Hype or not....

[Image taken from the Mount Washington Observatory]

Hype or not, that is, with the weather forecasters saying this is going to go down in the record books as the 'Valentine's Day Blizzard of 2007,' it is snowing, FINALLY, quite hard out there.

This view was taken from the rectory porch. The guy who plows our driveways has just made one pass down the church driveway. (I think this will probably be a three-plow storm.) So far, we've gotten five or so inches by my unscientific estimate.

The forecasters say that visibility is going to go down to zip this afternoon and that the worst of the storm is not here yet.

I have my Sorrels in the house so I am ready. Later on, I will go out and do a round of shovelling (making a path from the house to the shed/garage), I discovered that the snow is light and fluffy... I think we are safe from getting the sleet and freezing rain that parts further south may get.

More later.

[14.58] The snow now is coming down sideways and it is THICK. But the UPS truck has just gone by, the little sidewalk snowplow (photo here) has gone by, and the mail arrived practically on time.

This snowplow (which reminds me of some sort of dinosaur) sort of lumbers along, creating a path on the sidewalks. That's fine but then in its wake, there's always a lip of snow that then needs clearing in order to get out of the driveway. No matter; so far we have been plowed twice and I think this is going to be a four-plow storm. I took this picture standing downtown with my back to the bank, looking across the main drag to the Congregational church. They have the only clock tower and part of it is owned by the town and part of it by the church.

If you ignore the fact that the aluminum siding on the front of the church is filthy and stained yellow by years of sun (as this side faces due west), you can at least admire the front of the church. I guess it's time to take down the Christmas wreaths. One Saturday I got back from a day away to find that some kids in town had made a snowboard jump on the front steps. They had to have spent hours shovelling snow from the sides of the walk to create the jump. It backed up against the church doors so you couldn't get in. It took me two hours to unshovel so I could get into the church to turn the furnace on.

And this is the rectory, parish house and church as I look north. It's impossible to take a decent photo because of all the electric and phone wires. There are so many, I am not even sure I could gom them out. By the end of March 2001, there was so much snow on the ground from three March storms that the church sign was bent sideways because of the snow piles on the side of the yard. On April Fools' Day of that year, we had four feet of snow on the ground. So, we have a long way to go with this storm, officially called a blizzard, before we get there.

Still, according to the AP,

The National Weather Service’s Vermont location in Burlington said that today’s storm could be one of the top ten in history and could be the largest in February.

29.8 inches on Dec. 25-28, 1969
24.7 inches on Jan. 13-14, 1934
22.9 inches on March 5-6, 2001
22.4 inches on March 13-14, 1993
20.0 inches on Nov. 25 1900
19.7 inches on Jan. 25-28, 1986
19.1 inches on March 16-17, 1937
18.8 inches on Dec. 14-15, 2003
18.3 inches on Dec. 6-7, 2003
17.8 inches on Jan. 3-4, 2003
17.8 inches on Feb. 4-5, 1995

NOTE...ONLY ONE TOP TEN GREATEST SNOW STORMS HAS EVER OCCURRED IN THE MONTH OF FEBRUARY AT BURLINGTON...WITH ONLY A TOTAL OF 4 TOP 20 GREATEST SNOW STORMS OCCURRING IN THE MONTH OF FEBRUARY AT BTV (17.1" FEB 25-26 1966...15.9" FEB 15-17 1909....15.7" FEB 7-8 1983).

OK, some photos taken in the course of the afternoon, first mid-afternoon, around 16.00, of the large tree outside the backdoor. It has a huge lilac tree in front of it, which you can't readily discern. Then more shots of the ramp as it gets increasingly filled with snow, even though it was cleared out when I went out for my walk.

Then there's a shot looking across the street at Miss C's house, with its front stairs disappearing in the snow. I can't tell how much we have gotten, surely 15 inches.

The next set of photos I took at 17.00, as the light is fading. You can't really tell, but now the snow is coming down sideways with wind gusts. Now we're getting into the blizzard conditions. It has been a while since the state has been as shut down as it is today.

The airport is pretty much closed (why not? there aren't any incoming flights because this storm affects the eastern seaboard, and the limited visibility makes it impossible to have any take off. UVM shut down, and a lot of other places did. It's mighty quiet out there, although there has been a steady stream of traffic all day outside my door.

I picked up the waif and held her and walked over to the window to show her the blizzard she is missing by no longer being a homeless cat. She went ballistic, hissing, growling, biting. I really think she does not ever want to go out again... and she is afraid I will put her out the way she clearly was. I let her down and she calmed down but I will let her watch the weather on her own terms.