The Great Puddle

A melting snow bank in my driveway made for a unique photo opportunity.

Forgotten Flowers

What's interesting about this photo is the time of the year this photo was taken, right at the end of February, after some of the winter's snow has melted away. A survivor from the 2009 growing season has stood tall and is waiting for spring to arrive. For how much snow gets dumped on the plant during the snowy months, for it to be in this good of condition was a surprise.

Purple Sky

The colors for this one turned out rather odd. The sun had set, maybe 20 minutes ago. Cloudy sky, street lights on and freshly fallen snow. Exposure was only 1.6 seconds, but the photo turned out very bright for how dark it was at the time. Gotta love snow brightening everything up like it does....

Bring Your Shovel

Snow is piling up everywhere....

We've Got Snow, Yes We do, We've Got Snow, How Bout You?

So yeah, we also have some snow here in the Twin Cities. Nothing unusual like those states on the East Coast are getting right now. We're prepared for this type of weather. We have plows that move the snow off of the roads. We have trucks that spread salt on the roads to melt what the plows couldn't remove. We don't usually shut the state down during 97% of our snow storms. Blizzard conditions, yes....three day snow storms without blizzard conditions, not a chance!

That right, this current snowstorm started falling Sunday afternoon. It continued through the night, all day Monday and it's now Tuesday and yes, it is still snowing. When I made it to work Monday morning, I noticed the snow was piling up on the roof entrance to the back building. The height of snow surprised me to say the least. Later in the afternoon, I that height had grow to the top of the roof. I tried to capture a photo as you can see below, but it was snowing so hard at the time, the snow, sky, falling snow all blended in. Trust me, the snow has reached the top of the roof.

Frozen Fields Forever

Merry Christmas 2009

Merry Christmas to you and your family. Thank you for stopping by on the days that you do to make this photo blog what it is.

Natures Artwork

Snow, Wind, melting, wind, more wind....oh what fun nature has with blowing and drifting snow.

Winter Is Here To Stay

Blistering cold temps have set into the Twin Cities. The morning wake up weather should be around -7 F (-21 C), however, we are suppose to see a rise in temps throughout the day and should top +18 F (-7 C). The good news is, according to the calendar, we only have six more days until the first official day of winter!!

Let It Snow

We had our first major snow storm on Tuesday and into Wednesday. From what I heard, this snowstorm hit about two-thirds of the United States.

Coming Soon

This is what it's like to grill outdoors during a Minnesota winter....

More Snow

Another capture from last weeks unusually early snow storm in October....

We Set A Record

My understanding is, the last measurable snowfall in the Twin Cities has set a record. Four inches of snow fell on Monday, this is the earliest record we've ever had that amount of snow falling in the Twin Cities. We're not alone, I'm sure you've noticed the cooler temperatures where ever you are reading this.

About 48 hours after the snowfall, all of my plants are dead, I've seen several trees where ALL of the leaves have fallen off the trees over night. Like that, winter has started.

Very Early Snowfall

I had to do it, I had to break out the camera for this season's second snowfall in Cottage Grove. A few days earlier it had snowed, but melted before I could get a fresh battery in my camera. This snowstorm produced quite a bit of snow with plenty of photo opportunities. This was very wet and heavy snowfall while many of the trees still had their leaves. This was also a very early snowstorm for us as you can tell by all of the green in the photo.

Park Between The Bridge

In downtown St Paul between the Robert Street bridge and the Wabasha Street bridge, there is a great stretch of land. I'm not sure of the name of the park, but it overlooks the Mississippi River and the view is, oh so fantastic.

Which Photo Do You Prefer?

It's amazing what a difference it can be taking photos and changing the height of the camera when shooting. The photo I posted on Friday and today were taken exactly in the same spot, one shot has the camera inches off of the ground, while the other has the camera about shoulder high. The difference in perspective is incredible. Which brings me to my question, which photo do you prefer? I like today's photo because of the tree blocking the sun. Though I also like last Friday's photo because of the glare of the sun off of the snow, which is what I was trying to capture in the first place.

How To Speak Minnesotian #1

Today's Minnesotian Word: snice

snice (noun) misting rain falling on snow resulting in a glaze like surface with a surface layer of ice

After rain falls during the winter in Minnesota, you must watch your step, but you get this awesome shine on top of the snow that I attempted to capture as best as I could.

I'm Ready For Spring

Reading the comments from yesterday's photo, J. Andrew Lockhart from Van Buren, Arkansas said it best "Oh, I'm ready for spring!!". Honestly, I couldn't have said it better myself. On a positive note, today temperatures was 32 F degrees! The sun was shining and I found myself and my father agreeing that today was a warm day out. Which makes me laugh when 32 degrees above zero is considered a "warm" day. Keep in mind, we've had temperatures around -15F degrees. That's 47 degrees warmer this afternoon than -15F from a few weeks ago. Sadly, spring is still a couple months away....

