Nathan Bransford - The Forums

I'm happy to report that we found a way onto our deck and are shoveling off all the snow before the next storm arrives. I'm so relieved! We were a little concerned that our deck might possibly collapse from the weight of so much snow.

Here in Montgomery County, MD, we're trying to figure out whether we're on the 8-15 inch band or the 15+ band that cuts right across the county. I caught the mail carrier today, who could not get to our rural mailbox because it had about 5 feet of snow piled in front of it by the plow. Federal government is still closed tomorrow, and the kids' schools are closed for the remainder of the week. God is telling me that I need to write more.

We's be in the 18-24 band here. Snowing a wee bit already but nothing big. Not supposed to turn into the nasty storm until three in the morning, though. Could and probably should use the snow shutting me in as an excuse to write. Instead I think I'm going to play in the snow. And possibly march down my street in the driving snow playing my bagpipes (or any of my other instruments), because the reactions to that must be mint.

Nick, bagpipes, cool! Bagpipes are fabulous. I can't think of a better thing to do than play bagpipes in a blizzard.

Marilyn, I'm glad you rescued your deck. My deck is loaded with snow, too, and it looks like I have a one-foot fence.

Seamus, I feel the same way about it's time to write... something about the snow-muffled quiet and everything shutting down.

Right now there's a full-blown blizzard outside. My street looks like Antarctica. The snowplows have piled up towering heaps of snow that look like icebergs left over from the wrecking of the Titanic. The biggest threat on the road is not the whiteout conditions, but the drivers. Gettysburg is a place where military history buffs come to retire, so there are a lot of 100-year-old oldsters floating around in big boat cars. They don't signal and they don't top 10 miles an hour. They're cosmically balanced out by the Rawbone Ray types who drive their tractor trailers through town at 100 miles an hour. I made it back from the grocery store through our "traffic jam" and now I'm inside and so is everybody else, and I hope our one homeless man, Wayne, is too. God help him tonight.

Snowpocalypse Part II has landed, with huge snowflakes coming down. I took a short walk outside tonight. It's absolutely beautiful outdoors right now!

Nick – Playing bagpipes in a snowstorm? Priceless! That is an awesome image!

Holly – I love your last paragraph – beautiful description of the snow-covered landscape.

This is almost unbelievable, but another snowstorm’s now predicted for Monday for the East Coast – Snowpocalypse Part III!

marilyn peake wrote: This is almost unbelievable, but another snowstorm’s now predicted for Monday for the East Coast – Snowpocalypse Part III!

Oh God please let it be true. This will officially be the finest year of my life if that happens. Three big snowstorms in a month? Oh heavens yes, please let it happen. The more snow the better.

On behalf of those of us living in the actual northeast (i.e., northern New England), let me just say that you folks in the mid-Atlantic STOLE OUR SNOW! We're looking at brown patches up here. My husband hasn't had to go out on the roof to shovel in over a month. My kids can't go sledding. What's the use of 10 degree windchills if there's no snow?

Okay, I'm not really complaining. It's just kind of weird, that's all.

Here's an excerpt from an interesting article in Time:

http://www.time.com/time/health/article ... 94,00.html

"...While the frequency of storms in the middle latitudes has decreased as the climate has warmed, the intensity of those storms has increased. That's in part because of global warming — hotter air can hold more moisture, so when a storm gathers it can unleash massive amounts of snow. Colder air, by contrast, is drier; if we were in a truly vicious cold snap, like the one that occurred over much of the East Coast during parts of January, we would be unlikely to see heavy snowfall."

Hello, THB. Please come and get your snow!

Marilyn, I am trying to keep my sense of humor. My four foot fence is about to disappear. I want to enjoy the snow, but it's looking more and more like a white monster. My collie (She Who Must Be Walked) gives me quizzical looks ("No walk? Why not?"). Oh, and by the way, I ordered one of your books. Can't wait to read it!

The dog just sits on the driveway and accumulates snow on her fur. She stares up at me as I shovel. She's a Corgi, usually sassy and energetic, but her four-inch legs have been over-exerted lately, and the snow is making any lively play restricted to the narrowing swaths of shoveled or plowed areas. Every so often, I ask her to move, because inevitably, she plants herself where I need to scrape, lift and throw. The dirty five and six-foot piles either side of the driveway are, themselves, blanketed in the new stuff so that we wonder if our view will ever be restored beyond our narrow carved passages. It's pretty, though. Windows that overlook snow-crusted trees and smooth expanses of white inspire us so that we can't help but snap pictures and sigh romantically. It will be gone in the few days, all of us smelling of Ben-Gay and limping slightly. It's cool, though, being thrown into a different life for a few days. It gives me a new perspective and maybe the opportunity to look at those around me with new eyes. Stay warm.

My family lives right outside D.C. (I'm at school) and they had 30 inches, and are supposed to be getting another 15. WOW!

CV

Holly –

Thanks for posting the link to the Time article. When I went to Alaska this past summer, I saw some of the effects of global warming up close. I had no idea beforehand that Glacier Bay was carved out by advancing glaciers during the Little Ice Age following an earlier period of global warming. Indians settled in the area carved out by the glacier, but were forced to leave when our current period of global warming melted enough of the glacier to create a bay.

Thanks so much for buying one of my books! I hope you enjoy it. :)

Seamus and Holly –

It must be really tough for dogs outside in the deep snow! We don’t have dogs, but we have a bearded dragon lizard. Her only problem in this weather is when we lose electricity. Because she’s cold-blooded, she needs to be under a special heat lamp much of the day. When we lost electricity this past week, we held her next to us under blankets to keep her warm.

Seamus –

I love your description of how the snowstorm has thrown us into a new world and allowed us to see things with different perspective. I love this line you wrote: “It's cool, though, being thrown into a different life for a few days. It gives me a new perspective and maybe the opportunity to look at those around me with new eyes.” I’ve felt that, too. It’s one of the best parts of this entire storm. It’s like travelling to a new place without travelling.

Just spent a good bit of time digging out trenches in the front yard. Going to throw up fortifications tomorrow, beyond the natural ones of beneath the deck and collapsed bushes. Figure it'll either make for great snowball wars, and if no one wants to drive over tomorrow it'll still be blasted fun.

I cracked up when I first heard about this - grad students at the University of Virginia are "studying" a pile of snow (created when they plowed a parking lot after the storm) which they dubbed "Mount Chipotle." It's three inches shy of forty feet high and they're taking bets on when it will finally melt away. They've also created the "Mount Chipotle National Research Observatory" and a blog of their adventures in and around said pile of snow.

http://www2.dailyprogress.com/cdp/news/ ... tle/52201/

Holy camoly - it's snowing again! Love it! Although there is one serious drawback to all this snow: We haven't had garbage pickup for an entire week. :( On the other hand, we have icicles hanging from our roof that are about three feet long right now. They've been growing like stalactites, almost touching our bushes now; and I've taken some awesome photographs of their progress.