Winterstorm?

Before we traveled to Alaska, we had (like many other Scandinavians) sometimes watched the news from the US, and reacted to all the headlines saying "Storm and Chaos" as soon as there were some rather ordinary winter weather. "It's sure ain't gonna be like that in Alaska" we said - but maybe it will....  This morning, it rained heavily here, which of course led to icy roads and pavements, not much of a surprise there.

When I got to work, about half the staff was at home, and those who had made it left by 11 or so - perhaps to save their homes from sliding away, I don't know. Later in the afternoon all university employees got an email: the university will be closed today and tomorrow, at least, no teaching at all.  In town, all schools are closed too, and all buses canceled. People are encouraged to stay indoors through this "Ice storm” or“Winter storm” as they call it on TV. It is of course great that people are encouraged to be careful and not get out on slippery roads if they don't have to, but it's perhaps a little too much to close a whole town, including major highways leading in and out. One explanation might be that most cars year-round tires instead of studded ones, and the year-round are not as good on ice. A lot of people are a bit worried about the winter, and wonder how we will make it through the season. Peter's English professor almost got upset when Peter was assigned to write an essay about stressfactors caused by moving to a new country, and Peter didn't mention snow and cold! - which wasn't a bit deal for him at all. As Scandinavians we are pretty much used to severe winters, especially after our years in Abisko, above the Arctic circle, where we didn't see the sun at all for two months during the winter. Long lasting extreme cold could of course be a bit too much..... after a couple of weeks with 40 -50 below we might be a bit tired of winter too. We'll see what happens, today - we have drizzling rain.....  

Otherwise, life is good, we've had many wonderful skiing tours in beautiful winter surroundings, and the chickadees are visiting our birdfeeder almost every day. They are not shy at all, and stay around even though we are just a few inches away - on the other side of the window.