My Daily Photo Favorites: Susanville, California | Nashville, Tennessee | Riga, Latvia | Barton, Vermont | Portland, Oregon | Sharon, Connecticut | Joplin, Missouri | Katonah, New York | Guelph, Canada

Oh The Weather Outside Is Frightful

Oh the weather outside is frightful, But the fire is so delightful,
And since we've no place to go, Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

It doesn't show signs of Pauseping, And I've bought some corn for popping,
The lights are turned way down low, Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

When we finally kiss goodnight, How I'll hate going out in the storm!
But if you'll really hold me tight, All the way home I'll be warm.

The fire is slowly dying, And, my dear, we're still good-bying,
But as long as you love me so, Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

Frosting Covered Branches

One of the beauties of winter is the collection of snow on things, nature, bicycles, lawn chairs, anything out in the open is fair game for the snow falling. This tree is a very good example. One thing of note, the snow that has collected on the trees had fallen about 36 hours prior to taking this photo. Yeah, you ask? Well, the sun did come out, there was very little wind, to my surprise, there is this much snow still left on the branches. Typically if you don't get outdoors and take your photos shortly after the storm has passed, you've missed your opportunity.

My Daily Photo Favorites: Munich, Germany | Memphis, Tennessee | Saratoga Springs, New York | Minneapolis, Minnesota | Chicago, Illinois

Almost A Snow Day

While we are known for our snowy winters here in Minnesota, we've actually been spared from many snow storms this winter season. I took this photo back in mid to late December. It was the last time we've really had a snow storm to brag about. Since then however, we've had some of the coldest temperatures and wind chills since the early 1970's. The weather folk predicted -35 to -40 F for wind chills with an air temperatures of around -15 F. Back about five years ago, they changed the formula for wind chill. Now according to what I heard on the radio yesterday, if we were under the old formula, they would have said the wind chill was -60 to -70 F. They hadn't predicted temperatures that cold since the early 1970's.

Let me tell you this, I did make my way out into the brutally cold and windy night. If you read yesterday's post about the Wolfpack hockey game. When I left the stadium and made my way to my car , I thought my face was going to freeze! The wind, oh my the wind was bone chilling cold last night. Now the funny part was, I started my car and the DJ on the radio was saying that the people who believe in global warming must live in warm climate areas and have not lived through a Minnesota winter like tonight. I couldn't disagree with his line of thinking.

My Daily Photo Favorites: Quincy, Massachusetts | Budapest, Hungary | Larchmont, New York | Glasgow, Scotland | Torun, Poland | Sitka, Alaska

Snow Daze In The Twin Cities

It's officially winter here in the Twin Cities. About 6-10 inches of snow fell around here today marking the largest snowfall this early in December since 1991, during our famous Halloween storm. Those of us who were here remember the 30 inches of snow that fell and the havoc it caused for days.

My Daily Photo Favorites: Sharon, Connecticut | New York, New York | Sydney, Australia

Interesting Links Of the Day: Improv Everywhere | Founding Fathers | Icon Story

13 Inches Of Snow Fell Overnight

What a strange weather pattern we had. While the rest of the world is in a political scare of global warming, Cottage Grove had 13 inches of fresh snow on the ground when I awoke! All of the cities around Cottage Grove received a couple inches of rain. There was only snow in our city in the entire state of Minnesota. Scientist are puzzled, Al Gore is writing a new movie script....Wait a minute, this was from the end of winter a few months ago of my car buried in snow. Carry on about your day, my bad.

Excluding this next sentence: Number of weeks Twin Cities Daily Photo has not mentioned a word about Paris Hilton: 84 straight weeks!

My 5 Daily Photo Favorites:
Cypress, Texas
Sharon, Connecticut
Las Vegas, Nevada
Tokyo, Japan
Yamagata Shi, Japan

Winter Storm from March 13, 2006

Here are a few photos of a recent storm that passed through here about 5 weeks ago. It was quite the storm, but for March in Minnesota, you can usually expect to get a good sized storm to finish off the winter season. I started out the day planning on going to work, but after sitting in traffic for almost two hours and moved about 300 feet, I decided I had to call in sick. These I took on my drive back to my home. This was an open field with the snow blowing across from right to left. I could hardly see the road ahead of me This photo is of the traffic I was running into. The traffic heads into downtown St Paul and from where this is taken is the first exit north of 494 on Highway 61. That's about a ten mile traffic jam into downtown. It took me a while to get off of the road and head back home as you can see in the photo on the exit ramp. This is on the other side of my drive way in my neighbors yard. In their back yard. Looking down my driveway. This one is awesome how the snow collected.