Neighorborhood shoot after snow storm

Raleigh hadn’t seen snow to any degree for three years until 2025. And since the new year, we’ve seen it three times although the first two weren’t anything significant — an inch or so — and was gone in 24 hours.

Then on Wednesday, we saw snow and ice with an accumulation of a little more than 2 inches in a storm that swept through most of the state. The extreme northeast corner of the state, along the Atlantic Ocean, was hit with the heaviest snowfall — 14 inches in some place. Other places got just snow, a mix of snow and sleet or just sleet and ice.

I realize the word “storm” is relative. To people living in northern states, what we saw come through here Wednesday night and Thursday would probably be referred to as a dusting. But to folks who live in the South, this was a storm. (There was extensive day-after coverage of the havoc it wreaked on at least two local television channels, if that gives you any indication. And by extensive, I mean sufficient to pre-empt regular programming at least until the afternoon.) 

Afterward, temperatures stayed low enough to keep the snow around in Raleigh for several days. A bit of it remains, although not much, as I type this on Saturday evening. But with the sleet still caked to the neighborhood streets on Thursday, I decided it was a good time then to take a slow photography stroll. The ice on the street was mostly thin or covered with enough snow spots that walking was not treacherous, but I nevertheless walked slowly, making sure every step landed on some snow to avoid hitting black ice and wiping out. 

The shot leading off the post is an abstract/op art composition on the paver path in my backyard. I made this from the remnants of the snow and sundry small, odd shaped portions where some of the snow had melted to form these shapes. I used this as inspiration for other patterns I noticed elsewhere on the walk-around in the neighborhood.

A bench in the backyard (above), where a limestone angel sits. A closeup of the angel appears in the first photo below. She usually serves as a sentinel for what we call our puppy garden, which is off to the right and out of the above picture. After the snowfall, only the head of the yorgi figurine made it above the surface (second photo below).  

A combo photo (above) of a home water well connected by a watering hose. Below, a perspective shot and closeup of an interesting cluster in the tree. It kind of looks like a hornet's or wasp’s nest.

Above and below: Perspective and closeup shots of what struck me as an interesting lengthy, snow-covered pair of tree limbs. 

Above: I liked the juxtaposition of the home with the very tall trees.

The street shown above normally is very busy at this time of day on a weekday. It was not that busy on Thursday. Below, an imprint of one of the boots I was wearing. 

Above and below: Animal tracks in the snow. 

One neighbor (above) wasn't taking any chances and worked to remove the ice on her driveway. I've captured the statue below in previous neighborhood shoots, but I wasn't sure I'd gotten it with patches of snow adorning it like this before.

I stopped to capture the shot above because I was surprised to see that anyone had walked on the streets before me, but someone did. Below, another neighbor had a radically reduction made on their crepe myrtle tree. You can see the same stump in the perspective shot in the second photo below. 

The winter welcoming flag adorned with cardinals (above) was on display at this neighbor’s house. The composition below was the result of a radical crop to an image I took of the backside of a car parked in the driveway of yet another neighbor.

Above: I was hoping to get a good image from this shot of fallen branches in the front yard of a neighbor.

Above and below: This neighbor, whose home sits on a cul-de-sac on Perrimor Court, and until very recently, featured a driveway lined on both sides by Bradford Pear trees. But on Thursday, all the trees were gone. I noticed the pile of lumber (below) in the homeowner’s side yard (right of the garages shown in the above photo) and had to wonder if any or all of these were from those Bradford Pears. 

Another welcoming flag (above) with a Valentine’s theme, and another abstract/op art composition (below) made from formations I saw on the street. 

Above: The three nicely trimmed bushes adorned with snow is what caught my eye here. 

Above: I took this shot because of how the message on the sign on this neighbor’s house hit the mark on this day after the storm passed through our community.

Above and below: Street scenes, including (below) a patch of juniper sprinkled with snow. 

Yet another welcoming flag (above) and another abstract/op art (below) composed from how the snow left this section of driveway. 

A 'storm' not for the ages, thankfully

It had been 2022 when the Triangle (the shorthand term locals use to refer to the metro area of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill) last saw any snow or ice to speak of.

So there was a bit of suspense, curiosity and even a hint of excitement when local meteorologists late last week amped up forecasts of the storm system that was heading this way after dumping snow and ice on the country’s midsection earlier in the week.

I’m sure local folks made the traditional stampede to grocery stores to stock up on the usual pre-storm essentials. We did not do that; we’d made our usual periodic grocery shopping several days beforehand. We were grateful the next day when the first of the ominous forecasts started hitting the airwaves, as it’s crazy being in a grocery store when frenzied folk go staple-stockpile shopping. 

And as it turned out, the Triangle did not get any serious bad weather. Snowfall and sleet accumulation was minimal (less than an inch, I’d say, which is a mere cough compared to what I remember getting in Wisconsin during “a storm” in my childhood/adolescent years). And there were minimal power outages, none of which affected us. 

We live south of Raleigh proper, so we probably got even less than those who live north of us received. 

As a precaution, I did park the car I usually drive in the detached garage overnight Friday so there wouldn’t be ice to scrape off windshields the next day if I had to use the vehicle. And even that, technically, proved to be unnecessary, as next-day post-storm temperatures reached the 40s, so any snow or ice that stuck to asphalt or concrete Friday night and was not in the vicinity of tree shade the following morning was melted by the time I went outside for my daily walk around 11:30 a.m. 

