The Mighty Winter Storm, (possibly) Part one

This is what we had pre-storm... by the way he's running, you know Scrappy hasn't had any fun in a while.

We went to the Hump'n'Dump, and hooked up with Roscoe.

"Did you pee here?"
"No, did you?"

I believe Roscoe was the one who gave Scrappy the ninja kick last summer.

 (Note:  It was!  See this post for details!)

They ran, they played... and humped...

So we move on to Sunday morning:

I have honestly never seen snow stick to tree branches like this.

These were at 9 AM  About a half inch to start.  Temp 33.9 degrees.

At 10, we were at 3/4" on the back porch.... but I was about an hour away from a very important epiphany...



We were at around 1 1/4" by 11, and the temp outside had risen about 2 degrees from the 33.9 we started at.  But by 12 it dawned on me that because of all the trees on the back, the snow would get deeper in the front.

By this point we were closing on 2 inches... still not the "inch and a half per hour" we'd been threatened with.

 

 

By about 1 PM, I re-shoveled the back porch and estimated we had around 1 3/4- 2" back here.  There was 2 1/2 out front.  It had already been as warm as it was going to get- 36.5 degrees.

 



By 2, we were at 2 in the back and 3 in the front.  I wasn't feeling too bad about the trip to the parking lot to dig Laurie a space when she got home around three...

 

BUT, it hadn't been plowed from last round, was wet and about a foot deep.  We won't talk about how much I coughed or how much my chest hurt when I got in...

The next door neighbor and her little doggie were working on a snowman, and she told me about the three someone had built out back.

Job done, Scrappy waited for his mommy...

...somewhere on the other side of THAT.

Laurie eventually made it through and I got to warm up about 5 minutes before the next check.  We were 2 1/2 in back and 4 out front.

Once our neighbor's hubby came out, they had this Frosty done by 4 PM.

An hour after Laurie pulled in, an inch and a quarter was on her windshield.

This was the hour that slammed us.  The back was up to 4 3/4; the front was 5 1/2.  I'm thinking it was even worse in the lot.

Temp. hadn't moved much... 33.1.

The slam had added 2 1/4 to the back and 1 1/2 to the front...  but the front would regain the initiative by 5.

They began the plowing of the road and lots at 5... and would snowblow the front at 5:30.

Now we were at 5 1/2 back and 6 1/4 front.   Scrappy was tired from all his "help" shoveling....

...so Mommy had some fun with him.  Little did she know what was in store for her....

Between  5 and 6, the back went up another 1/2" and the temp dropped 4 1/2 degrees to 25.9. 

Still coming down pretty good at this point.  But both Mommy and Beagle had dozed off...

...and I got 'em!

At this point it was getting dark for pics, and the snow was slowing down.  A level one emergency was declared, meaning nobody travels unless an emergency.   The temp had stabilized, only losing 3 degrees in three hours, as the snow slowly creeped towards the 9 inch mark out front.

Even Frosty had about three inches on his nose by 9 PM.

However, where we are, we haven't got the wind yet.  A few miles to the south, though, in the open country, winds are in the 20-30 mph range.   I have the police and emergency scanner on, and we just listened to a mad race by three emergency vehicles trying to reach a 5 month old that needed hospital transport.  One vehicle's driver had a friend that lived nearby and plowed them a path;  the closest vehicle said he didn't know "if I'm even on the road..."  Moments ago, another responder said he "had just spoken to the county, and they weren't even going to have any (snowplow) drivers come in until morning."  So for every idiot who gets what he deserves sliding off when they aren't legally supposed to be ON the road (For example, two slideoffs in the last two hours within 1.3 miles of where Laurie had to drive home), there's a lot that is NOT amusing here.