BLizzard 2009

Just a couple of months before we moved to Colorado, this section of the country was hit with a blizzard. The remnants of that blizzard were still on the ground when we arrived two months after the fact. This led Campbell to believe that she would get to see a blizzard.

She had read about these blizzards in her story books. She thought it would be great and exciting to live through one of these tremendous storms. Aaron and I were not so much looking forward to these types of storms. Lucky for us, the past two winters have been fairly mild. We have seen our fair share of snow and cold but not a true blizzard. That is until this last Thursday.

The weathermen started predicting the storm on Sunday. They said it would hit Thursday afternoon and last for about 24 hours. Now we all know that weather forecasts aren't always completely accurate. I made sure we had fun things to do during the storm, but didn't really panic about it.

Thursday morning the snow started at about 11 am. I decided to make a quick trip to the craft store. By the time we arrived back at home at 1 pm the wind was also blowing and it was what they call white out conditions. That means that there is no visibility. At this point we were in a blizzard. Campbell went to stay the night with her best friend who lives about 3 blocks from us. The weather was so bad that I would not let her walk over there. I drove her.

Normally Aaron makes the drive home from work in 30 minutes or less. Thursday it took him nearly 2 hours. Along his trip home he was a good samaritan and helped push two vehicles up a hill. He was not dressed for this. He didn't even have gloves with him. He also got to experience 60mph winds blowing his truck on icy roads. He is now researching 4x4's.

That night we listened to the wind blow. We also watched the snow blow into drifts. Thankfully we did not lose power unlike those South of us. The blizzard conditions lasted until about noon on Friday. Then, the sun came out and by 5:00 that evening the roughly 12" of snow we received was about half way melted already.

I grew up in Montana so this does not rank as one of the top worst storms I've been through. However, it was the worst the rest of my family has been through. It was also enough to close down a lot of businesses around the city. Even the military bases here were closed for the day. I would say that since April is right around the corner we won't see much more snow, but this is Colorado.