Snowpocalypse Now Redux

Up until Saturday I had always thought of 6 inches as a lot of snow. Then we got over 18 inches of snow. We cleared off our cars, the snow plows came through, and by Sunday everything was pretty much back to normal. Normal lasted two days...

Classes at Albright were canceled last night before the first snowflake had fallen and Billie was told that she could work from home. Forecasts varied, with our area placed in the 6-12 inch band on some, the 12-18 inch band on others, and even the 14-20 inch band on one. Still, when we went to bed last night the snow hadn't started here and I thought that the forecasts may have been wrong. This morning when we got up there were about six inches of fresh snow on the ground, with forecasts saying that the worst was yet to come.

Although the snow isn't supposed to stop until sometime tonight we wanted to clear some of the snow off of our cars. When we did there were about 15 inches of fresh snow on them. By the time we had cleared them and shoveled around them a bit there was another inch and a half on top of them. Luckily (I suppose), a weather person in Philadelphia said that the chance of getting three snowfalls of this size in one year (remember, there was a big one in December that we missed because we were on our way to Michigan) is incredibly small and that no matter how old you are this is likely to be the only winter like this in your lifetime. Billie says that means we will always be able to tell stories about "our first winter in Reading." In the meantime, here are some pictures:

Here is the view of the apartment buildings. They plowed a path through the driveway about an hour before this picture was taken.

This is the view down the hill near our apartment (you can see what it normally looks like in the third picture of the "First Snowfall" post).

This is the view the other direction. Billie suggested that we go sledding on the road. Unfortunately, we don't have anything to use as sleds.

This is a view of the freeway through the trees from our apartment complex. You will notice that nobody is driving on it. That is because it is closed.

Snowpocalypse Now

In December there was a big storm and the Mid-Atlantic got a lot of snow. Fortunately, Billie and I left for Michigan the day before the snow arrived. By the time we got back a week later it had all melted. For the past several days the weather forecasters have been predicting another big snowfall. The snow was scheduled to start around 5 pm yesterday and continue through today. Schools and some businesses let people leave at 1. When I got home around 5 last night there were some snow flurries. Still, years of Chicken Little-esque weather forecasts in Indiana have prevented me from accepting forecasts of major snowfall. I thought that maybe we'd get six inches. It turns out that you shouldn't doubt the power of a Nor'easter. Here is what we woke up to this morning:

The view of the walkway that we take to get to the parking lot. We aren't going anywhere anytime soon!

Trees and some piles of snow where cars used to be.

So how much snow is there on the walkway? Only 18.5 inches!

Billie with our cars (we think).