Enough With the Snow Already

Well, here we go again. The Washington, DC area is experience its second “epic” snowstorm this season. Our previous snow in December 2009 brought about sixteen inches by the time it finished.

We were already up to sixteen inches this morning at 8:00 am. Then I took this photograph:

Arlington Snowfall Blizzard February of 2010. Photo by howderfamily.com; (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

You’ll notice a little stick extending above the snow on the upper-right of this image. Yesterday I cut a 28-inch length of wood and pounded it into the ground. Actually I pounded several. We have a flagstone walkway from our front portico to our driveway and it’s difficult to locate and shovel in deep snow. The sticks serve as a guide. I marked this particular stick to measure the snowfall before the storm began. So now I can tell we’re at sixteen inches.

We’re supposed to get anywhere from 5-10 more inches before this is finished. Most likely we should measure high on the Top-10 list for this area in its recorded history. Check back later this afternoon and I’ll post an update and perhaps some more photographs. For any other readers in the Mid-Atlantic area of the United States (and I know there are several of you): please feel free to post your snow totals or adventures in the comments.


UPDATE: 1:30 pm.

We’re at a solid 20 inches at the moment. It’s still snowing although it seems to be slowing up a bit. I took this photo about an hour ago from a distance of less than a block away. It shows two things: the heaviness of the snowfall at its peak and the silliness of some people who think they need to drive around the neighborhood simply because they own an SUV. I watched this crowd work to free the this vehicle for about a half-hour. Fools.

Arlington Snowfall Blizzard February of 2010. Photo by howderfamily.com; (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

We got in about two solid hours of snow shoveling done in anticipation of the plows coming by sometime in the next day or two. I enjoyed simply getting outdoors for awhile.


UPDATE: 9:00 pm.

Yup, topped out at 20-21 inches. I found a really neat interactive map too, showing power outages in real-time. Fortunately we haven’t had to contend with that and the big dig will hopefully commence tomorrow.


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2 responses to “Enough With the Snow Already”

  1. Randolph Clark Avatar
    Randolph Clark

    In Charlottesville.

    Looks like we’ll need two! hairdryers to melt all we have.

  2. Craig Avatar
    Craig

    In Alexandria here. My unscientific method of measuring the snow height using a rigid tape measure after the fact is showing 18″-18½”.

    My shoveling off and on all day has kept the back stairs clear and the front path open, but nothing more.

    Last night, I heard the nasty thud of a large limb falling on my apartment roof. Most of it fell to the ground, but some of it is still lying up on the roof. Several large branches also broke off the tree in our front yard and several more look ready to break soon.

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