Snow!

[melannen]

So, as I do live in, you know, the place that has just broken about half of their all-time snow records, we were without power for about twelve hours today, and we're now hoping it will stay on.

I was expecting that when I got back online you would be flooded with snow pictures and sick of them! But no, there hasn't even been anything on urban_nature. So you get to look at mine.

We got very close to exactly 24 inches before it stopped in late afternoon, as near as I can tell, though it's drifted as high as three feet in a lot of places. The landscape passed Thomas Kinkade levels of threat quite a while ago and is now well in to what can only be described as Seussian.

*Nice* snow-fort making conditions, too. I think we may be attempting to build a full-domed snow shelter tomorrow if the freeze holds like it's meant to. Today was half shoveling and half just wandering around marveling at things.









(no, I didn't make Mom do all the shoveling while I took pictures.)






























(The pond is not frozen over, btw. The pond is a giant Slurpee.)


(Not taken by me. As it is of me. And yes, that is a yardstick beside me.)

Comments

[senmut]

Gorgeous pictures. We only had slush here, and it was rather disappointing.

[melannen]

I know a big snowstorm can really mess things up for some people, but I still can't help being \o/ snow!!

(Also all the people north of us who are sad that they haven't got any are entertaining.)

[starlady]

We got 26, officially, though I suspect in my little corner of Jersey it was more.

*crosses fingers for the snow plow*

[melannen]

We haven't seen an official snow plow, but the combined efforts of people with plow attachments for their trucks/tractors and heavy-duty snowblowers got our road relatively passible, at least most of the way, at least for large vehicles, at least if you know what you're doing. Though some of the people with said trucks told us that when you get to the larger roads a few streets out it was still completely impassible as of 6 o'clock.

(Also, the "plowed" road surface consists of about an inch of solid pack ice on top of the blacktop. So, yay.)

[starlady]

I live on a cul-de-sac, and apparently the main roads through our subdivision have been plowed, but there's no way anyone with anything like a sedan (which is the kind of car we have) is getting out. I fully expect that if and when the roads are plowed, furthermore, I'll have to drive them in 2, which is what I had to do the last snowpocalypse. At this point I'm just hoping for the plows by Monday morning.

[melannen]

The local weather website has a poll up asking people to guess when schools will be open. ("Maybe by Wednesday?" is winning, with "Perhaps Friday" in second place. Of course, they're also predicting at least 4-5" more on Tues and Wed...)

[stellar_dust]

SEUSSIAN.

I want it to snow like that HERE. I need to justify having my bike in storage.

[melannen]

Here is a picture of your car! Can you tell?

[lady_ganesh]

We have, like, NO SNOW AT ALL. The world's gone crazy.

[melannen]

That's what happens when you change the fundamental ways the atmosphere works! Yay for WEATHER. I suspect we shall be getting a lot more of it for awhile.

[lady_ganesh]

I suspect you are correct.

[isis]

The photo of the car is kind of adorable.

[melannen]

I call it "Sad Insect in Snow". ^_^

[highlander_ii]

I wanna know what the 'wavy-swoosh' thing is in photo #11... XD

We got about 8-12", which is far more than enough for me. I'm okay with any snow that doesn't land on the roads. Can we train the snow to do that?

[melannen]

It's highway guard rail.

No, really. That's what the snow did to all the guard rails.

(I *said* it was getting Seussian...)

But if it stays off the roads people have to go to work and school! That's no fun. (I would prefer snow that covers the roads for a day or two then melts completely, but never cuts electricity. Way too many people around here have electric-only heat, not much insulation and no backup.)

[highlander_ii]

That's just - wow.

Except that some people - if they can't go to work, don't get paid, hence the needing of snow to stay off the roads.

[melannen]

Yeah, I do know that, and I know some people really can't survive even one day lost pay - a lot of people who I'm working with are in that pickle (in fact, pretty much everyone who's not, like me, living rent-free with a relative.)

But staying home is part of the ritual of snow! We need to have a national snow holiday policy that i's okay to take up to two days liberal leave for a snowstorm even *if* the roads are clear, and then people who need to travel can and the rest can still play. Yes.

[highlander_ii]

We actually got lucky b/c someone came around and scraped off our 2nd-ary road (since the county rarely gets around to it and it's dangerous to drive on our road if it's icy what w/ curves and hills and curvy-hills) so our road was as good as, if not better than the main roads, which was nice.

And I'd be ALL FOR the snow everywhere if I was still in school and it meant snowdays! But, alas, I'm not, so snow is bad.

Mostly, I don't have a problem with driving on snowy roads, I have a problem with all the ppl who don't know *how* to drive on snowy roads out there trying to do so.

But, yeah, I'm all about the snow days if it means getting out of school - or, if you happen to have one of those jobs where they'll actually close if the weather's bad. (I don't have one of those, though, seriously, what is so dire about clothes?)

[elspethdixon]

Da~amn. I'm kind of jealous that the Maryland/Virginia area waited until I'd moved to NYC to have its biggest snowstorm in decades. (I'm glad the power is back, though. The 1995 five-days-without-power ice storm is a vivid childhood memory of mine).

[melannen]

We didn't lose power for any significant time in that storm, but oh, do I remember it. In fact I spent the two weeks we had off school watching bad-reception Star Trek:TOS reruns, so I blame it for the fact that I became the fan I am today. :D

[elspethdixon]

I spent it reading the collected works of Dashell Hammett by hurricane lamp. *grins* We only had four days off of school, though -- my sister and I had to go back to class before our power at home had gone back on.

[waywren]

Nice hat. ♥

[melannen]

Thanks! (It is a wonderful hat. Also, good at keeping snow off glasses.)

[(Anonymous)]

came here from your post in urbannature.

looooooooove. this is what winter is supposed to look like. i live in southern ontario and we've barely had proper snow. it was raining in early january. :(

these photos are lovely though :)

[melannen]

We had a winter a few years ago where we didn't get a real frost until late February. I am so glad when we get a proper one! (It is a shame we seem to have stolen it from up north, though.)

[kyabetsu]

I'm sorry y'all lost power for a while there. Hope you had enough wood in from the pile. Thankfully, we didn't loose power--b/c Artist Alley Reg for Tekko was at 5pm last night. Otakon's tomorrow, btw, at 6pm. I'm on'dis like jaundice. We'll have a table! Yay!

Awesome snow pictures! Your neighborhood looked a lot more 'snowy delight' than my own. (Did I ever make you read Bone?) We got the "2' snow pancake lands on city" treatment. No fancy, lacy trees. No squiggly guard rails. Just "floompnp."

I'm going out for shoveling and photos after lunch.

[melannen]

Yep, we had plenty of wood! And then we let Bowie be in charge of the fire and he burned through it all by early Sat. afternoon, so we made him shovel a path out to the shed to get more. :D

I hope hope hope Farpoint will still happen! Even if we do get dumped on again midweek.

[nike]

Wow. That's never happened where I live. Not because it would never snow that much, but because we're too windy. Drifting has always been our biggest problem in snow storms.

[melannen]

We actually got some drifting, and we had NWS! OFFICIAL! blizzard conditions for about five hours, but yeah, there's too many windbreaks around here for us to get the epic drifting I've seen with even minor storms out toward the midwest. (Also this was fairly wet/heavy snow - we've gotten somewhat more drifting a few times with lighter but drier storms.)