Snow!

Yesterday was a record setting day for Topeka snowfall, at least for the date. The official NWS tally of snowfall, 9 inches, was the highest snowfall total recorded on 12/22 in the history of the climate records. (Admittedly, these are only about 100 years old. I'm sure that sometime in the past 4000 years, there's been a bigger snowfall, but no one bothered to record it...) Here at my house, I had 7 inches of accumulated snow, although it was deeper in places thanks to drifting.
I was initially surprised that Silver Bells was postponed, but once I went out last night about 8:30 p.m. to clear off my driveway, I realized that it was a brilliant decision. I spent about an hour outside, and I only made it a 1/4 of the way down my driveway. I went back out this morning and spent another 45 minutes digging myself out so I could make it to church. The last time I saw this much snow, I was in Ames, IA, going to college. The last time I saw this much snow in Kansas was probably when I was a teenager in Lawrence. It's an amazing and beautiful thing to see. And the thunder was a nice addition. It's quite a rare thing to have thunder snow, and we did yesterday. Really cool!