Janice, you certainly are not raining on my parade. You sure have had it rough this winter and it sounds like there is much more to come. One of the problems we have here in AZ is when we get hurricane-force winds there is much destruction. We live at 4,600 feet and are surrounded by mountain ranges on all four sides. The winds will rock back and forth between the mountain ranges and usually cause a lot of damage and downed power poles. When we have heavy rains we have a lot of flooding. We have dry washes and rivers, but when it rains they fill up quickly because the ground is so hard. The rivers have bridges and would seem to be high enough to be safe in a rain storm, but a few years ago we had so much rain that the water was over the bridges and caused many roads to be closed. There are four roads leading out of the town where we live, and all four cross a river. During our last flood and four roads were closed. The emergency services in our town are excellent, but we could not get supplies in for a few days. That has only happened two times in the 30 years that we have lived here, so I guess we can count our blessings. Dry washes are a different problem. Most of them do not have bridges, and they flood quite easily as heavy rains do not soak into the ground. Heavy rains result in flooded washes and closed roads. AZ has enacted a "stupid motorist" law because people will drive around barricades and try to drive through flooded washes. Of course, many get stranded and some have been swept away by rapid flowing water. If we have two or three inches of rainfall we experience flooding. We don't get much snow where we live, but when we do, it pretty well shuts everything down as people don't know how to drive in it. Growing up in Western PA, I learned to drive in the snow, but most of the southern AZ natives don't know how to drive in it. Being a military town, we also get people living here from all over the world, and many of them don't know how to drive in the snow also. I laughed the first time we saw snow here when we were stationed at Fort Huachuca. During our first winter we had three inches of snow and they closed down most of the fort and sent all but mission-essential people home. Part of the reason for that, though, was because of the driving risk for many people, and the fact that we are not equipped for clearing roads of snow. Still, Janice, I will take our weather over yours. I had enough snow growing up and living in countries where we had heavy snow. Right now, though I will say we are thankful for any moisture we can get, rain here in the valley and snow in the mountains as we only had less than half of our annual rainfall last year, and water shortages are quite possible this year. Our prayers and thoughts are with you. Don in AZ