The Hawk

A Hawk wind is one that blows ridiculously hard and ridiculously cold. I saw one this morning. On the way to the office from my bowl of oatmeal and passionfruit guava cran juice, I stepped out around a corner of a building and blam, damn near ended up on my ass. The wind hit as I stepped from the good crunchy ice with gravel and sand to the clear as a whistle stuff and almost went land sailing. It's probably blowing 50mph out there in between the buildings where it gets funneled down. We're not talking a South Carolina warm summer breeze here. The air temp is -10ish and with that wind again its probably down around -40 or so. Ick.
The ice is a story all its own. I'd say so far it's been the biggest pain in the ass. Apparantly, back after the first few snows, it got up to the mid 30s, similar to what just happened down in the southeast. It was warm enough to melt the snow but not warm enough to get it all to go away. When the temperature dropped, it iced up, into one giant sheet from one end of post to the other. The bad part is the sidewalks had the most melting action due to the concrete warming, so they are the iciest. Guess who is walking to work. I learned very quickly NOT to walk on the sidewalks. The road is probably the best place. There's lots of gravel and sand there and when the snow falls the vehicles quickly crunch it down into a nice mix of crunchy stuff. When the snow falls on the sidewalks, it just gets blown away, sand and all. They probably won't be walkable again until April.