I dreamed of a white Christmas, and Nature delivered – in spades!!  My part of Kansas had an old-fashioned, all-out blizzard which started on Christmas Eve around noon and didn’t finally wrap up until sometime late Saturday evening.  The Topeka airport officially reported 10 inches, but I think here in town we received somewhere between 7-10 inches total. Because the snow was being blown around by howling winds gusting up to almost 50 mph at times, it’s difficult to get an accurate amount.

Unfortunately, the residential side streets were a total disaster and best avoided after the storm. I didn’t venture out at all, except into my backyard to try and figure out how much it snowed and to check out this cool drift on top of our garage roof. 

Wind-whipped snow creates some fascinating shapes on the rooftops

The snowfall itself wasn’t very photogenic because it didn’t stick to tree branches, etc. due to the high winds.

It was probably a good thing I didn’t try to get out – I got stuck in the snow on a side street TODAY on my way to work (two full days AFTER the snow stopped). I hope those darn plows get started on the residential streets soon, and that some snow will remain by the weekend so I can get out with my favorite buddy (Mr. Canon) and capture some snow-covered scenes at either Lake Shawnee or MacLennan Park, two of my favorite local haunts.

Topeka last saw a white Christmas in 2007 when around 4 inches remained on the ground from a recent snow.

Despite the nasty conditions, Santa managed to find his way to my house. I received a really beautiful book “Audobon Society’s Guide to Nature Photography” by Tim Fitzharris, and enough money to possibly put toward a new camera body or buy a new zoom telephoto lens, a Singh-Ray vari-ND filter, a replacement 3 stop GND filter and maybe some cool software like Helicon Focus for my floral work.  But which to buy?  Decisions, decisions!!