The past week could best be described as "the heart of winter"; years from now hopefully our grandchildren will tell their grandchildren, "what a real winter used to look like" and they will use memories of this week as a reference. Our conditions this week were Near Normal with 1.08" of precipitation falling over all 7 days as 19.9" of snow. The week had a snowpack ranging from 5" to 11.5". Daily high temperatures this week were way below seasonal average, except Wednesday where it got to 28F; and this weekend highs were in single digits with lows subzero, getting as low as -19F Saturday morning!. Winter icy conditions and low visibility caused by blowing snow resulted in many traffic accidents with multi-vehicle pileups, head-on collisions, slide-offs and injuries on local roads and freeways. Many schools in western Michigan including our local schools were closed all week due to hazardous weather. I hate to think what shocks our next energy bills will bring. Many birds have been seen daily at our bird-feeder and water bath. We have been warned that potential ice jams on the Kalamazoo river could result in potential flooding.