What's Old Is New Again

Weather can change rapidly, especially when you live close to the coast.  What had been mentioned a few days ago as a possible brief snow in our area was suddenly being called the worst possible winter storm in history, a term commonly being thrown around was a "bomb cyclone".  Luckily I had no where I had to be today anyway.  As expected, snow had started falling overnight, so we had a decent covering on the ground when I got up, and it just kept on coming.  Snow was still falling in the late afternoon, winds were whipping everything around.  Morning attempts to clear the sidewalks and parking lots at my apartment complex were wiped out by afternoon.  Television couldn't show us enough scenes of massive snow drifts, plows getting ready to jump into action, alarmed reporters- your classic winter storm coverage.

But this has all happened before, and it probably will again.  I had never heard the term "bomb cyclone" before, but back as 2010 turned into 2011 we had what was called by some a "blizzicane."  That's because we had a snow storm that also happened to be a category 3 hurricane.  Today we got about a foot of snow, but that time is was 2 to 3 feet.  The photos below are from that storm.

That the streets weren't plowed is mostly because the town's snow plows were disabled by the storm in the first few hours.  Eventually they would just drive a backhoe down the street, creating a crude vehicle path in the deep snow.  Of course, here you can't even see where the streets would be.  And it's not easy shoveling when the snow is above your head.

Obviously I survived that storm, and I will survive what happened today.  Snow stopped falling and being whipped around by wind by late afternoon, and the plows returned around 4:30, removing enough snow to get to my car.  Dug around it a little, but not enough to move it, which was fine because I had no where I had to be.