Fall 2024 was so warm that our daffodils sprouted in November. They grew to almost 4 inches tall before it became cold enough to discourage them from getting taller. At the time, I assumed they were a lost cause for spring blooms. “If the bulb has sprouted and then the weather becomes too cold for it to keep growing,” I reasoned, “it probably won’t re-sprout in the spring.” I resigned myself to missing our cheerful row of daffodils in Spring 2025. Happily, I was wrong. When the weather warmed up, the daffodil leaves started growing where they left off in November and produced full-sized plants with full-sized blooms. Conclusion: Daffodils are extremely hardy!

While we always look forward to the daffodil blooms, Ted and I are tired of deadheading and pruning the many roses a 2010 landscaper planted around our property. Last fall and this spring, Ted dug out all but four of those rose bushes, ran them through his wood chipper, and replaced most of them with annuals. The remaining roseless area was a large. empty bed at the garage corner of the house. We had curbing and landscape rock put into that bed several years ago, and we didn’t want to remove it, so we needed to replace those prickly roses with something big to fill that space. We chose a lilac bush. It won’t need nearly as much care as roses did, and the blooms smell wonderful when we walk near them. You can see in the photo that it has lots of room to grow before it will need pruning.

The redbud tree we planted a few years ago started dying late last summer and gave up the fight over the winter. The nursery folks were greatly surprised to hear that a redbud tree didn’t survive, since redbud trees are indigenous to Missouri. We like seeing the redbud blooms in the spring, so we decided to try another one. We had a few blooms from it this spring and we look forward to lots more in the coming years. The new redbud is the little one behind the landscaper on the right. It has some growing to do to catch up with its dead predecessor.

As I was talking my daily walk on May 5, I saw this pretty cloud. Someplace east of us, thunderstorms were forming.

On May 15, I was driving to the mall to do some shopping and saw this huge cloud. I stopped to take a picture of it and to call Ted, telling him it would be worth his time to go to the top of the hill behind our house (less than a half-mile away) to give his meteorological heart a thrill.

From near our house, the above cloud looked pretty amazing but when I got to the mall, which is on high ground with a big parking lot and no trees to block the view, I was awestruck. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing! This cloud extended 180 degrees from north to south on the eastern horizon. I have never seen a cloud that covered half of the horizon! Obviously, a line of thunderstorms was developing–probably in Illinois.

About an hour later, when I finished shopping, the sun was setting and it cast a rosy glow on the same cloud formation. The cloud still covered 180 degrees of the horizon and the thunderstorms were still developing. When I got home, Ted and I checked the radar and saw a solid line of severe thunderstorms stretching from just southeast of St. Louis to Chicago. Wow!

The next day, May 16, I needed to do some shopping at the Galleria in the Central West End area of St. Louis. There were some weather watches posted, but the storms were not expected to reach our area for another two hours–more than enough time for me make the trip and to be home before the storms hit. When I finished shopping, I checked the radar again to see if I should run some errands in our home area or if I should go straight home. It looked iffy, so I decided to make the call when I was closer to home.

The skies were gray when I left the Galleria, indicating an impending storm, but the weather didn’t look dangerous. As I drove farther west, the sky became very dark for a while but then became lighter when my route turned to the north. About halfway home, the rain hit. It was pretty heavy, so my wipers were working rapidly. I made the call to go straight home and to finish my errands after the storm. When I was about two miles from home, the wind hit, blowing sheets of rain across the roads. About a half mile from home, the hail started falling. It was pretty small hail–about 1/4-1/2 inch in size–but I didn’t want hail damage on my new car. With no other cars in sight, I admit that I exceeded the speed limit for the half mile from that point to our garage, where I could put my car under a roof, safe from the hail. It was a good call to skip my home-area errands!

Here’s how the hail looked in our pool. It fell hard enough that some pieces of hail bounced when they hit the surface of the water, then fell back down into the water. It looked like white jumping beans. Our largest hail was 1.5 inches, in flat pieces. Hail covered our lawn, but not completely.

After the storm, I went to Target (I had a lot of errands to do that day) and I overheard a lady and her husband telling a salesperson that they lived only a few miles south of Target and had an 18 to 24-inch accumulation of hail on the ground! The lady said she had gardening buckets outside that were filled and then covered with hail! Their 5- or 6-year-old daughter piped up and said, “It was really deep!” Their largest hail was baseball-sized.

When the hail stopped falling, the wind became apparent. Fortunately, we live in a valley between two hills–one behind our house and one across the street from the front of our house, so we tend to be sheltered from wind. Today, however, the wind blew the pool water surface as if it were a lake (without the whitecaps).

Meanwhile, east of us, a tornado struck very close to the Galleria Mall, where I had been shopping 30 minutes earlier. Looking at the radar when I got home, I saw that I basically drove around the tornado development area (where the skies became very dark) and, thankfully, didn’t need to take cover during my drive home. These are photos of the wedge tornado that struck St. Louis, taken by a camera in the Gateway Arch. The lower photo is darker because the tornado is closer and the air is filled with more debris. The red arc-shaped structure in the lower left corner of the photo is Busch Stadium.

