Big Snow, Little Dig
Saturday, 5 February 2011 22:55![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dr_phil_physicsNot A Record
Though the media made a big deal of the huge/awesome/horrible blizzard on Groundhog's Day, the 16.0" in 24 hours recorded officially in Grand Rapids is just less than the 16.1" for the 1978 blizzard. So... it's not a record. Cue the disappointment musics.
Frankly it all makes us seem like wimps. Many of the other areas of the country which got clobbered either got a LOT more snow and ice than we did OR were getting snow and ice which they don't normally get. Hell, Dallas is dealing with unexpected winter on the eve of the Super Bowl -- guess that blows the theory that northern wintry cities can't host the Super Bowl because the elite spending thousands of dollars can't be allowed to walk on snow and ice.
On A Smaller Note
Of course, when Mrs. Dr. Phil went out to the road on Wednesday, there was neither mail or newspaper -- we didn't think anything of it. But when I got home Thursday, I noted that (a) the newspaper was in a red plastic bag lying on the snowbank next to the newspaper box and (b) there was no mail. What we hadn't considered on Wednesday, in our joy on getting dug out was that the plows had plowed the road, but not the shoulders. There was about a foot-and-a-half of snow between the end of the plowing and the boxes on the side of the road. As I drove up the driveway, I realized that though the driveway was cleared, it wasn't as if the mail could've been put on our porch -- a drift ridge had ended up blocking the sidewalk and the front porch wasn't cleared.
Friday and Saturday's papers were also dumped on the snow bank -- along with x-roxed fliers saying that snow was bad. Amazingly, the mail got in the box on Friday. I wasn't going out to the road in the dark to dig it out, so it didn't get done until Saturday morning. The cold dry snow by then had been through a couple of days of sun and warm, so our Yooper Scooper managed to lever up enormous slabs of snow. Most of the snow over the range I had to clear was taken up in four large slabs and a couple of smaller ones. Then I drove back and forth over the snow in 4WD to make sure the remaining snow was good and flat and drivable. Job done.
Storm of the century? Not really. Not when everything's pretty back to normal in a day or two.
Dr. Phil
Though the media made a big deal of the huge/awesome/horrible blizzard on Groundhog's Day, the 16.0" in 24 hours recorded officially in Grand Rapids is just less than the 16.1" for the 1978 blizzard. So... it's not a record. Cue the disappointment musics.
Frankly it all makes us seem like wimps. Many of the other areas of the country which got clobbered either got a LOT more snow and ice than we did OR were getting snow and ice which they don't normally get. Hell, Dallas is dealing with unexpected winter on the eve of the Super Bowl -- guess that blows the theory that northern wintry cities can't host the Super Bowl because the elite spending thousands of dollars can't be allowed to walk on snow and ice.
On A Smaller Note
Of course, when Mrs. Dr. Phil went out to the road on Wednesday, there was neither mail or newspaper -- we didn't think anything of it. But when I got home Thursday, I noted that (a) the newspaper was in a red plastic bag lying on the snowbank next to the newspaper box and (b) there was no mail. What we hadn't considered on Wednesday, in our joy on getting dug out was that the plows had plowed the road, but not the shoulders. There was about a foot-and-a-half of snow between the end of the plowing and the boxes on the side of the road. As I drove up the driveway, I realized that though the driveway was cleared, it wasn't as if the mail could've been put on our porch -- a drift ridge had ended up blocking the sidewalk and the front porch wasn't cleared.
Friday and Saturday's papers were also dumped on the snow bank -- along with x-roxed fliers saying that snow was bad. Amazingly, the mail got in the box on Friday. I wasn't going out to the road in the dark to dig it out, so it didn't get done until Saturday morning. The cold dry snow by then had been through a couple of days of sun and warm, so our Yooper Scooper managed to lever up enormous slabs of snow. Most of the snow over the range I had to clear was taken up in four large slabs and a couple of smaller ones. Then I drove back and forth over the snow in 4WD to make sure the remaining snow was good and flat and drivable. Job done.
Storm of the century? Not really. Not when everything's pretty back to normal in a day or two.
Dr. Phil
