December 2009 Blizzard

So I got up this morning at 6 and called the main number for the local work office to see if we were open.  Imagine my surprise when I discovered that they’d made the wise decision to close.  Let me explain exactly why that was such a good decision.  By 6am, we’d gotten the vast majority of our snow out of the system.  In this area, (where it dumped the most in southern Wisconsin), snow totals were in the 15+ inch range, with the high total being reported at 18.9, but the weather guys are pretty sure there are some local totals of over 20 inches still unreported.  Those numbers are even more impressive because it wasn’t the light fluffy snow they were expecting – it was instead the heavy wet "heart attack" snow.  When we get heavy wet snow, our totals tend to be lower because the heavy wet snow uses up more of the available moisture.  Goes to show just how potent this system was and just how available the Gulf of Mexico was for business.  That’s why "hook" systems can dump a lot more snow than clipper system.  Hook systems can tap into Gulf Moisture whereas Clipper systems can’t.  The official snow total in Madison was 14.1 inches.  The storm pretty much shut down the entire city of Madison, from the state offices to all of the local schools to even UW-Madison (something that NEVER happens). If I had to guess, I’d say where I live, we got somewhere around 14-16 inches of snow.  The snow in the backyard’s deeper than that in places, due to drifting.

So thanks to my office closing, I had a snow day today.  Honestly I didn’t do much and it was great.  I had thoughts of doing the gingerbread house today, but ultimately decided not to.  I did help clear the driveway and then my dad and I did take some pictures of the snow and the piles and I’ll get them posted tomorrow.  Surprisingly enough, our street got plowed fairly early today – about 7:30 this morning.  The village used a modified bulldozer to do it, and in the process plowed us in – and that of course made it harder to plow our driveway later.  But it’s done now and hopefully we won’t have to do much with it in the morning.  The streets are plowed now, but will be slick through probably Saturday.  The streets have a layer of ice (that was slush and is now frozen) and packed snow that will stay until we warm up above 15 degrees. Unfortunately, the salt mixture they use to get rid of the snow and ice doesn’t work when it’s colder than 15 degrees.  If we’re lucky, we’ll see 10 degrees tomorrow.  We might see 16 degrees on Friday, but I’d bet it’s Saturday before the streets are completely back to normal.  In any case, it’s going to be cold tonight and even colder on Thursday night.  Right now we’re under a wind chill advisory from 3am tonight through noon tomorrow.

Seriously, that’s the major thing going on around here.  First winter storm of the season was a doozy.

"Life is measured not by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."