East Coast USA Blizzard Thread

[Bob Schroeck]

So... you will see by the timestamp on this email that it's 2 AM here. We just got back to our hotel from Kat and Joe's place, courtesy of
Scott's 4-wheel-drive pickup truck (in which he picked us up from our hotel this afternoon in the middle of the blizzard). The storm is well and truly
over here (tho' I hear Massachusetts is about to get hit hard), but before it passed it dumped something like 18 inches (40+ cm) of snow in this area. Our
car was completely buried (and still is), which is why we got the pick-up from Scott. It was so bad that it took said 4-wheel-drive vehicle a good 40
minutes-plus to get out of their driveway. So here we are, drinking hot beverages before we crash for the night (and sleep well into the morning), imagining
how much worse it could have been, or how much later.

So, anyone else have any stories of today's weather fun to share?
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[The Wanderer]

Nothing special - we cancelled church service (being as my father's the pastor, we live right next to the church, and even we would have found it disproportionately bothersome to get there), and postponed the church's scheduled celebrations until right after the holiday, and other than that mostly spent the day watching the snow pile deeper and enjoying being snowed in.

I don't have an exact measurement of how much snow hit our area, but looking out the window at the edge of the deck, I can see that it's easily over a foot; it would be hard to get the storm door open. We're planning to spend the day cleaning house and making horseshoe cookies (which online recipes seem to refer to as "sour cream twists").

Fortunately, most or all of our Christmas shipping has already gotten here...

[Dragonflight]

Huh. I look out the window... It's been a foot deep for about a week now. We had all the approaches and roads plowed and snowblown in about a day, and we just work around the snowbanks.
It's not hard. Just dig out the paths you need, put salt down on the icy patches to melt them off, and dress warm.
I should post a few pics of last year. When we almost set centennial snowfall records.

[Edit] Pictures resized to be less obnoxious. Didn't realize I could do that...
---
Those who fear the darkness have never seen what the light can do.

[The Wanderer]

I'm told that yesterday broke a snowfall record in the DC region which was set in 1932, and might have broken a record somewhere else which was set in 1909
- centennial there again.

[Black Aeronaut]

My folks up in Laurel, MD got nicely snowed in. Not that they're entirely unhappy - after enduring winters in Allentown, PA, Rochester, NY, and Chicago,
IL, my folks takes stuff like this well in stride. My mom's only regret is that she left her cellphone out in her car. D'oh!

As for me... well, no snow in the coastal 'burg of Yokosuka, JP. Stupid marine climate.

[Dragonflight]

Just posted my pics up above. This was one snowfall last year near the end of the year. Admittedly it was a huge blizzard, and we took about two days digging
out after it passed. But it almost put us over our centennial high. That still remains with '76 or somewhere around then, when people had to dig tunnels
out their front doors just to get to the driveway or sidewalk.
---
Those who fear the darkness have never seen what the light can do.

[Jeanne Hedge]

Bob Schroeck wrote:

---

So, anyone else have any stories of today's weather fun to share?

Nothing much to talk about here in central Indiana - maybe a half-inch. However, I lived in the Philly area for many years, and went through a
couple major winter storms there too. Unless the snow removal capability over there has greatly improved, I truly feel for you guys.

About this time 3 years ago, though, I lived through 30-inches dumped on southern Indiana. We were literally snowed in - drifts against all the doors
(including the garage). It's not much fun to dig out when you don't have the equipment to do it with. I was shocked when I moved to the far north
suburbs of Chicago and saw how quickly and well they dealt with the stuff there.

Jeanne Hedge
www.jhedge.com

"Believe me, if I have to go the rest of my life without companionship, knowing myself won't be a problem."
-- Gabrielle of Potadeia

[ECSNorway]

Not a whole lot in the upstate-New-York area. Rochester hasn't seen hide nor hair of this. We've had some bad wind days last week, but so far we've
been spared the wrath of Ithaqua.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[HoagieOfDoom]

Vermont got missed entirely; all we have is the inch or so that was already there.

[SkyeFire]

Heh. About 15 years ago, when I was attending college in
Sault Saint Marie, MI (LSSU's campus sits on a hill right where I-75 becomes the International Bridge), we got what must have been close to 6 FEET of
snow in one 24-hr blizzard. On the windward side of the dorms, people were walking in and out the 2nd-story windows on snowshoes. On the leeward side of the dorm, after the snowblowers came through and cut a path, the remaining snow (no piling effect, the
'blowers were throwing it 50-100ft) was above my eyeball level, and I stand 6'1". The National Guard got called up from Detroit to assist in the digging-out efforts. And a month later, when I went home for
Thanksgiving, almost every bulldozer, dump truck, backhoe, and other piece of earth-moving gear in the county were still in play digging the city out (granted, we had more snow after that, but nothing like the Big One).

