Tag Archives: storm

Snow All Day

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We got the call yesterday afternoon. School would be closed. Work was closed. We weren’t going anywhere. And we stuck to that. And it snowed all day. OK, it did stop for a brief time, maybe an hour, but otherwise it fell and fell. It falls still. The stuff is deep. Typically we get the “January thaw,” a period of warmish weather above freezing. That is when the basement floods and the snow turns to slush and all the dirt starts to show. But not this year. It stayed cold and we got lots snow.

We kept the fire going in the woodstove and cozied up. I made pancakes for breakfast and zucchini bread for the afternoon. I took the failing produce in the refrigerator and made some soup stock. I made homemade macaroni and cheese for dinner. I kept the house warm by cooking.

We skied in the field and sledded on the hill and dug tunnels. We made roads for toy trucks and fell backward into the poof. We had a good time, outside and inside. My gauge for the depth of snow is the snowman my son and I made recently. Here is how it played out:

The Benchmark: Four Days Ago, Just Born

1:19 PM: Snowing Like Stink

4:20 PM: Still More Snow

5:32 PM: Snowing Like Stink Again

And it is forecast to snow all night. Sleep tight, Snowman!

Update 2/3:

8:11 Next Morning: Good Thing He Has That Pipe

Update 2/5: More snow is forecast for today, but our snowman, in the meantime, has some sun to take in:

February 5, 8:22 AM: Melting Has Begun But More Snow Coming

Update 2/6: Lots of snow last night again–snowman buried after I found the hat blown into the trees:

February 6, 8:06 AM: Put Your Hands in the Air...

Zero and Snow

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The temperature is, right now, zero degrees. It was cold today, high of eleven, but it is colder now. Below zero is what we will get tonight. I don’t want to harp on the weather. I mean, people talk about the weather a lot. It is a topic we all have in common. Strangers talk about it with each other. People with strained relationships talk about it. Long time friends talk about it. Of course, more people complain about it than talk about it, but still, I love weather. When it gets down to zero, I get excited. Below zero? It’s like a party at our house.

We also have some snow on the way. My wife is a weather junky. She doesn’t just check the forecast more than most people; she reads the detailed forecast discussion. This discussion is the chatter amongst meteorologists. They have their own language and she understands it. Here is an excerpt, referring to Tuesday into Wednesday:

AS OF 348 PM EST MONDAY...WK BOUNDARY MVS EAST OVER SOUTHERN NEW
ENGLAND DURING THE DAY TUESDAY. EXPECTING SNOW TO OVERSPREAD CWA
FROM S TO N BY MIDDAY. HEAVIEST MDL QPF TOTALS REMAIN TO THE
SOUTHERN ZONES IN PROXIMITY TO PASSING FEATURE. GOING FOR 1-3"
NORTH AND UP TO 2-4" SOUTH...WITH MAIN FOCUS OVER HIR TRRN. MDLS
TRENDING TOWARDS BREAK IN PRECIP BY MIDNGT WED BFR MAIN SURGE OF
SNOW BEGINS FROM LARGER LOW TOWARDS 09Z-12Z WED. THIS LOW WILL
TAKE SIMILAR TRACK AS PREVIOUS FEATURE...OVERSPREADING CWA BY 18Z
WED WITH LARGE QPF PLUME.

See what I’m saying? She gets this stuff. That is why I rely on her to keep me in the loop. The forecast changes enough that I think I know what is going on but I am often relying on old (like several hours old) predictions. She updates me when I have no idea, which is more often than I should admit. I do keep up on the forecast quite a bit, mind you, but I’m can’t say I’m sure what a “QPF plume” is.

The actual forecast calls for 8-14 inches of snow where we live over the next couple of days. That would be pretty sweet, if you ask me. Could be a snow day. Of course, a snow day for me is a hassle, as I have to rearrange my work schedule, but I’ll take it anyway. And it won’t be quite so cold. No blizzard for us, just plenty of that fluffy white stuff to keep things beautiful and to play in.

