What do you mean, MORE snow?

Here in the (formerly) soggy corner of the map it is looking rather like Maine, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ontario, and other places I left for a very good reason. The prevalence of water in the solid form. I do not care for ice or snow, for static electricity that launches the cats when I try to pet them, or for the eternal surprise of the science-free mind that a big fancy SUV does not, in fact, exempt one from the laws of physics. (Hint: four-wheel-drive means NOTHING if you have no traction.) We got dumped on last Thursday, *plus* the temperatures have remained considerably below freezing. What does that mean? Well, we don't get snow much so we only have a handful of snowplows. We venerate the salmon and all its works, so salt is a big no-no. Oh, and we have lots of hills and roads set up with the assumption that vehicles will not go sliding off them. Add it all up: the local roads have all the snow that originally landed on them but it is now compacted to glacial ice. And we get little incidents like this. Fortunately no one was injured.

Now they are telling us another storm is on the way. Snow *and* high winds, bringing the distinct possibility of power outages. In below-freezing temperatures. The power companies are preparing for trouble and dispersing trucks ahead of the storm. I've seen several myself, one parked in a local grocery-store parking lot. I guess we'll see what happens. But if Solar Cycle 24 doesn't get with the program I'm probably going to have to get a generator next year. On account of all this global warming, see.