The good news was, this snow (as is typical for the area) was about as dense as shaving cream -- I had to shovel enough snow to fill a small dump truck
(twice!) to un-bury my car (not even a bump in the snow to indicate where it was, I had to work purely off of memory), and didn't exhaust myself (I'm a
couch spud, I'll admit it). Even so, roofs collapsed all over the city, including the big food court skylight in the mall on the Canadian side.

To be fair, the conditions were a bit unique: SSM sits essentially on the very Eastern tip of Lake Superior, and this storm rolled right down the length of the
lake, picking up moisture as it came. Then to add insult to injury, LSSU sits atop a big pimple of a hill just a few hundred feet inland from the beach, so
the wind had a double-whammy triggering it to dump its load Right There.

SSM was fun, though. After the first major snowfall of the season, you generally drove on the layer of ice atop the pavement for the next few months -- you
wouldn't actually see asphalt until almost March on some streets. And most of the shops downtown had special "snowmobile parking" spots -- there
were people in the surrounding countryside who were effectively snowed in for wheeled vehicles for weeks at a time as a regular thing. One of the Professors
actually skied in the 3-4miles to the office every day with his dog (they apparently moonlighted as an S&R team at
the ski slopes).

[Bob Schroeck]

I dug our car out of the hotel parking lot this morning, and like in Skyefire's anecdote, it was light and fluffy -- it took very little effort to shift a
large amount of snow. Kat and Joe's driveway is still hopeless, though -- they explicitly warned us away from driving over this afternoon. So right now
we're waiting for a pickup to get us over there for the Yule/Solstice dinner/giftgiving/ritual tonight.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[nemonowan]

It could be worse: http://www.markdaviesmedia.com/cold

(You may have already seen it but it is no hoax: http://www.hoax-slayer.com/ice-storm-photos.shtml)

NN

[ordnance11]

Those of us in sunny and relatively balmy (high in 80's) southern california, send our commiseration. Of course, given it rained and was in the 30's a
week ago, that might change!
__________________
Into terror!,  Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell

[Sofaspud]

Yeah, we're supposed to have snow but instead what we have is mud. No, strike that. We have MUD.

We got about four inches dumped on us last week, and every day since then has been pretty much rainy. It's a downpour right now, and has been drizzling
all day.

I'd take the snow anyday. Ugh.

--sofaspud
--"Listening to your kid is the audio equivalent of a Salvador Dali painting, Spud." --OpMegs

[Bob Schroeck]

Back from evening dinner at Kat and Joe's. Their driveway is still all but impassible at the top by the street, although they did manage some digging down
by the front door. They're parking the truck up near the street now, which deprived us of the 40-minute back-and-forthing that so made our early morning
hours last night.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Ankhani]

Not to terrible here. About a foot of snow covering a half-inch of ice. All that's needed is a shovel to keep the path to the woodshed passable, and
we're warm and happy. Snow moved further up north before it totally buried us.
---

The Master said: "It is all in vain! I have never yet seen a man who can perceive his own faults and bring the charge home against himself."

>Analects: Book V, Chaper XXVI

[Foxboy]

And I had NOTHING. I'm disappointed. I needed that snow to wash bird droppings from my car, since all the car washes are closed due to the DAMN IT'S
COLD weather we've had lately.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[Bob Schroeck]

Okay, we're home. And we got back after dark to a driveway that not only had six inches of unshovelled snow, but which had been plowed in multiple times,
resulting in a four foot wall at the street. So we parked at the virtual curb, walked in the mailman's footprints to the front door, and came back out
through the garage in grubbies with the snow shovels. An hour later we could unpack the car.

And now we're waiting for calzones to be delivered.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Black Aeronaut]

Ahh yes. Life goes on, don't it?

[Bob Schroeck]

It does. And the calzones were worth it.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Wiregeek]

This whole East Coast blizzard thing reminds me of the winter I spent in Valdez, where the snow on the side of the streets was over 18 feet high.. we had a
series of galleries chewed out that us kids hung out in and watched traffic cruise by below.

there may or may not have been snowballs thrown at cars, I couldn't swear.
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies

[Black Aeronaut]

Valdez? As in Alaska? Doesn't it always snow like that there?

[Wiregeek]

not always, but frequently.

!!#%!#@$ all the work I've put in snow blowing and sculpting and shaping the snow layout at my place, and it's all !@#!@#% melting, grrrr...
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies

[Black Aeronaut]

*Snorts*

[Star Ranger4]

meh. No snow up here north of San Francisco either, just cold rain. and cold clear... and cold fog...

I miss Los Angeles... I miss grumbling about "Darn, its going to get all the way down to SIXTY tonight.... better get an extra blankey out"
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children