A real winter

We're really getting one.

WyDOT interactive map of road conditions as of the time I posted this. Red is closed, orange is no unnecessary travel.

For years, old timers such as myself have been saying that sooner or later, we were going to get a real winter.  By that we mean one like used to be routine here.

I'm not going to get into it, but frankly the winters here did used to be routinely worse than they are now.  When I was a kid Thanksgiving Day was usually the marker for when the ponds may or may not be frozen up.  They've been frozen up now for some time.  An ice shelf has now frozen, thawed, and refrozen on the river.

More than that, we're into at least our fourth significant snow storm and they started early. . . or as early as they used to.  We had a snowstorm on September 27, and they haven't let up since then.  They highways have been closed frequently and its only December 2.  In late October that left me with a trans state loop that I've already written about.  This weekend it happened again.

Last week the University of Wyoming closed early for its Thanksgiving break so that students could beat the storm home.  My kids came home on Monday and arrived just before the storm really hit.  Yesterday, they went back just after the roads to Laramie opened up, a tense things for parents but they made it without incident.

There was no Tribune yesterday as the roads from Cheyenne were closed.  The Tribune, as has been noted here earlier, publishes now in Cheyenne.  When it started doing that it announced there would likely not be that many interruptions.  Well its sure interrupted now.

Not that it likely would have gotten to my doorstep anyhow.  Cars from residents who live right in the neighborhood, including all wheel drive cars, have been getting stuck right out on the street.

So far, it's been a real winter.