Looks like we're in for it...

If you move to someplace the UP in Michigan, you are guaranteed to
have a whilte chirstmas. We lived in Houghton, MI for 2 years and had
to use snow scoop to remove snow almost every day. The record high
seasonal total of 355.90 inches was recorded in the winter of 1978-1979
(measured at the airport).

You lived in HOUGHTON? Wow, you're a lot tougher than you look!
:-)

The only people crazier than Yoopers are the folks who choose to live
in Buffalo, NY. I read that they got three FEET of snow there last
week!

I lived in Wisconsin, on the shores of Lake Michigan, for 39 years
(including that awful, endless winter of '78-'79), so I know about snow
-- but IMHO people are just plain nuts to live where snow depth is
measured in yards...
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

It's much tougher to deal with lake effect snow in areas along the
lakeshores in Michigan LP than in the UP. It was no big deal to
remove the fluffly dry snow and the roads there were plowed regularly.


Our daughter was born in the UP. I still have fond memories of
the area & looking back, the time we spent there was quite idyllic.
The UP is a beautiful area with beautiful lakeshores, forests,
waterfalls and there are plenty of outdoor activities to enjoy year
around.

Hai Longworth

It's much tougher to deal with lake effect snow in areas along the
lakeshores in Michigan LP than in the UP. It was no big deal to
remove the fluffly dry snow and the roads there were plowed regularly.


Our daughter was born in the UP. I still have fond memories of
the area & looking back, the time we spent there was quite idyllic.
The UP is a beautiful area with beautiful lakeshores, forests,
waterfalls and there are plenty of outdoor activities to enjoy year
around.

Hai Longworth

No ice or freezing rain. I suspect as the evening wears on, the flakes will
get bigger. As I look out the window now, ground vis is about 1 1/2 miles
in a frosty fog with very fine snow falling.

----------------------------------------
METAR KIOW 21:52Z 12/03/05
KIOW 032152Z AUTO 03006KT 1/2SM SN VV005
M04/M07 A2992 RMK AO2 SLP140 P0003 T10391067

:-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

We have a windchill of 76 degrees in the Magnolia state with 25 knot winds.
Brr, may have to break out the wind breaker.

There's an old joke about how temperature affects people from various
states... (at 30 below Minnisotans put on their T-shirts...) but I can't
find it. Any pointers?

Jose
--
You can choose whom to befriend, but you cannot choose whom to love.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

Depends on when you view this, of course, but at 3:15 PM CST, the view
from this live web-cam, aimed less than a mile from here, looked like a
blizzard:

http://webcam.iowa.uiowa.edu/pentacamcur.html

For those of you in the warmer climes (who are no-doubt pining for a
"White Christmas"), I just snapped a few pix of the Inn at night, in
the snow, and updated the previously provided webpage.

See them at:

http://www.alexisparkinn.com/2005_december_snow.htm
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Ahhh yes.... 78-79... I remember it also.. school busses didn't run for
days and days... BUT if you lived in town, (me) you were expected to go to
school... The township snow plows broke down continually, we had to hire
the local road construction company to open the road up each morning

Yep, it was the same down in Racine. Unfortunately, I wasn't a "kid"
anymore, having just turned 20. I was driving a truck for the local
newspaper, and they actually sent 4-wheel drive vehicles out to pick us
up at our homes, since none of us could get into work!

The stupid thing was, we were driving 2-wheel drive vans for the paper.
Once we were loaded with over 4000 pounds of newspapers, we were fine
-- NOTHING was going to stop us -- but, at each drop-off point, we grew
lighter, and lighter, until... Guess what? We were STUCK! It
happened day after day, for what seemed like forever.

That winter they worked us full-time, and I was going to college
full-time, too. Between the heavy lifting, the heavy work schedule,
and the continual shoveling of snow at my folks house, I finally got
very, very sick -- probably the sickest I've ever been. I still didn't
miss work, but I thought I was going to die. That was just a God-awful
winter...

