Hi y’all and happy 2018. Hope everyone back home in Canada stayed warm during all the recent crazy cold weather. The US news channels here rarely report on anything Canadian (sigh) so not sure if the “Bombcyclone” weather system that went up the east coast was still called the same or if it dumped as much snow in Eastern Canada as it did in the US. Poor Erie Pennsylvania with those 60 plus inches!
We here in Murrells Inlet, SC have been experiencing a record breaking cold snap. Over a week of barely above freezing daytime highs and well below freezing overnight. Having to wear my mittens and winter boots I brought WAAAY too much.
But at least in this picture the white you see on the beach is still sand and not snow.
However, that changed after the winter storm that passed through on January 3. Somehow most of the Grand Strand (what they call the stretch of beach from Myrtle Beach to here) only got freezing rain and a little snow.
Counties to the the west of here and even to the south in Charleston SC got up to 6 inches of snow so it could have been much worse. Here’s what the campground looked like the next day.
And around the park, the fresh water ponds were almost totally frozen over….felt sorry for all the birds and critters who just aren’t used to this cold. And you’ll see there was actually white snow over the white sand on the beach!
Needless to say life around the area came to a grinding halt…..as did many cars into other cars, ditches etc. And, because it stayed below freezing most of the day and overnight, anything that thawed a bit, refroze and anywhere the sun did not shine stayed icy. It was crazy! If this little bit of snow and ice fell at home, it would have been gone in hours. It literally took days for the ice to disappear and in the meantime, schools closed, the big coastal grand mall closed and even days later, some business were still closed due to the “bad” weather…I kid you not!
We decided to play it safe and not go out in the truck…not that we couldn’t drive but no way did we trust the South Caroliners to drive on icy roads. When we had to get out, we walked and even that was treacherous because the bike path was still really icy and any patch on the road where the sun didn’t hit was still really slippery. On our walk two days ago, went by this house, I’ll bet they didn’t actually expect to get snow around their Christmas decorations. Nice contrast with the tropical palm trees though.
They don’t seem to know how to use salt here but then they don’t really have the infastructure to spread it either. The beach was really the only place you could walk without doing the old man shuffle!
But today it’s going up the mid 50s F and that feels balmy and by Friday it’s supposed to get back up to around 70! A friggin’ heat wave, finally warming back up enough to go fishing…we’re going thru withdrawal!!
I’m sure y’all don’t really feel all that sorry for us but we just wanted to you to know that you didn’t have to be too jealous. We didn’t ring in the new year in shorts and a t-shirt! I’m just very happy not to be needing my mitts today and hopefully I can pack them away for the rest of the trip.
Stay safe & warm everyone!