Snow Today, Gone Tomorrow

This past weekend brought one of North Georgia’s brief annual snow events, but this one seemed even more brief than usual. Flurries started by 9 am in the northern suburbs (I was visiting a friend in Cumming, GA at the time). We popped outside for a few pictures with the grandbaby, not expecting the snow to last very long. Well, by 10:30, it was a mini-blizzard of fat flakes and we decided to leave while we could, heading from Cumming over to Johns Creek.

Red maple blooms (Acer rubrum)

What is that stuff?

By 2 pm, the snow was done, leaving a nice blanket of 3-4 inches in my area with up to 6 inches in the mountains. Already the roads were pretty clear, thanks to warm ground, snow plows, and numerous people driving around. I left Johns Creek to go home, stopping here and there for a few photos of large oaks and maple flowers mixed with snow (those small branches were melting fast as the air temperature continued to warm into the low 40’s).

Oak and old barn in Canton

We had above-freezing temps overnight and the snow could hardly be found by lunchtime as the sun shone brightly in the sky. Another visit to grandbaby found him wondering where it all went. Only the partial shapes of tightly packed snowmen remained.

Oak in Milton cemetery

I checked on a thriving clump of trout lilies (Erythronium umbilicatum) in my yard. They had been blooming just 3 days earlier so I wondered how they fared in such an event. Just one day post-snow and they were blooming in the bright sun!

Trout lilies after the snow (Erythronium umbilicatum)

It’s been a mild winter so far and this didn’t change my impression of it much. This picture posted on Facebook by WSB-TV from a resident in Hall County (note that photo is in the same location each day) pretty much summed up the crazy 3-day weather. We had had torrential rains several days earlier (Thursday), followed by a mild day on Friday, and then snow on Saturday. That’s North Georgia!