Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Let It Snow…

This past weekend I was down in New Jersey at my niece’s for Christmas with the whole family. I went down on Friday and I knew there was a chance of snow late Sunday night, but as the weekend progressed, the forecast became much more ominous. On Sunday morning they were now calling it a major blizzard and warning were up all along the East Coast. I had originally planed on leaving around one to beat the snow; however, they were now saying the snow was going to begin in the AM. We came from all over the East Coast; my sister-in-law’s sister and her family had to drive back to eastern Virginia, my nephew and his wife flew up Asheville, they were returning on Monday. My other nephew drove down from northwestern Connecticut and they were planning to return also on Monday. My youngest nephew and his wife live in Brooklyn and they were taking the train back in the evening. My sister-in-law’s sister and her family and I decided to flee as soon as possible, leaving around eleven. It turned out the heading south traveling wasn’t as bad as traveling north, most of the storm had past by then and they only had moderate snow.

When I left a little before eleven, it was just starting to snow, when I got to the Tappan Zee bridge the snow was coming down at a fast pace and on the way up I-684 the highway was covered with the only bare pavement were the tire tracks. Up near the intersection of I-84 I followed sanding trucks. In Connecticut, the roads were better until I got to Southbury and Middlebury and then once again only the bare pavement was in the tire tracks. By the time I got to Waterbury Mountain (back here in Connecticut, our mountains are under a 1000 ft, but the change in elevation can make the difference between freezing and melting on the roads), the snow was coming down heavily and was drifting across the road covering it. Down in the valley the roads were much better all the way home.

We had about 10” of snow and my nephew in northwestern Connecticut had about 14”, while my niece had around 30” of snow. This time lapse video was taken near where she lives.
I remember when I was young, we had one waist deep storm after another, but then one day I realized that when you ten a ten-inch snow storm is waist deep. However, if you are listing the all time blizzards my number one blizzard is the 1978 blizzard on February 6 and 7. For me the day stated out with a forecast of only a couple of inches (the article said that they forecasted the storm, but I don’t remember that. I thought it caught us be surprise) and before noon we already had over six inches on the ground and the wind was starting to blow the snow horizontal. I left work at lunch and the normal half hour drive home was over an hour, those who left work after me almost never made it home. At one o’clock, we had over a foot on the ground and when the snow finally stops the next day, we had over two feet of snow. The governor called a state of emergency and they closed down the state on Friday. There we five and six foot drifts across the road and they plowed the roads with a bulldozer. One of our neighbors died shoveling snow. (you can read a story about the storm in the Hartford Courant)

A major storm that I remember was an ice storm, I don’t remember the date but it must have been in the ‘60s we went several days without power. All the trees were bent over from the ice load, the wires were down on our street and we huddled around the living room fireplace to keep warm and to cook. We also had to drain all the water in the pipes to keep them from freezing.

In 1998, in New Hampshire where we have our cottage, they had a major ice storm that left the trees coated with 3” of ice and many areas were without power for weeks in the middle of January. To this day when I look around the lake, I can see the damage that the storm did to the forest. Friends coming up to the cottage ask why all the treetops are broken off. (WMUR)

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