Frozen Tundra of 2026

I was so excited last Monday in that I can finally get on my bikes and ride. The past 2-3 weeks have been extremely code and wet. Unusual for this area of the country. We occasionally will get snow and the same with ice but never does it last very long. These two storms were different.

It all started about January 25th. We had storm coming and they predicted that is could be a massive ice storm. Armegeddon was coming to Concord! We are quite skeptical since 90% of the time the weather man is WAY off. They were predicting UP to 3/4" of ice. That it will bring down power lines, trees, and anything else breakable.

So the storm hit. It started as sleet. It continued as sleet. Then near the end of the storm on the 26th, we got a small amount of freezing rain. So the weather man was wrong again! No surprise there. It was nice that we did not get much sleep or freezing rain. I think it was about 1/2 " of sleet and about 0.1" inch of ice on top. Not too bad.

But then the real problems started - the temperature. For most of the month, we were in the mid to high fifties and even 60+. When this storm hit, temps were dipping to the teens EVERY night. So it may get into the mid to high 30s and met a bit but during the night, it would freeze everything once again.

Now this may not sound like much to many folks but my biggest issue is my private road. It has a massive hill and does not get much sun in many spots. Even my driveway was frozen too where I could not get the bikes out. So I waited.

Just when the ice was finally starting to clear, the next Sunday we have another storm coming. The weather man was telling us that we could get over 8". Per usual, we took that is stride. The big thing was since the weather was SO cold, they did let us know that this is going to be a snow only event. It will be light fluffy snow and the risk of power outages, damage, etc is very minimal. Good to hear but we will see.

So then Sunday morning, we had about 1-2" inches on the ground when I got up. The problem, it NEVER stopped. It continued snowing like that until 8pm. I had to go out and clear away the snow from my heat pump twice. Thankfully it was not windy BUT the snow kept piling up. I was in awe. I just stayed in and let it do what it was going to do.

The next morning, I needed to clean off the sidewalk for the dog to get in and out. I went out and we got over 13" of snow. I have a good set of tall rubber boots and it was difficult to keep the snow out of them. Luckily the snow was light (vs wet and heavy) but it still took me 90 mins to clear all the sidewalks.

I looked at the driveway and said Nope, not clearing that. I have a very long and wide driveway. Called the neighbor who has a 4WD tractor and we got our driveway and private road cleared. Well, the road had a 6 ft wide path.

Again, like the previous storm, we might get into the 30s but at night, the temperatures plummet making and snow melt, frozen once again. At my house, one morning it was 0 degrees outside.

It took over a week after the snow storm before I could finally get my bikes out from the garage in the basement, up the sidewalk to the driveway, and from the driveway up our road the main street. It felt great to finally get out and to top it all off, it was 67 degrees that afternoon!