Spring has sprung... a not so n"ice" surprise on all of us ...

The picture above shows an all too common site throughout Allamakee County following the accumulation of a reported half-inch of ice that covered the area Wednesday evening, March 23 into Thursday morning, March 24. As evident in the above photo, the heavy ice accumulation "frosted" tree branches and nearly everything else outside with a ghostly white layer but also weighed heavy on tree limbs and power lines, with high winds compounding that difficulty and resulting in the loss of electrical power sporadically and for varying lengths of time throughout the area overnight Wednesday and into Thursday morning, but over a much wider spread area of the county for approximately two hours from mid to late Thursday morning. Weather forecasters had predicted four to eight inches of snow to accompany that storm (which did fall just a bit further north), and although not welcomed by many, may have been preferred to the damage left behind by the icy layer that took its place. Standard photo by Sara Aleckson-Melcher.