All is quiet in the midwest, and I would think roads are clear by now. Our crews are usually very good at getting these messes cleaned up. I remember blizzards when I worked for the county as a nurse. I used to call the county crew to find out when they were going to plow a certain rural road, so I could follow them to my home from work. That was back in the early 80's when we still had huge blizzards that would shut us down for days, despite plows that had 12 foot high blades. I always liked it when they pulled out those huge plows. One year, I believe it was early 1978, a woman went into labor and they called one of those plows to get her to the hospital and it got stuck and she ended up delivering the baby in a farm house. It was kind of boring to stay home and yes, I had a child the following fall! A blizzard baby. There were quite a few born around late September, early October, who had their beginnings in the blizzard that year. We had no internet or computer games to keep us busy. Soap operas only kept you entertained for so long. Yep, those were the days.

Now we get more ice. We still get snow storms but they do not reach those proportions. The news channels makes them seem worse than they are.

Ice is far more fearsome.

Also back in the early 80's, a -60 was recorded not far from here, and that was actual temperature. We had one year when it was ranging from -20 to
-30 plus windchills in the -80 range. I lost headlights driving to my night shift job in that. Every one was driving around with a headlight out. I think the cold just cracked them. We don't get this kind of weather anymore. I guess that is fine for us, but it makes me wonder about climate change. It is noticably warmer and we have over the last few years gotten much less precipitation. Those old Great Lakes are not as full as they used to be.

One thing that has not changed is we only get one third of the possible days of sun. That is not a fun thing. Winter is dark AND dreary.