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). 

In N. Carolina, there is much ado about weather ... even a modest snowfall

I learned pretty quickly after moving to North Carolina that inclement weather of almost any kind is always big news in these parts.

Certainly and primarily ... hurricanes; those are big news anywhere. But also ... snow. We get a good number of days with cold temperatures (35 degrees or lower) throughout winter, but not much snow.

My first winter here (2017-18), we had two snowfalls of note, and only one of those -- 6 inches -- was of any consequence. And even at 6 inches, it didn't last long; it all had melted within 48 hours. Last winter, I can recall only one or two snowfalls also, and again, both very modest amounts.

The pattern seemed on the verge of being broken this winter, however. There had been no snowfall by New Year's, and made it as far as the middle of February without any still.

But on the night of Feb. 20, the East Coast below Virginia saw its first accumulation. It wasn't a lot, mind you. Maybe 3 inches (which in Indiana, where I moved from, or in Wisconsin, where I grew up, is hardly anything to sneeze at).

But it was enough to keep the newsrooms and meteorologists at local television stations to pre-empt network programming at night to convey developments on the "storm" and report road conditions and any school closings (yes, there were a lot).

It also prompted me to take my iPhone camera outside to get a few quick shots at night about an hour or so into the snowfall. The next morning, I used my Canon 6D and Tamron 28-300mm f/3.5-6.3 to stroll through the neighborhood a more thorough collection before it all melted away. And it did all melt away by the following morning.

The lead-off photo on this post is a look down my driveway in one of the night shots of Feb. 20, taken with the iPhone 11. Another of the night shots, capturing driveway shadows, appears immediately above. I used the iPhone again for a few shots the next morning, including the first one below, where I'm looking down our driveway at the rising sun. After that, I returned inside, grabbed my Canon 6D and headed back to stroll the neighborhood.
 
I think I mentioned in a previous post how remarkable I feel the camera function of the 11 is -- and I graduated to it from a 10 (so, I went just one level up). But it is, without a doubt, the most significant and dramatic leap of phone quality I've experienced in all of my iPhone camera graduations through the years.

It seems that as long as there is some form of light on one's subject in any situation of low light -- such as night time -- the camera works hard to deliver you a sharp photo. The trick, though, which I learned after a few experiments early on, is to hold the phone as steady as you can for as long as you can, sometimes as long as 5 seconds. That's what I had to do to get the lead-off photo. As I held the phone, I could witness the camera's mechanisms at work because of things showing up on the display screen. When those mechanisms went away, I knew I had my picture.

The lead-off photo is a "color" photo, too, by the way. It looks predominantly monochrome, with perhaps even a hint of sepia. But that was the true colors of the shot, with the tint no doubt influenced by the two tungsten lights above and behind me situated just above the top of two top corners of the the garage door. Like the 10, the 11 also has an auto fix button in the photo edit area. It works as good as (if not slightly better) than the 10. In my brief experience, it nails light and color correction about 88% of the time.

The collection of photos below ends with a shot of blooms on a Camellia bush in our yard. Camellia bush flowers bloom in late fall and winter, so they're popular in the South with people and landscapers who want to extend the floral displays on their properties. You'll see Camellias bloom anywhere from December through February. We have eight or nine camellias on our grounds, most of which we put in ourselves. Come March, you'll see azalea blooms in the Southern landscapes (I was dazzled by these when I visited Savannah, Ga., for the first time in March 2017. Almost all of Savannah's 20+ square parks in the old downtown area have them). There are some azaleas in our neighborhood, including a couple on our property.

As usual, to view a larger, sharper version of a photo, simply click on it. This is particularly helpful if you access the blog using a mobile device.

Photo geek stuff: As mentioned in the text above, I used the camera in my iPhone 11 for early shots of the snowfall -- at night on Feb. 20 and the first few of Feb. 21. After that, on Feb. 21, I used my Canon 6D and Tamron 28-300mm f/3.5-6.3 Di VC PZD lens, which was equipped with a B+W polarizing filter. I grabbed three exposures of each composition that I later melded into one using Photomatix software during post-processing.

Rain, flooding ... and a toy fire engine stuck in the raging creek waters

I'm sure it will seem like I'm on a multi-day theme here with this post, but ... you've all seen the weather in the Midwest. Rain. And more rain. And some flooding.

I saw it, too, puddles on the walkways in Garfield Park today, and a noisy rush of water in Pleasant Run and Bean Creek, which intersect the park and converge at the north end.

The nice thing about having my camera with me when I came across it all was that I noticed some neat reflections in the puddles on the walkway, and I was able record them and share with you here.

In Bean Creek near the confluence with Pleasant Run, I came across a toy vehicle labeled "fire rescue" stuck in the rocks of the newly landscaped creek bed. A perspective shot of the "vehicle" appears in the photo leading off the post. A closeup is inset at right.

Somewhat ironic is the fact that a real Indianapolis Fire Department station, No. 29, at 602 E. Pleasant Run Parkway, North Drive, is in the park, not far from this location.

Actually, there was another reason I decided to make this run for photos today. Yesterday, I dusted off my Canon G12 and used it to shoots pictures of a fun night visiting family when my daughter and her two small children came to town from Chicago for the weekend. I had been disappointed with photos I took using my iPhone 6s Plus a week earlier at my grandson's birthday gathering. I'd been looking for an option that wouldn't involve my bulky (and conspicuous) Canon 6D, 580 EXII flash and some kind of diffuser -- even though those combinations gave me pretty nice pictures.

I was disappointed again -- and quickly reminded why I put aside the G12 for so long -- when I saw the kinds of pictures I was getting. The G12 really isn't made for the combination of inside ambient light and moving objects. Much of what I tried to shoot last night at the family get-together was small kids moving around quickly (and dancing). I wished I'd have had my 6D and 580 flash. I did get some good videos with it, though.

But I took the G12 with me on my outing today, and got these nice photos. This camera is much more suitable for outdoor lighting scenes. I'll have to remember that.

Water from Pleasant Run passes under the Pagoda Drive bridge (above), a short ways from the creek's confluence with Bean Creek (above). If you look in the background on Bean Creek (right), you can see the toy fire rescue vehicle. 

Above: The railroad bridge over Pleasant Run, just east of Manual High School.  

A bog between the pedestrian path and the old tree outside MacAllister Amphitheater in Garfield Park (above). Nearby is a puddle (below) reflecting another tree.

Water collecting on the pedestrian path leading to Conservatory Drive (above) in Garfield Park, and a different park puddle on the path leading to the relatively new bridge over Bean Creek (below). 

Above: Bean Creek, looking north from the new bridge between the amphitheater and the Sunken Garden.

A modest puddle just off the Bean Creek bridge (above), and a more formidable one (below) further down the path, just outside the gated Sunken Garden. 

Above and next five below: Puddles and their reflections along the path behind the Sunken Garden.

When weather waxes photographic

Weather, and its residual art, can make for interesting photography. Last week, Central Indiana was hit with a hefty, wet snowfall that began around 9:30 a.m. Friday, Feb. 5, and didn't stop -- what with the blowing and drifting -- until well into the darkness of the following morning.

When I learned that the storm was coming our way, I decided to chase a "during" and "after" photo sequence. Today, I give you some of the "during" images, pictures I captured in the throes of the snowfall. The flakes you see represent the snowfall at about 2:30 p.m. or so, or about five hours or so into the storm, well before the majority of the snow had accumulated. All of these were taken in or around Garfield Park.

Later in the week, I'll present images I took the following day, Saturday, Feb. 6, when I went out to capture the aftermath.