Snow on Oct 6th - Are you KIDDING me!?

When I walked in the door around 5:30pm my wife looked at me and said, you can say it, "It's annoying!"  I had to agree...snow this early, and during potato harvest break is extremely annoying!  Farmers can't get into their fields, and the kids who are out of school, ideally to help with the harvest, can't work.  This will probably mean that they will have to work after the scheduled break is over, and when school is back in session!  Stupid snow!

Snow is of course no stranger to Rexburg.  Historical records show that it has snowed here every month of the year (not every year of course, but I've seen it snow in June, etc.)  We usually get our first snowfall October - LATE October, think "Halloween" or early November, but snow, and this much snow, this early is highly unusual.

Our local weather guru sent out this email this morning:

"     As this potent early October storm descends into a snowfest, it

doesn't take your friendly local weather guy to tell you how wet

things have suddenly become. Just ask your friendly local spud farmer

-- at least those who haven't yet finished digging.

     This storm has by itself left a whole October's worth of

precipitation -- more than an inch -- and it's still not over yet.

Tonight's and tomorrow night's lows will hover right around freezing;

the first predicted sub-freezing low in Rexburg will be Saturday night-

Sunday morning. Not that this will much matter with a wet blanket of

snow on the garden!"  -- Lee Warnick

Just in case you don't believe me about the snow...here are a few screen shots from BYU-Idaho webcams taken on the afternoon of Thursday 10/6/2011.  The first shot is looking north over the Spori Quad - toward town.  Where's town!? It's hidden by falling snow and low-lying clouds!

This shot was taken from the top of the Kimball Building, looking west across the Ricks Gardens, and the next shot...

This last shot was taken looking down on the field at Viking Stadium.

It's interesting...you can sure tell which students don't see much snow.  They are from places like Phoenix, LA, Florida, Hawaii, etc.  They were the ones outside running around, throwing snowballs, laughing, and playing.  How can you, by contrast, tell who is local?  For one thing they look at the white stuff, think of skiing and snowboarding, or just decide to hunker down with a large mug of hot chocolate and prepare themselves for more winter weather.

Sigh, I guess it's time to shut down the sprinkler system (d'ya think!).

Of course, this snow will almost certainly melt off and we will have some more pretty good days before winter weather really settles in, but it's just so darned annoying that it's happening now, during the harvest!

One other down side to this particular storm is that Matt has a football game tonight, and it's "Senior Night" when all of the seniors are recognized individually before the game.  We will bundle up, head down there and freeze our, well, look forward to freezing tonight.  Now if only they can win!

Go Cats!

AND, WELCOME TO REXBURG!

(Originally posted on 10-6-2011)