Winter in Las Vegas

We've had an early start to our "winter" here in Vegas. People who have never been here in the colder months don't realize that it actually gets fairly cold here in the winter and we ussually get a few snow days. But what we call snow days and what real snow days look like are two different things. Here it's ussually a little bit of snow or more like a bit of frozen rain that falls but doesn't stick and we all go absolutely crazy.

Every few years we get lucky and we get some actual real snow with flakes and everything that sticks to the ground and doesn't immediately melt. This week we had two full days of non-stop snow and we ended up with about 7 inches in some parts of town. Here is my front yard in all of it's wintery splendor.



Now I know you real northerners with your blizzards and giant snow drifts who own tools like snow shovels, ice scrapers and snow blowers to deal with your white stuff probably think this little bit of frosting is no big deal. But for us dessert rats, this is what we live for in the winter.



This "severe" winter "storm of the decade" as the local news was touting it here, caused our airport to close for a day and a half, stranding a lot of unhappy tourists and resulted in a snow day for local schools. Yes we are ridiculously crazy and totally overreact to any tiny bit of precipitation. On the other hand it's nice to have something to get excited over that gets you into the holiday spirit. Palm trees and cactus don't ussually give off that "it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas" vibe!