Squall

I've never heard of a snow squall until today. I had dropped off the twins to preschool and was waiting during that time at the downtown library. It's actually the coziest place where I can just sit in a quiet empty corner in front of a fireplace and surrounded by windows with a view of my van. Even though I miss the girls it is kind of nice to have that time to myself. Anyway while I was at the library I get an emergency alert on my phone advising a snow squall. I had no idea what that was. Then phone alarms starting going off throughout all the levels of the library as other people were getting notified of this storm. I messaged Danny asking 'what's a squall?" and he happened to be in a meeting when they got their warnings. Turns out it wasn't just Danny and I that didn't know. He said everyone in their meeting was looking up information now and that no one else had ever heard of it. So I guess it's a new term? Or just not as known? Weird. Online we learned that it's an intense burst of heavy snowfall with gusty winds resulting to zero or near zero visibility. Addie described it perfectly. She learned at school that its basically a snow tornado. It was pretty cool watching my spot at the library. The squall was pretty intense but it was also really fascinating to go from full view of my van to absolutely zero view of it. By the time I had to go pick up the girls from school it had lessened but was still there. I got them in the van but didn't feel confident getting on the roads so we spent forty minutes sitting in the car in a random parking lot on campus. Danny was in meetings all morning or I would have spent our time with him until we could safely drive home. After forty minutes I really just wanted to get home.The emergency alert led me to believe that everything would be fine after 10:15am but the snowfall was still going strong the whole time we waited. The girls were more than ready to be home as well so I said a prayer and started heading home. It was snowing but not as bad as earlier where there was zero visibility. Everything was fine until the freeway. Thankfully everyone was driving slower than normal because the winds would carry snow onto the freeway making it extra difficult to steer and see. As nervous as I was I kept telling myself that after that drive in Dallas I could do this too. In hindsight I probably should have waited a little longer for it to clear up more, but in the end we made it home. It just took a long time. As soon as I pulled up I got a call from Danny asking where we were. When I told him I had just gotten home he couldn't believe that I had done that. He thought for sure we were cooped up somewhere safe still on campus. Eventually he left work early and we can say we now know what a snow squall is. I would love to have another one pass by because they're pretty interesting but I would love for that to happen where everyone is already at home and I don't have to commute from downtown Fargo. This week should be interesting as we have very cold days ahead.

This picture is not from today, I had taken it before to show my sister my cozy spot at the library.

You couldn't see any of those buildings during the squall.