A Little Weather-Obsessed

This is pretty early in the season for this kind of weather:

Lake effect snow warning in effect until 1 pm EST Friday

The National Weather Service in Grand Rapids has issued a lake effect snow warning...which is in effect until 1 pm EST Friday.

Snow showers will develop across the area through the morning hours and become intense at times. Snow squalls will be capable of producing brief whiteout conditions with 1 to 3 inch bursts of snowfall in as little as an hour. Some blowing and drifting of snow will be possible.

The greatest threats for snow bursts will be midday today through Friday morning along and west of a line from Holland to Paw Paw. Total accumulations of 7 to 11 inches are expected along and west the Holland to Paw Paw line. Accumulations will be less further east. Snow showers are expected to diminish in intensity during the day on Friday.

A lake effect snow warning means significant amounts of lake-effect snow are forecast that will make travel very hazardous or impossible. Lake-effect snow showers typically align themselves in bands and will likely be intense enough to drop 1 to several inches of snow per hour for several hours. Visibilities vary greatly and can drop to zero within minutes. Travel is strongly discouraged. Commerce could be severely impacted. If you must travel...keep an extra flashlight...food...and water in your vehicle in case of an emergency.

I don't hate snow. But this would have to come on a day when I have to drive back and forth through the warning zone. Snow in the inches-per-hour range is a lot more fun to knit in than to drive in.

And now to answer a couple of questions:

The airbags didn't deploy when we hit the deer. My husband just called to say the inspection was done and they consider the car repairable. Since I saw the deer rebound from the impact and go into the air (and have thanked my lucky stars that it didn't come through the windshield!), it scares me to think how hard of a hit it must take to deploy that car's airbags. I'll be buying a couple of those deer-whistle thingies before we even get it back.

"What happened to the venison?"

In Michigan if you are in a car-deer collision, the police will issue you a kill tag for the deer so you can legally keep the venison. In this case, we gave it to the people with the cab company who helped us out. (I grew up in a family that hunted and so did my husband. Both of us will eat venison. But it's a lot cheaper if you don't getcher deer with yer car, eh!)

As far as a deer guard for a car - I've Googled for this far and wide. They show up for SUVs and trucks, but I'm not finding them for a car the size of a Honda in the US. Some of my Aussie friends say they've seen roo guards on Minis there.

(Weird stuff I did find: the Michigan governor's proclamation about car-deer crashes and an organization called the Michigan Deer Crash Coalition with a map showing that we were in a 1000 to 1499 car-deer accident county in 2007.)

Two of the deer impacts with the deer-magnet car have been on the back quarter and side door, so I'm thinking we'd have to wrap the thing in rollbars like a dune buggy.