Christmas 2020 snow event

It all started very innocently. On Sunday December 20 we had a lovely day with warmer than normal temperatures for this time of the year (as this graph shows)

It was shocking to see that next morning was snowing. What was even more shocking, the temperature was still around 6 deg C.
We thought that it will melt very quickly ….but the temperatures started to drop rapidly and within hours it was down to 3 deg and stayed there for rest of the day.

This heavy wet snow started to accumulate, turning into icy blocks sticking to trees and shrubs. Next picture shows my magnolia “Susan” when the snow started

…and this is couple of hours later

The snow was very icy

I started to worry because it was not the usual snowfall we get here occasionally .At this time we also lost electricity and shortly after cable.(Our internet is on cable). We were without these services for a couple of days.

These snowflakes were huge wet and heavy

At this point we had to wait till morning and hope for the best.
=
All the photos I showed so far were through our living room window. I knew that my magnolia “Susan” will have some damage just the question was , how much.

Next morning first priority was to clear the snow from the road

I noticed that the viburnum took beating from the heavy snow as well….. it uprooted.

Then Andy came in and said do not go out… there is some damage you will not like.

I was not prepared for this:

3 big leyland cedars down, uprooted. There is (was) a row of them along the road to the greenhouse which the original owner planted for privacy. That was approximately 50 years ago and he planted already sizable trees.( I found a price tag on one .)

They hit the area which I started to develop about 10-12 years ago. My hart stopped beating for a second and I knew that not everything will survive.

Observing the damage

Now, where to start?

===
What a mess

Somewhere there under this was my precious camellia “Elsie Jury.”

Can you find my camellia????

Search for the camellia began but sorry to say it is no more. Just a little 10 inch stump.
I planted it 10 years ago and it really started to develop into a beautiful little tree. It was blooming for last 2 years and I was trying to grow it as standard, tall enough to be out of reach of our hungry deer .
Because we live on the island it is quite difficult to source specific plants I like to have and this was one of them.

==
Power was restored and we managed to have have a nice quiet dinner but it rained all day long on Christmas Day.

Now it is time to start cutting.

and cleaning..

Andy managed to lift the viburnum and clamped few broken branches here and there. I have a little orchard in close by area and few trees were partially broken.

Viburnum was pulled up.

At this time our yard looks more like a lumber yard and there is no more snow. It did all the damage and disappeared.

This is a second pile of chips and there will be many more.

Chips will be very useful to have when they compost

So this is our little saga for 2020 year end. I am sure that I will discover much more damage when we will be all done.

It is a New Year’s day and everything is relatively back to normal, except we will be cleaning the mess for a foreseeable future . Glad to have 2020 behind. Welcome 2021.

• snow