Driving was just spooky. We were just kids, but we thought the snow would
come falling down, burying the car as we rode along.

The piles on the sides of the county roads were taller than the very
jacked-up, super-sized Ford vans we drove. It was the most amazing
thing any of us had ever seen -- it felt like driving in a snowy
version of a World War I trench system.

What's really amazing is to realize that the newspaper had hired a
bunch of teenage boys to drive these trucks everywhere, delivering
bundles to the paperboys. Think of the liability! Of course, no one
thought that way, back then, and everything worked out fine -- but I
had a grand total of one year with a driver's license when they hired
me to drive for them! (I drove for them from age 17 to 20.)

I've got pictures (somewhere?) of my parent's home in that blizzardy
winter, showing the snow drifts up to the roof line. It was literally
possible to walk right onto the roof of the house. Most amazing thing
I ever saw.

And -- remember this? -- the scientists and media types were all
warning us of the impending Ice Age, thanks to all the pollution in the
air! My, how times have changed...

:-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Even managed to get in some approaches LOL today.

Me too. I just got back from doing 6 approaches in a C170B. The further
west we flew the closer that nasty stuff Montblack referred to came to us.
So we kept moving east to stay VFR. Shot one ILS IFR, then headed south to
clearer weather to finish with some GPS and VOR approaches. Ground
visibility was 10. 2000 feet up, visibility was about 5 with light snow.
No ice or freezing rain. I suspect as the evening wears on, the flakes will
get bigger. As I look out the window now, ground vis is about 1 1/2 miles
in a frosty fog with very fine snow falling.

Glad I got some flying in before it got this ugly.

Jim

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
snip....
I lived in Wisconsin, on the shores of Lake Michigan, for 39 years
(including that awful, endless winter of '78-'79), so I know about snow
-- but IMHO people are just plain nuts to live where snow depth is
measured in yards...

Ahhh yes.... 78-79... I remember it also.. school busses didn't run for
days and days... BUT if you lived in town, (me) you were expected to go to
school... The township snow plows broke down continually, we had to hire
the local road construction company to open the road up each morning so we
could haul feed to our cattle. Some days they actually had to use a front
end loader and scoop the snow out of the road because it was too deep to
plow.

We used snowmobiles to check the cattle and break paths through the snow for
them so they could walk to water and feed. The deep snow was too much work
for the horses. In town where our feedlot is, the roof collapsed when it
started warming up and killed a couple head.

Back in those days the local telephone lines were on poles, shorter than
power poles, and the drifts were higher than the poles along side of the
road. The snow ripped many of the lines down, so the phones in certain
areas were out for almost a month.

Driving was just spooky. We were just kids, but we thought the snow would
come falling down, burying the car as we rode along. Funny though, we were
never afraid of the snow tunnels and the snow caves collapsing on us! After
the snow was piled up along driveways and in parking lots we'd attack it
with shovels, digging tunnels through it or making caves. I remember one we
made that had several rooms connected by tunnels. One room had heat and
lights provided by a homemade burner made of a tin can stuffed with rolled
up cardboard soaked in parafin wax.


Glad I was a kid during that winter, we genuenly had a blast. Each day
before and after a short school day, all of us "towny" kids would grab our
shovels to run off to shovel peoples driveways, sidewalks, and roof tops.
Of course we'd spend the money just as fast as we made it.

Jim

"Flyingmonk" wrote in message
ups.com...
Mike wrote:
It always seemed odd to me that skis do not require at least an
endorsement.
There is infinately more variability in snow than in water..

How do they(skiplanes and amphips) stop w/o breaks? Do they just wait
until the momentum is used up?

You're not thinking about putting the Mit on skis are you Mike?


I've thought about skis for the Helio but, during the portion of the year
when the skis would be useful, the weather poor aroung here with a lot of
icing.

Mike
MU-2