18 to 24 inches of snow expected here this weekend.

Post #321,032 by Another Scott 2/4/10 9:38:04 PM Reply	18 to 24 inches of snow expected here this weekend. It's supposed to start ~ 10:00 Friday morning. The grocery store was nearly picked clean when I stopped by to pick up a few things on the way home from work. Naturally, there's a web site with helpful advice - http://snowpocalypsedc.com/ ;-) (via Yglesias at ThinkProgress) Cheers, Scott.
Post #321,033 by mvitale 2/4/10 9:51:48 PM Reply	Re: 18 to 24 inches of snow expected here this weekend. About 500 of my fraternity brothers were supposed to gather in Annapolis this weekend for a conference. I'm seeing all the status updates come in saying "My flight to the northeast tomorrow has already been cancelled." Supposedly, all Southwest flights from the Midwest to the DC-ish area have been cancelled already, starting Friday morning, through Sunday morning. Y'all have fun out there. :( Stay safe. -Mike "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin, 1759 Historical Review of Pennsylvania
Post #321,037 by Another Scott 2/5/10 7:42:23 AM Reply	If it's like the December 18-19 storm, it won't be too bad. It was hell for travelers during that time, but not too bad for those of us who could stay home. We had about 18 inches here. I'm taking a vacation day today. The thought of going in to work for 4 hours, fighting the traffic home in the snow, and then shoveling out a parking space isn't appealing. I'm a little worried about a neighbor's tree up the street. It's a silver maple and one of its many trunks snapped about 20' up a week or so ago. That part of the tree is at about a 30 degree angle and poised to fall any time now (probably this weekend when the winds are supposed to pick up to 30 mph) and it's uncomfortably close to the power lines (but should miss them).... We'll see. The doggie loves the snow, except when the ice builds up between the pads on her feet. So we'll have some entertainment as long as the wind isn't too bad. :-) Thanks. Cheers, Scott.
Post #321,044 by drook 2/5/10 9:22:48 AM Reply	Dude, call the electric company They'd much rather come out before it takes the lines out and cut it down. -- Drew
Post #321,049 by Another Scott 2/5/10 10:05:45 AM Reply	Too late. It's already a pile of logs and sawdust this morning. :-) I guess they had it taken down yesterday (it was dark when I got home). Good point, though. Thanks. Cheers, Scott.
Post #321,084 by Another Scott 2/6/10 9:22:15 AM Reply	~14 inches on the ground now. It started around 10:15 AM yesterday and was light enough during the day that I could have easily gone to work, but even with lighter volume the traffic would have been a risk - too few people know how to drive in bad weather around here. It's very wet, fluffy snow, and still coming down. 29 degrees F, so it's still sticking. We're not supposed to get too much more though, so I doubt we'll break 20 inches around here (the forecasts were saying up to 30" in some areas). We lost our power around 10:00 last night after about a dozen flickering episodes. Lots of blue and yellow flashes in the sky as the transformers complained. It was back on about 6 hours later (quicker than I thought). Our power company has a neat Flash map of locations with outages - http://outagemap.dom...Viewer/index.html Here's a web camera (from somewhere within a few miles of here) showing a condensed movie of the last day or so. http://www.wundergro...ename=current.flv The WP is saying some areas west of here have 25" already - http://www.washingto...id=topbar_hottips I'm trying to get motivated to get out and shovel some paths. I'm not quite there yet. ;-) Maybe in an hour or so. Cheers, Scott.
Post #321,093 by Ashton 2/6/10 4:03:05 PM Reply	For those who hum that familiar song, I'm Dreamin of a White Valentine's Day.. This is all fun to experience. Vicariously. Glad the electrons returned before you had to chop up Aunt Maude's sideboard, though a roaring fire in the living room also makes for a romantically snug retreat. (Best: if you have a fireplace.) Rain here, filling up the ground water nicely. Discovered more of WeatherUnderground's clever features -- showing a Station only a few blocks away! http://www.wundergro...year=2010&month=2 Kewl: Found that my retro barometer (a '50s Airguide via eBay) had -indeed- a hole with a screw-head beneath / unlabeled, of course. Prompted me to disassemble, clean glass and blow out the aneroid gearing of years of cruft: Calibrated barometer via minute-minute data and noted that it tracked pretty well, within ±0.02" across recent range, with just a bit of a tap to kill the hysteresis of the gearing. Amazing accuracy for such a device; of course it makes more sense as %-full-scale of ~~ 320º; too lazy to count the marks. (An exercise in mensuration for a frosh class; this sucker makes 1/1500 precision. Who'da thunk?) Fun to watch the precipitation rate in-real-time correspond to what eyeballs guesstimate. The Web ... extending our sensory tentacles from the sublime to the ridiculous -- Science.. it just Works. Stay snug, well at least to ~ 1:1500 Microsnuggies
Post #321,114 by Another Scott 2/7/10 6:40:42 PM Reply	Is this thing on? Thanks for the good wishes. It's been fun... We lost our power again around 11:30 yesterday, and it was off about 11 hours. The home cooled off to about 57 degrees before it came back. We stayed plenty warm with various goose-down comforters and such. We've got a fireplace, but they're mainly decorative (and not too good for warming a house anyway). We spent yesterday and much of today shoveling. It's an amazing amount of snow. I measured 24.5" in our front yard this afternoon. The actual amount of snow that fell was probably higher - there were places I cleaned off on our deck that later had 6" of fresh snow but the unshoveled areas didn't seem any thicker. The snow is heavy enough that it just seems to compress the underlying stuff more... We cleaned off our cars today. It got close to freezing so the sunlight helped speed up the process. We only got our cable TV and internet back about 30 minutes ago. The cable had been down at least 12 hours. Withdrawal symptoms were pretty strong! =8-( Even with all the outages and so forth, we've been pretty lucky. We just got back from our evening walk and at least half of the streets in the areas we normally walk are still without power. There are outages even in an area where the power lines are underground, which surprised me. Barometers are neat. I once found an old surplus one that was filled with mercury. It can be incredibly accurate, but there are several offsetting adjustments that need to be made - e.g. http://www.npl.co.uk...28faq-pressure%29 . I'm glad that you did't need to mess with those things! Have fun. Cheers, Scott.
Post #321,190 by Another Scott 2/8/10 8:39:12 PM Reply	Sullivan has a 27 second time lapse movie. http://andrewsulliva...he-snow-fall.html Teddy Bear is unhappy. Cheers, Scott.

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