It is sometimes hard to believe that spring is only a couple of months away. I ordered seeds yesterday. At some point all this beautiful snow will melt and I will turn the soil and plant spinach and peas. Until then, however, I am going to slip on my ski boots and enjoy it while we’ve got it. Although, admittedly, I will probably wait until we get at least into single digit temperatures before I head outside.

Foliage For Now

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Not Bad, Eh?

Things are popping around these parts at this point. Yesterday and today were just simply glorious, fabulous, lovely, or whatever other descriptors I don’t typically use to describe, well, anything really. I was out early this morning and, once again, was reminded that I live in a beautiful place. It is always beautiful, and it is easy to take that for granted at times, but on days like today–hoo boy what a stunner.

A big fat rainstorm is predicted to hot tonight. We might get a couple of inches of rain, winds with 50 mile per hour gusts and cold temperatures.  My guess is we will have few leaves left at which to gawk when it has passed.  So it goes, however. We still have some fall left. And then, welcome winter. Once it snow, we will have a whole new wonder upon us.

Snowing Like Stink

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Snowing Hard

This is what it looked like this morning when we rose. It was snowing like stink. It was snowing hard last night as well. And check out this vehicle:

Loaded Car, Early in the Day

This was way back this morning when we looking at getting two feet of snow by the end of the day. Now it looks like we will get three feet of snow. It is after 3:00 now and it is still falling like the devil. It has been snowing for a long time now. Yesterday, all last night, all day today. We have maybe two and a half feet of snow now and we will likely get another six inches or so. Nuts. Check out the same view later in the day:

More Snow on the Car, Afternoon

The plow crew will be out today all day, maybe all night. I can only imagine them barely keeping up with it. We are in some kind of weird snow belt with this weather system. Usually we are not the spot to get the most snow, but this time around that is just the case. It keeps falling and falling.

Town Plow Getting the Job Done

And here’s one more, trail in the snow with intent to create smiles. Happy New Year with this storm. We might have a snow day tomorrow. It won’t affect me, as I have a day working at home planned, but it gets me excited anyway. Here’s hoping we break some snowfall records.

Love the Snow. You?

Chilly End of the Year

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Midday and it is only 12 degrees. I wait at home for the “sanitation” truck to arrive. After lots of moisture in our basement and lots of ruined stuff, we are ready to dispose of things. I hate to just pitch all this stuff, even if it is mildewed and too soggy to salvage, but here we are–the American Way, baby. The truck was supposed to arrive some time before 1:00. I’m still waiting. It was 0 degrees when we rose. The sun warmed things a little but now that is hiding.

Yesterday our high temperature was 8 degrees. I blew off running. The wind was, I don’t exaggerate, howling. It was blowing snow around and generally cooling things off in a frigid like manner. It was dangerous weather. I have run in weather like that, but I was warm inside, reading a good book. I had tasks to do. I didn’t go anywhere. I was going to run by now, but the trash pick up is still pending. Once that happens I will suit up and head out. Maybe it will be 15 degrees by the time I go.

We had snow a couple of days ago. See:

Falling Thick

Things have calmed down a bit. We may get some more snow. I was hoping the Nor’easter that has been shaping up would slam us with snow, but that looks unlikely now. We are considering skiing tomorrow. Squeeze in some runs on my new skis before the year turns. We’ll see. Friends are coming to ring in the new decade (or the last year of this one, depending on how particular you want to be). I am hoping that they will get a fresh blanket of white. That would good of us as hosts. Their arrival time will determine whether we have time to ski.

In the meantime I wait for the truck to haul away our American waste. And wait. At some point I will run. At the moment I am going to toss another log on the fire and pick up a magazine. Once I am comfortable I am sure I will have to get up.

