Dec 15 2008
Ice Storm in the Northeast
Thursday, December 11, 2008 started out with a light rain, sleet and snow in the early morning and continued on and off throughout the day. As I headed home at the end of the day, the rain increased and the temperature started going down. By the time I reached home, the temperature had fallen below freezing and the precipitation changed to ice and sleet. The power went out at about 11:30 on Thursday evening, right after I posted my daily blog for Thursday. I headed off to bed, only to wake up at 2:30 in the morning to the sounds of crashing trees and branches being snapped off.Friday - a scene of total devestation! Light rain continued on Friday morning as well as the destruction of additional trees and powerlines that came crashing down. The wind started up in the afternoon and this only added to the destructive forces of nature. The Monadnock Region was well entrenched in this ice storm that some say is far worse than the ice storm of 98. Over 1 million people in the northeast were without power at some point due to this ice storm, over 400,000 of these were in NH. As of this morning (December 15th), about 168,000 still remained with out electrical power. In the Monadnock Region and the surrounding communities, it is estimated that it will take a week or more to restore power.For those who watch this blog for the daily weather stats and historical information, this will come sporadic over the coming days as I am affected by the power outages and will only be able to do my blog postings when I can get to a computer outside of the power outage zone. My weather station at home was not affected by the storm and it continues to collect data and will store it in memory until I can connect it to a computer and download this information, I will then do a summary update of the stats it has gathered. I will get pictures of the ice storm to post at a later time.
