How's the Weather?

Okay, enough is enough.  First we had the Polar Vortex, which brought single-digit temperatures down to the Deep South along with sub-zero wind-chill factors.  Then we had the two inches of snow that paralyzed the City of Atlanta (Birmingham, too) for days on end and made national headlines. Now, we're having a catastrophic ice-storm of "historical proportions."  All last night, the local weathermen and newscasters were all trying to one-up each other in the sheer direness of their forecasts, stopping just short of "We're all going to die." 

But things are tough all over.  Australia's suffered through one of its worst heat waves in memory, unprecedented flooding is occurring in southwest England, unseasonal thawing is causing landslides in Alaska, and California's experiencing a record-setting drought.  I can go on, but I think you're starting to see the trend here. 

Is it just me, or is anyone else finding the weather lately to be just a little . . . weird?'

By 7:00 am this morning, there was already a sheet of ice on the roads, my walkway and drive, and on the trees and power lines.  I moved my car to the bottom of the hill last night in anticipation of not being able to get down the driveway until it finally thaws out.  All I can do now is hope the electricity stays on, and accept the conditions if it does or if it doesn't.

Update (10:00 am):  Took a walk through the neighborhood.  There were no cars on Northside Drive, and not many more on Interstate 75.  I'm posting this now while the power's still on.

Okay, those last two were from Creative Loafing, Atlanta's weekly newspaper.  The Loaf also ran this picture of the depleted milk supply at a local supermarket  

Update II:  In the afternoon, the freezing rain let up for a while, allowing a walk along the Beltline trail through Tanyard Creek Park as the ice turned to slush.  

The snow-covered neighborhood.

A selfie in a deserted Bobby Jones Golf Course.

The sounds outside are as unusual as the sight of snow in Georgia - not only is the city unusually quiet, but the sound of leaves as I brush against them "clink" from the ice rather than rustle as usual.  Plus the odd sound of the falling sleet - I never realized before that the word "sleet" is onomatopoetic.  

As of now (6:30 pm), the power has surprisingly stayed on at the house, and although some of the branches and leafy vegetation are weighed down with frozen rain, the trees appear to be holding up, and the precip has changed over from frozen rain to a combination of sleet and snow.  The worst of the ice accumulations and power outages appears to be east of Atlanta, and the electricity may stay on here after all, at least as long as a driver doesn't skid into a power pole.