Weekend winter storm with historic ice?!? 😱

[catbyte]

Yikes. They just issued a Winter Storm Watch & a Flood Watch for my area of Michigan which forecasters are increasingly certain will be upgraded to warnings starting at 10:00 p.m. Friday night. The local National Weather Service forecast office says this has the potential to be "historic" and the TV meteorologists I most trust agree. We could see 2"-4" of rain for 36 hours which is bad, but they said the rain will likely transition to as much as 1.5" of ICE coating everything with winds of up to 40 mph by Sunday morning depending when the cold air invades our area.

So I gassed up my car and went to the store today to avoid the rush tomorrow. I made sure I have enough batteries and a solar-powered & hand-crank weather/AM/FM radio w/USB charging port just in case we lose power. I gassed up the car just in case I need to charge anything else and also for warmth if I need it. I've also stocked up on food that doesn't need cooking in case we lose power. The last ice storm we had in this area was in 2013 and the power was out for at least 3 days. The cats and I will be fine, but I worry about the fish and frogs in my aquarium because I don't want them to freeze to death or suffocate. It's scary. I guess I'm as ready as I can be.

So if you guys don't see any animal videos from me after Saturday, don't worry--I'm just huddled in the dark with the cats waiting for the power to be restored. I'm hoping it'll jog north and we get mostly rain or south and we get mostly snow, but then I worry about the folks to the north & south of me. Like I said when I first started this too-long post, "Yikes." Anyone else in the path of this awful thing, please stay safe and prepare now.

[msongs]

1. for all those ppl complaining about how winter has disappeared...ta da lol nt

[catbyte]

2. One of the awful results of climate change is the increase in catastrophic ice storms.

The conditions have to come together in a perfect way to get ice and that potential increases with the warmer winter temperatures. We haven't had a white Christmas in at least 5 years here which never happened when I was a kid. Things are changing.

[Scotch-Irish]

3. So true, Catbyte. Stay safe and dry

and I hope you don't lose power!

[catbyte]

4. Thank you, Scotch-Irish. Each forecast is scarier & scarier. The news at 11 said we are likely to

get an inch of ice on Saturday with winds picking up on Saturday night which will likely lead to a lot of power problems. One good thing is our local power company sort of butchered the trees in my area this summer so the chance of trees falling on the lines is lessened. We'll see, though. It only takes one.