One of the more impressive ice storms I have ever witnessed began innocently enough on the 9th, early in the morning, with scattered light freezing rain with even a few embedded thunderstorms mixed in. By sunrise, al the exposed surfaces, other than the roads, fortunately, were covered with a light glaze. It was enough to bring down a few branches and a few power lines, but nothing to major...yet. I have two medium sized shrubs out front and they were bent to the ground, ripping a few Christmas lights from the roof. I went out and shot a few pics (look for them in mypics section of MySpace).

 Things took a major turn for the worse overnight on the 9th and early on the 10th as much heavier rain and thunderstorms moved in. All night long I could here branches crashing down outside. It sounded like gunshots going off, with the sound of breaking glass thrown in as the ice was jarred loose from the branches as they fell. At one point I heard a loud bang as one large branch smacked into the house, tearing a gash in the wall above the garage door. Soon after another loud bang, this time as a huge branch hit the ground in front of the house and rebounded back against the wall, narrowly missing becoming a part of my bedroom, as one foot to the left it would have crashed through the window.

 Daylight brought a scene of utter destruction...trees everywhere were decimated, some coming completely down. My yard was littered with large branches. The only good news was the roads were still just wet as temperatures were just slightly below freezing and ground temperatures were still well above freezing. Drove around town to check things out and I was just sickened to see how the landscape has been forever changed, with trees a century old reduced to kindling. Some trees had landed on top of cars and homes. At least 2/3 of Norman was without power. Mine stayed on by some miracle.

 Overall, this will likely be the costliest ice storm in state history as both the OKC and Tulsa metro areas took the brunt of it. As of this writing (Feb 9, 2008), crews are making a second sweep through town to pick up debris from the storm and will make another one after that as piles of tree limbs still litter the area. I went to my sisters house in Broken Arrow to help clean up there...it was even worse in the Tulsa area. Her trees were shredded, one huge limb crashed into her neighbors house, destroying a fence and leaving limbs embedded in the siding. I went through a major ice storm in Tulsa in 1987 and didn't think it would be possible to top that. I was wrong.

 The rest of the winter has seen a few minor events so far, with a couple of small but picturesque snow events, one on Dec 26th and another on Jan 31st. Both brought totals between 1 and 2". Wow, I know, but hey, I'll take what I can around here. Pics also in my MySpace pics section.