Early January Winter Snow and Ice
We had series of fronts pass through in early January. Snow and then a few days later after it had warmed a bit, rain with falling temperatures that turned to sleet. The wet snow became a thick hard crust.
This photograph shows some of the ice and snow on the bark of a white oak that grows next to our home.
There was a coating of ice on the tree branches that sparkled like diamonds in the sun.
The crusty snow was interesting to walk on since it yielded little to our weight. This is the path to the garden next to a beech on the right.
Beech leaves with snow and ice. We were lucky in that the ice didn’t bring down heavy limbs and trees.
This is our yard with the shack in the center of the photograph. While it was raining I was out scooping the slush from our shoveled walkways. A few hours later temperatures had dropped enough so that everything began to freeze. We sprinkle wood stove ashes on the walkways when they are slippery. The dark ashes help the paths melt faster in the sun and the gritty ashes keep us from slipping when walking on the paths.
A week later we got more snow. It was a challenge during the cycles of snow to keep the panels clear of snow so our batteries would charge. Temperatures were so low for so long in January that we began to have problems with our solar system. The chargers we use are set to adapt to storage battery temperature. When the batteries are at 60 degrees Fahrenheit the chargers charge the batteries at about 14.2 volts. When the batteries are cold, the charging voltage rises. Our battery temperatures dropped to around 26 degrees with the prolonged cold and charging voltage rose to 15.4 volts. Unfortunately, our inverter has an over voltage shut down above 15.2 volts. I needed to remove the panels on the chargers and change the little switches for battery types. I reset the battery type so the maximum charging voltage remained below 15.2 volts so we could have power in the house.
