The Biggest Snowflakes I've Ever Seen

We had an awesome snow fall today here in El Paso. It started off as a steady rain. Then it moved to a sleet. Finally within a few minutes it was snowing. I mean comming down. Some of the flakes looked as large as half dollars! They were absolutely huge almost surreal looking. Within I'd say half an hour we had like an inch on the ground. For El Paso it was pretty neat. Hopefully some more will come our way before too long.
For people in the southwest its so exciting. I guess if you have to experience it most of the winter it can be a drag. Especially having to shovel it from your driveway and sidewalks. Or drive on slick icy roads. I guess really its just like anything. Once you experience something fairly regularly it becomes the norm. Eventually it can even become bothersome. Sort of like our 300 days of sunshine!

The Media and Not So Common Sense

What a fiasco we had today here in the Southwest. Talk about totally jumping to conclusions and over reacting. Common sense definetely played little or no part in the actions of many county and school officials. The forecasted weather called for a severe storm to hit southwest Texas and New Mexico. The potential for significant amounts of ice and snow was there.
However before the "storm" even arrived or a single snowflake fell every school district in El Paso closed for the day. The media had hyped this "storm" up to such a degree there was even a noticable increase in people shopping and stocking up on common items. Now I see nothing wrong with being prepared for the worse. This however has to be tempered with a bit of sound knowledge and good judgement. Its no wonder that when a major emergency or storm does strike most people fail to react in a positive way. Hopefully the decision makers and media in our local area learned a thing or two today about jumping the gun. Hopefully they also realized the powerful affect they have on the masses. Hopefully they'll also remember they are stewards of the peoples trust!