Polar Vortex

Quite a bit of snow fell yesterday.  However, the winds have been so wild that we aren't sure exactly how much snow we got!  Jeremy says he'd guess about 6 inches or more, but a lot of the snow from our yard was blown into huge drifts and our neighbors' yards--both next door and across the street.

One of the worst parts of this storm is that the air temperatures are colder than they've been in decades.  So, it's not safe to be outside playing in the snow or shoveling for long at all.  

I didn't go outside, but I did snap some pictures through our windows.  This is looking out our big picture window in the front of the house--facing east.

SF closed for the day, so Jeremy bundled up in many layers and was ready to try out the new snowblower we'd been given, when I noticed our neighbor was trying to get his car out of the driveway.  Jeremy took his shovel over to help.

As I was taking photos out various windows of the house, I noticed the blowing and drifting of snow had created large paths where the grass was exposed, and drifts up to 3 feet high or more.  This is out the back of our house--facing west.

facing northeast out the side window in our front room

Jeremy got the snowblower going and used it a bit to help Tommy get his car out.

He worked on our driveway a bit too, but it was too cold to stay outside very long.  He went out several times today, but tried not to stay out too long at once, in order to avoid frostbite.

This was what my weather app showed this morning.  I have never seen a windchill of -50 degrees that I can remember!  That is seriously cold!!

It was much too dangerous to drive anywhere.  I've never seen IDOT issue warnings like this before:

We did not attempt to drive anywhere, but saw many people in our area posting this photo on Facebook.  This is Route 9 about 2 miles from our house.  It was officially shut down because with constant winds and drifting the plows couldn't get it cleared!

Local businesses were all closed, 

and the county highway department couldn't even run snow plows safely.

And, though we are in one of the most dangerous [travel] areas of the county, we obviously were not the only area of Illinois in a state of emergency.

So much for the end of winter break!  The kids weren't disappointed at all to have another day at home in their jammies!

The frosty windows are pretty.

This afternoon, Jeremy helped our other across-the-street neighbors shovel out their driveway.  It was very deep, and had to be broken up before it could be moved.

This is a NASA photo from space of the polar vortex that is happening today!  Yep, that is remarkably and memorably cold!!