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January 21, 2016

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50mph wind gusts are GREAT for sledding, especially if you have something that you can use as a sail.

And by "great", I mean "really fast and insanely dangerous".

Good point, my 4 year old would love that! But, he's also insane (to date, at least).

This is our first big storm in the new house.

The generator isn't hooked up yet. I'm about to go out looking for firewood.

I anticipate losing power (& internet) at some point on Saturday, getting it back ... PLACE YOUR BETS NOW. This house was without electricity for 4 *weeks* after Sandy.

our forecast in our part of NC is somewhere between 1 and 5 inches by Saturday AM.

we're moving this weekend. movers are scheduled to come Saturday AM.

because nothing about this move can be simple.

Is Gohmert collecting new snowballs already to throw in Congress?

Yay, snow! Welcome to my world!

Last winter I kept the ice dams at bay by filling tube socks with ice melt and placing them strategically about the edge of the roof.

Valleys in particular are prone to melt-water backup, which is what you really want to avoid.

A kindling axe is also handy for breaking up really persistent dams.

There are guys (around here, anyway) who will climb up on the roof with a power-steamer and blast the dams away, but who wants to spend that kind of dough?

Or, just load up on movies, books, batteries, and staple food. If you think you're gonna lose power, fill a (clean!) tub with water. Get a case of wine.

It can be fun, in a windfall-holiday kind of way, as long as the heat stays on.

This might be fun.

https://www.facebook.com/events/1073324589364838/

Stay safe, and think twice before shovelling snow...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-30119410

The rebels on Hoth were wimps. That is all.

Hi Ugh! I was wondering about you.

They've upped our predicted to total to almost 2 ft. Right now for us the snow is very light and blowing horizontally. In rooms (like the master bedroom) with brand-new windows, the outside is completely covered with snow & ice. The old windows, though, are leaking a *lot* -- in the main room the thermostat is set for 67, but the actually temperature is 58. It's definitely time to light the fireplace.

Stay warm Doc Sci. The very dry snow was a savior. As bad as it is it would be ten times worse if it was wet and sticking to everything. Of course, forecast calls for rain showers on Tuesday morning, which is going to create its own kind of mess with this much snow still around.

Over/under on kids getting back to school is Wednesday.

Think we got about 20-22 inches. With drifts in places twice that high. Not over yet but has slowed down considerably. Not looking forward to shoveling out the four foot high plowed in snow at the end of the driveway though. I guess at least our street is plowed.

I've only had to run the dryer 3 times for snowy clothes so far.

ugh: Not looking forward to shoveling out the four foot high plowed in snow at the end of the driveway though.

Boy do I feel your pain. I generally like snow if only because, under a few inches of it, my lawn looks as well-tended as anybody else's. But the berm the plows build across the driveway is a killer. And when the snowbanks on either side get to be shoulder-high after a few storms, the only humane solution would be a bucket loader.

--TP

dr S, sounds like the #1 Spring home improvement project is going to be new doublepane windows everywhere they aren't already. I can testify that they make a serious difference in summer, too.

Stay safe, and think twice before shovelling snow...

Last year, with 9 feet of snow over the course of the winter here near Boston, I finally broke down and hired a guy to shovel us out.

I still clear a path from the driveway to the back yard, but that can wait until I get around to it. Like, maybe May.

I'll be 60 this year, I don't get as much exercise as I should. The last freaking thing I want to do is end up dead because I was shoveling snow.

we got about 3 inches, but it's all sleet and ice. i couldn't shovel it if i wanted to.

just got my car stuck on a tiny little hill. couldn't get out until a couple of guys wandered over from the gas station across the street and gave me a push.

no more driving today!

Meanwhile here in California we are just getting a series of rainstorms (which we desperately need), with temperatures reaching the low 40s at night. Brrr!

Of course, we also are getting a steady stream of small local earthquakes. Mostly just below the threshold where you can actually feel them (or hear the rumble). As opposed to November, when we had a swarm that lasted a month -- 2-3 a day around 3.0. Just a little reminder of why some people are willing to deal with the occasional blizzard, rather than feel the earth move on an unscheduled basis.

So cleek, does this mean your move is postponed?

yep. postponed until Tuesday. the movers wouldn't come out today (don't blame them).

it's a good thing we don't have to be out until Friday!

"How to shovel snow" guidelines say "shovel every few inches, don't let it get too far ahead of you", but *somehow* the shoveling contingent around here didn't want to go out when the snow is falling sideways -- which has been the case all day.

Even though we had a foot of snow by mid-morning, there have been very few power outages in central NJ, the snow's too dry to stick to branches, and the winds are mighty chilly, but not strong enough to knock down a lot of branches given that there are no leaves. Very lucky so far.

Also, those guidelines are useless for me, because when there's a big snowfall, the biggest shoveling challenge at my home is dealing with the compacted snowbank that the plows pile up in an instant at the bottom of my driveway. There's no way to keep ahead of that.

I didn't move a flake of snow today. (I don't think I've even had shoes on my feet at any point today.) The weather will be far more favorable tomorrow. I was lucky enough that the wind was such that the front of my house got far less snow dumped on it than that back. In fact, my cars are completely clear of snow without my doing a thing to make them that way, despite the 2 feet or so of snow that fell.

The snow, it's stopped.

It's gonna be a bright, bright, sunshiny day.

How goes it Doc Sci? I'm wondering how much of this snow is going to end up in my basement. Especially if it rains Tuesday. Yuck.

G'morning Ugh! We have a long, steep, rocky, gravel driveway, which has mostly not been plowed yet. Fortunately, one of the many expensive renovations we did was to make a two-car parking area most of the way down the drive, and that's where we parked the cars on Friday -- with the Subaru nose-out.

Yesterday wore on, and one plower called to say he'd blown his transmission, and the other two didn't call or text back at all, so I suited/booted up, grabbed a cane, and trudged down the drive (1-2 ft most place), through the berm at the road (3-4 ft but so fluffy I sank all the way down), and over to the neighbor's drive, very well-plowed due to their riding plow. The husband eagerly offered to plow our drive up to where the cars are parked -- he obviously loved the opportunity to play with his toy.

So now Mr Dr can get the Subaru out to go to a client, and I'm waiting ... and waiting ... for one of the plowers to get back to me.

I was actually flying home from Florida on Saturday. Tennessee (guessing, based on time into the trip) was absolutely blanketed. The fields in Indiana, on the other hand, got progressively more brownish-white the further North I got.

From what I have read, the blizzard deposited rather less snow in most places than e.g. the blizzard of 1978 did on Indiana, but had a much larger storm surge.

Locally, though, it was as bad. Or possibly a bit worse.

But I still had to go to swim practice. On foot. In the snow. And, yes, uphill both ways.

Speaking of swim practice, my aunt lives in Sea Isle City, NJ. The high tide Saturday morning beat the previous record that occurred during hurricane Sandy. She was posting pictures of big chunks of ice floating down the street in front of her house.

Storm surge is no joke. It's the part of hurricanes that does the most damage.

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