Snow and Camera Practice

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The forecast called for snow and we got it. It just came too late. It’s like this. I woke up at 5:30 and looked out the window. It was not snowing. “Oh well,” I said to myself. “No snow day today.” Then I suited up and strapped on my headlamp for an early morning run. By the time I got out there, about 5:50, it was snowing. At mile one it was snowing hard. At mile two it was snowing so hard I could see only about ten feet in front of me. After the turnaround point I was surprised to see, or not see, that my tracks had disappeared already. My thinking by the time I got home? It would be insanity not to have a snow day.

Alas, the decision had already been made. The school to which I was headed to day had decided by about 5:30. So instead of all of us staying home together–family time by the fire, baking cookies, playing outside, reading holiday stories–we all headed to four separate schools. Driving was iffy but we all made it to our respective centers of learning and back without any scratches. That works out better workwise–no work to make up–but a day at home, even if I were working at least part of it, would have been a gift with this head cold of mine.

We got a good deal of snow. Of course, it is now raining, but one can’t ask for too much now can one? On another note, check out these picks my daughter took this afternoon. Maybe you might say they look fuzzy or odd but I say she has a good eye.

Macro of Technology

Self Portrait with Dad

Snow on the Ground

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This morning it was snowing. It was kind of a bummer of a morning to fail to rally to get up early for a run, but my head was squeaking from all the pressure in my sinuses. I stayed in bed. There was white stuff on the ground, so we were all happy to look out and see it in the morning light. My son was literally jumping up and down in front of the window shouting, “My dream came true! My dream came true! It snowed last night! It snowed!” He was happiest to see the new precipitation it seemed.

It was coming down hard for a while, especially when it came time to drive. That was a bit of a snow and slippery event. Here is a shot of the scene before we fired up the old automobile:

Finally, some snow on the ground

By the afternoon, it had cleared. In fact, it was a stunning day. Check out Camel’s Hump, all decked out in her December finest:

Perfect December Day

Tomorrow we are looking to get some more weather. Snow is predicted to fall overnight and make morning driving a little sketchy again. We shall see. I never want to get excited for the possibility of a storm. I have been disappointed too many times. At least here. When we lived in the mountains we had the opposite situation–we would get lots of snow when only a little was forecast. But one can’t have it all. We never had the view above when we lived up high. I do hope we get more snow tonight. I will try to keep my fingers crossed, even when I am awake in the wee hours blowing my nose. Ah, winter.

Slow Storm

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All day rain has hinted that it might arrive.  The sun shone early but even then clouds loomed in the west.  I dried a load of clothes on the line and hung a second later in the day than I wanted.  Nonetheless, the second batch got mostly dry before I gave up watching the sky and took it down.  I needn’t have bothered, as the rain held off and the clothes on the line would have dried just fine before the rain started.  Even now, hours later, the rain falls sporadically.

Thunder rumbles to the west and north.  It, too, has been threatening arrival.  Our house is nestled up to a knoll just to our west so we don’t always see weather arriving until it is close.  This storm is a slow mover so we have known of its approach for hours.  So far it’s all talk.  The radar map shows some heavy rain over the hill, but it seems to be managing to avoid us.  Was it something I said?

The children, of course, have some trepidation about a storm arriving when they are in bed.  They find it hard to fall asleep, even though no storm is here and it may not arrive at all.  They lie awake, wondering how hard it will hit, wondering what we will all do if the power fails, wondering what damage will result if the wind howls.  Their imaginations exaggerate.

Rain would be good.  I did not water the garden today, thinking rain would fall at some point.  It seems to be taking a while to get around to it.  Next Tuesday I plan to scout out a second Mountain Birdwatch route on Burnt Rock Mountain.   I saw that the route was open and I enjoy my route on Ricker Peak so much that I figured I would try to fit in a second one.  Problem is I need to find the points in the light so that when I hike up in the dark I will be able to find them when I survey the route for real.  Rain tonight would be great, but on Tuesday it would be a bummer.

