The Not Really A Blizzard Blizzard

Basically there was so much wind the snow was blown into drifts which had the effect of compacting the snow.

I am bushed! I know my job isn’t physical labor, but today it was very draining. I started around 1:00 PM and went until 11:35 PM.

A lot of people do a whole lot more. How do you do that?

From a meteorologist’s standpoint today was very interesting. I know now there’s no way I could have predicted snow accumulations accurately. I think most people caught on to that viscerally. Basically there was so much wind the snow was blown into drifts which had the effect of compacting the total.

This is one of those cases where one plus one doesn’t equal two! It was possible to have an inch of snow one hour, an additional inch the next and end up with under an inch of snow!

How many feathers does it take to fill a bag? Similar quandary.

The wind was… still is at this hour… crazy. We seldom get 50 or 60 mph winds, but we did tonight and they were widespread.

I spent the my time on the air telling people to stay off the roads, but by the time I left the building the snow had temporarily let up and I made a dash for the house in Helaine’s 4WD SUV.

I took city streets instead of my usual missile flight up I-91. The main streets were plowed but very slippery. Once I turned onto the squiggly road that climbs my hill things became a little more dicey. The last half mile to my house had no visible tire tracks!

By the way, I stopped the car to take these photos. With all of you at home stopping in-the-middle of the road was no problem. Thanks.

Actually, I take that back. At one stop I had a little difficulty regaining my traction. A quick shift to reverse and a few feet of rollback solved the problem.

We had blizzard warnings tonight and certifiably rotten conditions. What we didn’t have (as I warned in a post a few days ago) was a blizzard! The official parameters are so stringent I’m not sure we ever could!

Maybe blizzard needs to be redefined.