow) came up the hill, the driver slowed down and asked if he could lend a hand. He made short work of the mess and saved my back from pure exhaustion. All in all, it was a wonderful day.

Rumor has it that we are in for some rough weather for the next two weeks. The sun was out for most of the day today, which helped to melt a lot of the snow. The main roads were clear and dry for the most part. Chains are required at Strawberry. As we were leaving Sonora this afternoon, it began to gently hail, no rain or snow has fallen since then.

I was just outside and the wind is really picking up. Snow and ice are still falling from the branches of trees.

For those who are still without power, Mymotherlode reported three warming stations open in the area:

In the Soulsbyville area, a warming station is open at the Moose Lodge off Highway 108 at 20921 Longeway Road. A second warming station is available at the Word of Life Fellowship Center in Mi Wuk Village on Highway 108. At 2:00 pm, a third warming station opened at the Groveland Community Hall at 18720 Highway 120 in Groveland.

The shelters will remain open from 8am until 7:30 pm daily until the power outages are restored.

If you know of someone without heat, please pass along this information. I am sure many are still without power this evening.

I don’t know about you but I’m beginning to feel like a broken record. There are just so many ways to say, “Hey, man it’s snowing mountains of the white stuff.  I think the last time I saw it snow this hard was during the blizzard of 1978 — the very weekend I decided to take the plunge into matrimony.

I should have taken that as an omen for things to come but of course in my young life, I didn’t pay much attention to omens, or luck for that matter. During what we have come to call the blizzard of 78, we had 12 foot high snow drifts. We had to climb out of an upstairs window to get out of the house. We were a week trying to get unburied.

Well, we certainly don’t have that much snow on the ground — yet. Oh, and I am so thankful for that. My back aches just thinking about shoveling out from under all this. I really thought we were in the clear last night, when it started pouring rain. It rained hard for a good deal of the night. I thought gee, wouldn’t this be nice, if it just kept raining all day, it would warm up some and all this snow would just melt away.

Ha! No such luck. Here we go with this luck thing again. As soon as the sun came up — well, it was daylight for sure but I don’t recall actually seeing the sun — the snow returned with a vengeance. It’s been snowing all day long and no matter how long you shovel, moments after you leave one spot, you can’t see the ground any more.

About an hour ago we lost cell service totally. I’m certain it’s storm related. The lights have flickered on and off several times again today and we lost power for a brief moment early this morning. So far, the power is holding.

Mymotherlode reports:

PG&E reports that 9,585 customers are without electricity in Tuolumne County. There are 4,344 without power in the greater Sonora area (including Cedar Ridge and Phoenix Lake), 2,111 without in Twain Harte, 1,220 in Tuolumne, 680 in Mi Wuk, 675 in Long Barn, 230 in Soulsbyville and 130 in Pinecrest.

Just as I was posting this — wouldn’t you know it — the power went out. Fortunately, our power came right back on. I had to get this posted before we lose power again. As luck would have it — I have none — my Dr. Heater quit working after the power outage.

We’ve tried various types of space heaters, since our last home had baseboard heaters. We used them one month and I just about had a stroke when the electric bill arrived. Since then we’ve used the oil-filled radiators, ceramic heaters, micathermic heaters and these infrared heaters.

Out of all the heaters we’ve tried, we really like the Dr. Heater the best. It’s economical to operate and Shawn even got mine working again. He said he pressed and held both the “Standby” & “Mode” buttons together for a few seconds. The Dr. Heater reset and it started working again.

My feet are still cold though. For some reason whenever it snows, my feet get cold and refuse to warm up. I hope you are staying warm!

Enjoy the snow!