At 6 AM I couln’t get out to the street over my driveway – the snow was higher than the bottom of my car. Our plow (the condo association hires a service) came through at 7, allowing me to get to the street and get stuck there. Couldn’t get as far as the corner, the street hasn’t been plowed at all yet. Stupid of me to even try without checking the condition of the street first.
Anyway, it took me 20 minutes of back and forth just to get back to my own parking space.
The wind is coming at me right off Lake Michigan at about 45 MPH, adding a layer of lake effect snow, and the snow is horizontal. 4 foot drifts are scattered around patches of bare earth. I didn’t even try to drive to work. Visibility is pretty minimal, I can’t even see the damn lake.
I got to work just in front of the storm that the Weather Network has been warning us about. Roads were centrebare to snow-covered with light drifting. We’ll see what it’s like to go home.
My husband plowed the driveway with the skidloader and got out. He made it to work but was in 4wd in his truck. By the time I wanted* to leave the driveway was closed up again. I called the office, one person was there. I have no idea why we are open today. I told them I would see them monday.
I suppose we’re lucky here. Too far away for lake effect, no high winds. But the snow was falling very heavily – between 6 and 730 at least another 2" of snow came down on my car.
I do, however, expect to be sent home at just the moment when travel is most hazardous.
There’s a line of thinking I just don’t get. “The streets are slippery and visibility has dropped to zero. Everyone get in your cars!”
ETA: My manager just asked me when I thought I’d be leaving today. I told her that I planned on going when it was most dangerous to do so. She said that sounded like a good plan.
The news is reporting that I-94 on and off-ramps are being closed all the way from Racine to the Mitchell interchange because they’re so dangerous. And my company still wants us in at 9am. Yeah right.
Nothing yet, but NOAA is calling for 10 to 16 inches in this part of New York through tonight. I don’t need to get into my car until Tuesday, however. And I have enough food, the wood for a serious renovation project, and all three Netflix disks in my cold little hands.
Seattle and its environs are all but paralyzed. All schools are closed.
It snowed 3-8" and even though the freeways are clear, the side streets are still icy. The temperature won’t get above freezing today, so even though we don’t expect more snow until Sunday, there won’t be much activity here.
I can walk to the train, and the trains are running, so I’m at work. My workplace (hospital/clinic combo) pretty much never shuts down, and anything that might be bad enough to shut it down would probably create enough health problems as well that we’d get called in on an emergency basis anyway.
So watching the news this morning with them wailing, “If you don’t have to go out, don’t go out!” I sulked about it, and then headed out the door to slog through the snow to the train.
The texture made it feel like I was walking over those large, soft sand dunes instead. It was gritty, and my feet would slip down and back.
I can’t complain about it at home, though. My husband is a US Postal Service carrier, who spends nearly half his day outside, walking from house to house. So any complaints more than a “yuck” coming in the door tend to - understandably! - get a response of what exactly that was like to deal with for hours.
My office just announced we’re closing at 1pm. We expect about 6-12 inches. This probably means that everyone in the whole metro-Boston area will be on the roads starting at 1, just when the storm is hitting us.
It was slow going, but I left for work at 5:45am so I had the roads pretty much to myself the whole way here. I just buckled in, cranked up the symphonic death metal and pretended I was a fighter plane from hell.
Apparently fighter planes from hell have a top speed of just under 30mph.
The freezing rain started coming down pretty hard on the way to work today. There is about a half inch layer of ice in the parking lot now, so I may be trapped at work.
Me and my wife. Supposed to get 10 inches between 4am and 4pm. We’re well on our way. I hear we already had five inches by 8:30. My wife heard that every major freeway had accidents on it this morning by 6:30. Being 9 months pregnant, she decided to call off. Didn’t want to risk giving birth in a snow bank.
I can get out and about, but the last two days going to the office in Seattle wasn’t an option. I haven’t looked outside today, but today is a normal telecommuting day.