Weather for Weekenders

We are having a messy storm up here today and I am going to keep this post ongoing with updates every few hours so if you are traveling to the valley this afternoon or evening you know what you are getting yourselves into as you drive north.

!0:00 am - It is sleeting rather hard at this point leaving a glaze over everything. Drive carefully.

12:00 pm - The sleet is continuing and piling up. I haven't been out to the store yet but it looks slippery out there. The weather.com website has put up a big red winter storm warning. Please go there and check it out before you consider traveling.

1:30 pm - The sleet continues to fall. A friend of mine called and said they were just out in their all wheel drive Suburu and they were slipping all over the place. He said that the road was actually worse where they had plowed. He recommended staying home and safe (this is advice from someone who is not not overly dramatic about this sort of thing). So unless you absolutely have to travel I recommended staying put today.

4:00 pm - It is raining at this point. Just got a report from Cardi O'Connor and she said that it wasn't so bad on the roads. The Shandaken plow boys have been out and about and they have cleaned and sanded the local roads fairly well. Cardi said that Rt. 28 was the slipperiest part. But it was manageable if you just went slowly. Oh, and by the way, she would like you to know that her 5:00 stretch class at the Cooperhood is still on.

7:00 pm - Aren't you folks glad that I was working from Woodland Valley today and could obsessively post weather in between my jobs. Anyway, still raining fairly heavily. It had stopped for a while but it started again. It is raining on top of an inch or two of sleet up here in the valley. Quite a mess. I'm not going out....that's all I know.

10:20 pm - The rain has stopped, now let's hope all this mucky stuff doesn't freeze overnight. It's about 30 degrees out so it could go either way. I think this storm is just about over so this will be my last post of the evening. I hope wherever you are you are safe, warm and dry. Good night!

Saturday 8:00 pm - So the end of the weather story for those of you who are out of the valley is that folks with long, steep driveways (like mine) are finding it a bit slippery but not impossible to get out to the road. I have about an 1 1/2 to 2 inches of slushy stuff over the surface of the driveway but it is not rock hard so I can get some traction. WV road has patches of snow/ice all along the length of it (worse as you get to the top of the valley) but it is sanded fairly well. I went down out of the valley slowly this morning and didn't have any slipping problems. Coming home was just about the same conditions, maybe a bit clearer from people going in and out today. Rt. 28 was clean and clear. Traveling wasn't too bad.

So that wraps up my ongoing commentary on this last storm.