A short seven days after our massive sleet storm, we found ourselves in winter's crosshairs again. That's how the final day of January played out, with another deep plunge into arctic temps that occurred in symphony with a massive system of moisture coming up from the southwest and giving North Carolina its first full coverage—from one end to the other—of snow in almost 50 years.
Sumner does not love the snow as much as Scarlett does, but they were both pretty cute getting out into it. We still had accumulation yet to occur when I caught Sumner pausing on the covered parking lot (above).
I mean: 17°F at around 3 pm in the afternoon? That doesn't seem much like what I'm supposed to endure as a resident of this southern state. The polar vortex, made weaker and less organized by the warmer waters in the arctic region, keeps spilling its cruel contents in a huge splash down across many lines of latitude unused to this sort of nonsense.
But maybe it was cold enough that the pooches' return to the back door was more than their usual scurry and race:
Perhaps the husky and shepherd within Scarlett helps explain how naturally she takes to the snowpack.
It's a moment like this one that earned her a fresh nickname: Cold Belly Jones.
When the snowstorm was tapering off Saturday night, very gradually, I brought out my trusty Raleigh Paint & Wallpaper yardstick and found we were almost up to 8 inches of pure fluffy light dry snow.
The accumulation looked dramatic with the almost-totally-hidden legs of the deck furniture up on the second story porch:
And bright and early that Saturday morning, there was the team from Budd Services ready to go. I do not know if they had again spent the night up there but I've no doubt about their diligence.
The Saturday evening supper was simple: sous vide herbed chicken breast on spring mix with the last of my latest batch of Thousand Island-style dressing. This was Meal No. 4033, as the ongoing count continues for all meals made since the new kitchen was completed in 2009.
The first day of February followed, and that Sunday dawned bright and sunny but brutally cold. (That's when I took the photo at the top of this blog post.) The official measure out at the airport was 13°F (check out that RealFeel of -2°F!!) but my home monitor was a nudge colder: 12°F.
February 1st was also the occasion of the full "Snow" moon, and we were certainly prepared to celebrate it in proper fashion. I always enjoy the beauty of the rising full moon over the city:
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