A wedge tornado has a width equal to its height. This one was an EF3 tornado a mile wide, moving at 55 mph, with winds of 152 mph. It traveled 8 miles through the Central West End of the St. Louis area, destroying a 20-block area and damaging roughly 5,000 buildings. It struck along the north side of Forest Park and caused extensive damage to the St. Louis Zoo, which is temporarily closed as a result. The tornado initially touched down in Clayton, then tracked 23 miles to the northeast into Illinois. Sadly, there were 5 fatalities in St. Louis due to the tornado.

An EF4 tornado struck Lambert Airport in April 2011, and the damage in that area was visible for years. This tornado struck a more commercial and more densely populated area, so I suspect the recovery will, again, be a lengthy process. A few weeks ago, Jeff wrote a mission letter suggesting that we all look for the small miracles that occur in our lives each day. Today, my pretty big miracle was leaving the Galleria Mall when I did and arriving safely at home.

During the last week of December, the St. Louis National Weather Service Office issued a special weather statement advising the area of an upcoming major winter storm, beginning January 5 and bringing the likelihood of freezing rain, sleet, snow, and even thunder snow, followed by a period of extremely cold weather, with temperatures 20-30 degrees below normal. One of the friends I saw that week knows that Ted worked as a lead forecaster for the NWS. After greeting each other, she said, “I’m so glad to see you. I want to know what Ted says about this storm they’re talking about.”

Well, usually Ted tells me it probably won’t be as bad as it sounds, and a week out is hard to forecast for specific areas because air currents can move a weather system north or south a few miles, making a huge difference in which area(s) will get rain, freezing rain, or snow. This time, I told my friend, Ted started major storm prep six days in advance of the forecast storm. (1) He started the snowblower to make sure it works. We haven’t used it for at least two years and, if it needed repair, there were a few days to get it fixed before the storm arrived. It worked fine, so (2) he filled two one-gallon containers with gas for the snowblower. (3) Then he filled the gas tanks on both cars. Our main supply of firewood is outdoors, but we keep a pile of firewood in the garage so it will stay dry and be ready to use in the fireplace. (4) Ted hauled in as much wood as we had room for into the garage so that we could (a) enjoy a fire on the cold evenings and/or (b) heat the family room with the fireplace and stay warm if freezing rain broke the power lines. (5) He and I planned menus and made up a grocery list; then (6) he offered to go to the grocery store to stock up before everyone else went on the weekend. (7) We dug out our boots, heaviest jackets, and thickest gloves, and then, . . . we waited.

Our first snowfall of the season (November 30) was pretty, but minor. Neither we nor our neighbors needed to shovel our driveways, because the ground was warm enough to melt the snow on them. We had an unusually warm November (23 days above 55 degrees) and December (10 days above 55 degrees). It was so warm that our spring daffodils sprouted and are about 3 inches tall. In the photo below, you can see that some of the trees on the far left and far right of the photo still have leaves on them, and the bushes growing at the edge of the woods across the street are still green. You can’t see the grass, but it was still green too.

On January 5, just as predicted, we had thunder snow, and the major weather event that inspired all of Ted’s prep work looked like this. We saw some lightning and heard some thunder, and the heavy snow fell rapidly.

The snow stopped falling by mid-afternoon, giving us a break before the back edge of the system circled around to hit us with another punch later. The smart people (only we and two other neighbors) took advantage of the break to clear Part 1 of the storm. The yardstick is hard to read, but it says 7.5 inches of snow. The photo looks like the snow slopes downward into a valley-like depression in the center, but it was level, just like it looks at the road across the upper center and in the foreground of the photo.

I enjoy using the snowblower, so I cleared the driveway. It took both of us to find it. Ted helped me identify the edges of the concrete and I pushed the snowblower as he directed. You can see my boundary paths on both sides of the driveway. Then I cleared the middle.

When I finished clearing the driveway, Ted took over with the snowblower and cleared the sidewalks and the patio, then used a shovel to clear the porches and the corners. When he finished, he told me he was still having fun (like a kid playing in the snow), so he cleared two neighbors’ driveways–first Claudia’s (our age, widowed, and doesn’t have a snowblower), then Peggy’s (93 years old). Peggy hasn’t driven for a number of years, so Ted cleared only one side of her driveway to allow her family–most of whom live nearby–to get to the house when they come to visit.

It was really hard for me to clear the driveway, especially on the upward slope going toward the road. My feet kept slipping while I pushed the snowblower, and I had to fight it to keep it moving in a straight line. This is the reason.

I broke up some of the icy bottom layer and examined a chunk of it. No wonder my feet kept slipping–I was walking on a layer of frozen rain topped with a layer of sleet! In NWS-speak, Ted would say, “The forecast verified.” That means it was right on the money. We had everything in the forecast: freezing rain, sleet, snow, and thunder snow, followed by extremely cold weather.

Everything is clear. Or as close as we can get to clear. It was time to go inside to wait for Part 2 of the storm.