Shade was a safety concern on our property, though. It is heavily treed and is situated next door to a 93-acre woods, so while the snow/sleet did melt everything on our driveways by the time I began my walk, all had not melted from other areas of my circular house walk route (about one-tenth of a mile in one loop). So, I elected to do my entire walk on the neighborhood streets, almost all of which were sun-cleared and dried by the time I started the sojourn.

When I finished, I used my iPhone 13 Pro to take the photos of our property that you see in this post. There wasn’t a whole lot of snow and/or ice, but there was some still sticking to grass, concrete and pavers because those areas were blocked from sunlight by trees and branches, as you'll note viewing the images. 

You can see the dusting of snow and sleet on the stairs to the back deck (above) and on the patio at left as well as on the ground in front of the stairs. This area in front of the stairs is part of my walking path when weather is not an issue and I elect to use some or all of the circular house path for my walk. You can see the path better in the first two photos below. While portions of the pavers were cleared, they were not fully cleared, and any step that didn't hit squarely in the fully cleared portions would risk striking snow/ice, so that's why I did not use this path for even a portion of my walk. The pavers in the second photo below are a part of the path also seen in the right foreground of the photo leading off the post. That's the driveway to the detached garage in the background of the first photo below, which also illustrates how the sundry tree blockage splayed sunlight hitting the ground. 

Above and below: Shots of the north side yard, the area of our property that is least open to sunlight during the day in winter. 

Above: One treed area in the front of the property alongside the driveway (and apron) to the attached garage. This view looks southeast. 

Above: Stairs to the sundeck along the south side of the house. We rarely use this access, so it was not an issue for us after the storm. But the concrete walk in front of the stairs is part of my house walk route.  

Above: A chair off to the side of the detached garage driveway. 

Above: I used the iPhone's portrait feature for this closeup of the leaf with icicle. The portrait feature adjusts the camera's aperature setting to allow for enhanced background bokeh (blur). 

The ice came and went, but the snow is hanging around for a little while

Like all southern states, snow and ice storms is a weather event in North Carolina. We've seen very few of either in our 4 1/2 years here. I recall measurable snowfall twice our first winter, once the second year, none the third year and twice last winter, neither of which was more than an inch or two. 

We'd gone without snow or ice storms this season until two weeks ago. An ice storm came through, and fortunately for us, we were on the fringe of that, so we got very little ... and incurred no power outage. But three days ago, a bigger storm swept up from the south and merged with an arctic front, leaving us about 3 1/2 inches of snow. 

On most of the previous snowfalls, temperatures warmed up quickly, making the snow disappear usually within 24 or 36 hours. Three and a half inches of snow was small beans in the years I lived in Indiana, so that didn't concern me. But this time, while temperatures got into the 40s during daylight hours in the aftermath, nighttime temperatures dropped below freezing, and I hear we'll stay in that pattern for a good week or so. 

Thankfully, most snow on the streets melted by the end of that first above-freezing daytime sunshine. But the stuff on the grass and in the nearby woods is still hanging around.

All to introduce my venture through the neighborhood again, on the morning after the snowfall, to document the new-look landscape. More pictures can be found in a gallery at my site at SmugMug.com. 

There was just enough warmth on the driveway to create a frame of the snaking road to the top of the hill (above). Land on the other side of the fence seen in the photo below -- part of a 100-acre plot owned by a man who died in June 2018 -- has been sold, and the machinations are in force to develop the property. A driving force to development is construction of the southern leg of the I-540 toll loop around Raleigh, which began two years ago and should be finished in a year or so. If we choose to use 540 on our commutes to Indiana, it would probably carve about 10 to 15 minutes off our trips. But I'm very unhappy about losing that wooded area.   

It was 10:30 a.m. when I got out for this shoot, but the plethora of footprints I came across (above) told me that plenty of neighbors had already been out for their daily walks. We have either or so people in the neighborhood who walk for exercise. 

Above and below: Skies were still overcast as I made my walk-through, so made all of these pictures without the use of a polarizing filter. 

Above and below: I was pleased to see some lingering autumn leaf colors on a few deciduous trees. 

Above: One neighbor chose to a hand blower to remove the snow from his driveway as soon as possible, certainly to ensure safety for any pedestrian traffic, but possibly to avoid any melting snow from refreezing overnight when temperatures plummeted to the 20s. 

The familiar bridge over a creek (above) at the addition entrance (below), where more tire tread marks etch a slushy tapestry. 

The homes above and below are seen by traffic shortly after entering the addition because the entrance road splits into a Y at this point. 

The tree trunks and green buffer provide an interesting frame for the home above. Below, a figurine in the front yard of another home. 

Tire tread marks and footprints present an interesting roadway abstract (above). Below is a closeup of one of the footprints. 

Another leaf straggler (above) and more tire tracks (below).

 

Looking at roadside ditches on the return trip, I came across the scenes you see above and in the first three photos below. 

Above: I first saw this bird fly onto a mailbox next to the road as I approached it. I stopped in my tracks and went to lift my camera and zoom the lens all the way to 300mm, but as soon as I adjusted the lens and before I could focus, the bird flew a short distance to the left and landed on this driveway. It froze there for a moment, so I was able to grab this photo.  

Above and the two remaining photos below are from my yard. Above are sacks Lee Ann had used for growing potatoes during the growing season. They are situated along one of the raised garden beds along the driveway to the detached garage. The first photo below is an angle I liked of the pergola formation covering the back deck with the rear roof and vent in the background. The second photo below is an angel figurine perched on a bench in the puppy memorial garden, where Lee Ann's dogs Molly and Bear are interred.