The light fades and rain trickles down.  The clothes are in.  The children will drift off soon enough.  The day quiets.  And the storm sidles its way across the Champlain Valley.  Sooner or later it will settle in right here.

Wretched Driving

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I’ve done some driving in bad conditions. More than once I have driven in weather so bad that I stopped driving to spend the night in the middle of wherever. I have seen snow on the road.

Driving from Connecticut to Maine one time the visibility was so poor we couldn’t see the road and had to spend the night at a random hotel. Before I moved to Burlington we spent a day apartment hunting in a snowstorm. The drive back from the queen city was a slow slog on the interstate with swirling snow and cars off the road. A long drive.

Yesterday I drove from Milton to Hinesburg. That was not a speedy drive. I left later than I had planned. Get a little more work in, you’ve been there, no? I was in a windowless room, so I had no cues to how the weather had become so fierce. The snow was heavy on the car when I brushed it off and packed on the roads.

I made two stops before I hit the interstate, so I had time to consider whether I should even take the interstate. Would it be better to travel on roads where others would drive more slowly? Or should I just take the most direct route? Popping in for toilet paper (stocking up for the storm!) then filling the tank with gas (and getting a warm cup of decaf) I decided to go for the big road.

It was some of the most dreadful driving I have encountered, pretty much ever. It is not a drive for which I would have opted if I were leaving home rather than heading toward it. The worst moment of my journey last night was on a bridge, a semi passing me on the left and whooshing a cloud of snow so dense I could just see my hood. When I could see a little more clearly I was way too close to the guardrail.

I moved over soon enough.

When I finally exited that four lane highway, slowly, behind another (or perhaps the same) semi, a car too close behind me, on the icy exit ramp, I was somewhat relieved. Then I had to navigate traffic. To travel about two miles on Dorset Street took me at least an hour. I was passing the mall, along with all that other strip development, and it was the final Friday before Christmas, but still, those traffic lights slowed me down lots. The keystone light on Kennedy Drive must have cycled red and green twenty times before I drove through it.

I did make it home. The car was coated in ice and snow. I was too hot (I had to keep the heater blasting to keep the windshield from icing–it was 7 degrees out there!). I needed to take a leak. I was hungry. It was dark and late after a long work day. But I was home to a warm house and a beautiful wife and some smiling children and pizza hot from the oven.

I ran the gauntlet, and the reward was great. It is enough to make this man happy. Last night, the snow falling heavily through the darkness, I slept well. And in the morning, the snow kept falling.

Snow Still Falling in the Morning

Snow Still Falling in the Morning

Snow Day Tomorrow?

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I have been watching the weather closely today.  Supposedly we are getting a big storm.  It will start snowing some time tonight.  It was forecast to have started snowing by 4:00.  Didn’t happen.  Now the National Weather Service says it will start by 7:00.  That is right about now.  All the predictions say we are looking at half a foot of snow.  I hope so.

Problem is, I am scheduled to work at a high school tomorrow.  If we get a snow day, or even a delay, I need to reschedule.  That won’t be simple.  Every day the rest of this month is booked for me.  So I have the classic dilemma.  On one hand, lots of snow means poor driving which means (potentially) no school tomorrow which, as noted, will be a pain the snowplow.  On the other hand, it could be a snow day.  I mean, no school.  How great is that?

OK, the down side of the snow day thing and the excitement of no school is that I still have to work.  I have plenty to do and I will need to do it, even if I take a break to sled with the children for a bit.  But still, no school.  Sleeping in a little.  Making a snowman.  Hot chocolate after getting cold and frosty.  That is plain old good stuff.

I look forward to waking up and seeing what we’ve got.  I will be checking my school’s web site first thing.  My curiosity will keep me from sleeping in after all.  I’ll crank up the fire and sip an espresso drink and get down to work while my wife takes the children outside.  Or, if the storm fizzles, I will head to school.  I suppose that wouldn’t be so bad.

But we might have a snow day.  Yeah baby.