Part 2 (the back side of the storm) arrived overnight and dropped another 4.5 inches of snow on us.

Because we had already cleared snow once, the snowbanks made it easier for us to see where the edges of the concrete were this time.

This storm dropped a total of 13 inches of freezing rain, sleet, and snow on our neighborhood. (If you’re doing the math from my measurements above, the “error” is because the yardstick didn’t penetrate the ice/sleet at the bottom, and I took this measurement in an area without that layer.)

I cleared our driveway again. It was much easier than yesterday with roughly half as much new snowfall. Ted cleared the sidewalks and the patio and shoveled out whatever the snowblower couldn’t do. Then he cleared Claudia’s driveway again. Someone else cleared Peggy’s.

As I said earlier, the smart people went outside during the break in the storm and cleared the first 7.5 inches of snow–plus some of the freezing rain and sleet. Unfortunately, two of our neighbors did not, and they both had a hard time trying to clear 13 inches of ice, sleet, and snow.

Kevin (foreground) doesn’t have a snowblower, so he was using a shovel. I noticed him struggling while I was working on our driveway, and Ted said while he (Ted) was clearing our sidewalks, Kevin was lifting and dumping a shovelful of snow, then stopping to catch his breath before lifting another load. Ted took our snowblower to Kevin and let him use it instead of his shovel. (I didn’t want to put boots on to go outside to take a picture. Pardon the window screen.)

When Kevin finished, he took our snowblower across the street and helped Larry (blue jacket) and Maxine (partially hidden by Larry’s blown snow) clear their driveway. We don’t get enough snow in our area to make it worth a super-size snowblower, so this storm was hard work for everyone. Even MoDOT is understaffed and has many new, inexperienced plow drivers. In spite of MoDOT employees working 12-hour shifts for 6 days, the road in front of our house wasn’t cleared until the third day after the storm started. Meanwhile, our snowblower cleared five driveways: ours (twice), Claudia’s (twice), and Peggy’s, as well as part of Kevin’s and part of Larry’s. It’s a trusty little machine!

Needless to say, countless businesses were closed for several days and schools were closed all week–Monday through Friday. We didn’t even have mail pick-up or delivery for 6 days–Monday through Saturday. I guess the USPS does stop for (freezing) rain, sleet, and snow! Maybe not for dark of night.

We had a few days of very cold weather and some sunshine before Storm #2 struck. Looking out of an upstairs window on one of those days, I saw these icicles.

While he was outdoors, Ted took a picture of more icicles.

I went outside too and couldn’t resist a photo of our fluffy-looking lawn furniture.

The weight of the ice, sleet, and snow really stretched our pool cover straps. When we close the pool for the winter, we drop the water level below the circulation jets–about 16-18 inches below the pool deck surface. A pool antifreeze is added to the remaining water when we close the pool. The pool cover sank under the weight of the ice, sleet, and snow. The dark splotches on it in the photo are ice–the result of unfrozen pool water that soaked through the sunken permeable pool cover, then froze in the cold air, adding more weight to the cover. The cover will spring up again when everything on it melts.

Storm #2 arrived on January 10, four days after Part 2 of Storm #1 left the area. If you compare this photo to the first one in this post, you’ll notice that all of the trees are now bare and the bushes at the edge of the woods are no longer green. The extremely cold, and sometimes windy, weather was too much for them to hold their fall leaves any longer.

Storm #2 didn’t bring much snow–only 2 inches. Still, we had 15 inches of snow in six days, an unusual occurrence in St. Louis. Interesting fact: Anchorage, Alaska has had only 2 inches of snow so far this winter.

Sometimes, we can leave 2 inches of snow on the ground and let the sun melt it in a day or two. This time, it was so cold that the snow wasn’t going to disappear any time soon; it would just get packed down by the cars and freeze. Ted used the snowblower to clear our concrete for a third time in less than a week. This is not typical of St. Louis snowfall!

With a clear driveway, and clear roads at last, Ted made a quick run to the grocery store for a few items. We didn’t need bread (remember that we stocked up a week ago as part of storm prep), but it looks like a lot of other people did.

After all our work clearing snow, we had time to relax indoors. While the temperatures dropped, we spent every evening with a cozy fire in the fireplace.

Here’s the good news for those like me who look forward to spring: March 20, the first day of astronomical spring, will be here in just 56 days. Meterological spring (March 1) will arrive in only 37 days. Come on, Spring!

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Note: The heavy snow and cold weather prevented the snow from melting as quickly as usual. We had at least one inch of snow on the ground for a consecutive 16 days, the 16th-highest number of days on record.

St. Louis’ all-time record for at least one inch of snow on the ground is 66 days in January-March 1978. At that time, the NWS gave daily live weather reports as a service to KMOX radio. When Ted’s boss gave one of those reports in February, he was asked how long the cold and snow were going to last. His answer was, “I hate to say it will be awhile before it warms up, but five of our forecasters went to Florida this week.” Our family included one of those five forecasters. We were vacationing at Disney World during the kids’ cycle break from their year-round school schedule.