A foot of snow or more of snow does most certainly not happen every year. We do not routinely have to dig our cars out with snow shovels. I am used to driving in snow, and will probably attempt to make it to work (a little under 2 hours from now), but the streets are just solid white, and I am not optimistic. Buses in Allegheny County have been completely shut down, which is unheard of, and they are advising all but emergency services personnel to stay home.
This snow storm has been downplayed in some minds because of the weather people hype everything else.
Seriously… 24 to 30 inches of snow is dangerous. It gets you a little nervous when you have a sick child and you are truly trapped.
We can, and do, make fun of all these little storms that delay our lives by a few hours, and suffer from weather-people hyperbole… but this is a dangerous storm. If I lost power right now, it wouldn’t be a joke.
Snow storm 1875 Wisconsin.
Train from Portage to Madison
Snow storm in 1881 Sheboygan, Wisconsin.
8th Street
Snow storm in 1881 Whitewater, Wisconsin.
First Street to it’s intersection with Main Street.
Snow storm in 1899 Hurley, Wisconsin.
Tunnel through snowbank.
I had to link this one because of the equipment and the name of the business in the background.
Samoniel Hardware store and Victrola Parlor.
Meanwhile in the Pacific Northwest, daytime temperatures are in the mid-50s. It’s only snowed once this season, and the four inches I got at my house melted the next day. There is less rain than usual for this time of year, and the forecast shows sunny days.
¡Viva El Niño!
In the December storm, Philly officially got 23" – though nowhere but the airport actually seemed to get that much, I got maybe 8 or 9 inches. So I was totally “yeah yeah” to the predictions of a foot or more from this storm.
Wrong-o, Mary Lou. Woke up unable to see out the windows because they were covered with snow that had blown against them and stuck. Looks to me like we’ve had at least 10" so far, and it’s still coming down hard.
settles in with cocoa and the Dope
I haven’t gotten an “inch count” here yet but it’s spectacular. Cars in the parking lot are just gentle humps in the smooth surface.
The condo’s resident handymen burned out the motor of the snow-blower last night. It’s self-propelled and too heavy to lift, so they can’t even move it off the sidewalk now. It’s just been abandoned to be covered up.
A new and terrifying threat has emerged. Trapped in the house, my wife has announced that it’s a good idea to spend the weekend vigorously cleaning and organizing everything from top to bottom. Across the region, everyone will be settling in with cocoa, computers, videos, and all sorts of fun stuff, and I’ll probably be on my knees scrubbing grout with a toothbrush or something.
.
My wife had the same idea. Yesterday, as the snow began falling: “Well, since we’re going to be trapped in the house all weekend you can finally get around to re-caulking the tub, cleaning the office, etc…” Curse you snow for making me do honey-dos!
I’d be interested to see some “real pics” if any of you can get around to posting them. Sounds sort of like fun and sort of like a pain in the butt. Make the best of it. Maybe a nice bottle of wine, some candles and a Barry White CD can get you out of the honey-does?
i’m watching 29 news in philly, the mayor is hanging out in rittenhouse square, wearing a very colourful outfit full of “give me” 29 hat, city year jacket…
one neighbour across the street used his wee son as a measuring stick to take pics his son is 29" and he was up around his shoulders in snow. we have a lot of drifting on this wee street.
i thought i would get to the “to do” list, but i love watching the frothing local news. maybe i’ll knit as i read and watch. 29 is commercial free! just lots of footage of people walking around in the snow and kids playing in it. one kid did a cannonball in a snow drift in rittenhouse sq.
i showed the cats some snow, they were not impressed.
why are they even bothering to say the malls will open? who will get there? really, i’m not sure i’ll go out to the corner store. why would people dig out of house, dig out the car and go to the malls or shudder “the gallery”?
I wonder if it’s the sort of situation where snow removal equipment could be quickly transported south from snowier cities or even from up here.
Good luck! (More than a decade ago Toronto needed the Army to help them dig out after a blizzard, and we still haven’t let them live it down.)
Damn, if only I’d read Shibb’s request 30 seconds earlier – I grabbed the camera and headed for the front porch, but I wasn’t in time to catch the guy skiing down my street. (Yeah, really, skiing. I’ve seen plenty of kids sledding down my street over the 20 years I’ve lived here, but never anyone skiing.)
Anyway, here is what it looks like in Philly around 11 AM.
We are at around 22 inches in the NoVa suburbs of DC. I have shovelled twice and expect about four or five more shifts. I don’t expect I will have work again until maybe Wednesday. Last storm it was five days until the plows made it to our street.
Fortunately I dropped $325 at the grocery store on Thursday and there is good food and seven bottles of wine to tide us over.
Can’t you and the dogs outvote her?
By my estimate we have at least two feet out there and it isn’t stopping yet. Bleah, I have a long long driveway and no snowblower - and people coming tomorrow night for the Super Bowl. Tomorrow is gonna suck.
My boyfriend lives in an apartment complex in MD, and he cleared snow off of the wrong car because he couldn’t tell which one was his! He’s coming out here tomorrow (in his four-wheel drive, stick shift car equipped with blizzard tires) to help me unearth my car.
We have 2ft of snow in the DC suburbs right now, and the drifts are impressive. I can’t even see our trash can out back, and I had to shove my way out the front door because the drift was holding it shut. I realize that I shouldn’t find this situation problematic, since I’m from Montreal and everything, but in Montreal they’re prepared for this stuff. They plow the roads and haul the snow away. and families have more than one shovel so everyone can go get their asses to work clearing the sidewalk. People say “fuck this, I’m not driving” and take the bus and Metro to work. I’m still adjusting to this new way of seeing snow, as a terror paralyzing a city.
I should have shovelled last night because now it’s a LOT of work and I’m not sure our cheap shovel is going to cut it. The plastic’s already creaking. I’ll post some pics later today - for now the priority is trying to find my car. And if I give up on that project (which, frankly, is quite likely) I’ll head to the kitchen to bake.
It’s still coming down hard. We’ve got around two feet so far. Earlier, some men with snowthrowers and serious shovels came around to help dig out.
I think I’ll fix lunch and start making cookies.
Our snow shovel is on the deck right by the kitchen door…need to tackle shoveling the deck so that I can open the gate and then make my way out to the front walk.
Just eyeballing it–the snow on the deck and porch is definitely past my knees. We haven’t seen any sign of plows yet this morning, though I thought I heard some yesterday evening.
For people who want to see pics, there are tons on the We Love DC flickr pool: Flickr: The We <3 DC Pool
I have a few pics and will upload them later…right now, I can’t actually get out of the house to take more shots!
From my bedroom window: Parking Lot - my car is the 2nd lump to the right of the pickup truck
From my living room: My balcony – you can see I’ve ventured out once already
Southern MD, near Columbia