Springfield, Illinois Ice Storm Update 1:30 A.M.

WeatherUnderground.Com

After rummaging around for old flashlights, and batteries my wife and I went to the door to look outside. It is raining, but very lightly. One would think that's good, but the truth is I don't believe it's a good thing. If it was pouring down the ice would have to melt off the trees, and power lines, but with the slower precipitation it just freezes on the already ice coated surfaces.

We no sooner opened the door than we heard the crashing, and thud, of a tree limb hitting the ground, which is never a good sign.

C.W.L.P., the main provider of electricity in the Springfield, Illinois area doesn't take its responsibilities seriously enough. Recently a power turbine simply blew up, setting a power generating facility on fire. In Springfield, Illinois most people seem to believe that this is normal, and that no one is to blame when buildings blow up.

I mention this because I don't believe that C.W.L.P. takes the time to make certain that overhanging tree limbs are cut back away from their power lines. We have a neighbor who has a large tree, and a main power line for the whole block north of us runs under some of the upper branches of this massive tree. Why weren't these tree limbs cut back? Poor management most likely.

So hearing the sound of tree limbs crashing to the ground isn't a good sign at all. Meanwhile I heard on an A.M. radio station that many cities in Oklahoma are without power, and will be for over a week. This in the heart of winter.

Now the same storm system moves east, and everyone is just keeping their fingers crossed. So far most of the system has moved north east, more northward than east, following the jet stream's faster track up north. This has kept most of the nasty ice weather north of Springfield, Illinois.

I feel sorry for those folk living in a huge tract between Sangamon County's northern border all the way north past Chicago. Speaking of Chicago if the storm keep moving in the same direction poor Chicago appears right in its path.

Having said that the overall eastward movement of the entire system, if the system doesn't break up, or if temperatures don't change, could result in Sangamon County getting hit with freezing rain sometime soon - tomorrow perhaps?