"DANGEROUS MULTIFACETED AND LIFE THREATENING WINTER STORM TO
BEGIN THIS AFTERNOON...
...FINAL PREPARATIONS PRIOR TO THE STORM SHOULD BE COMPLETED THIS
MORNING..."

A little over dramatic for a government announcement, I think...I hope.

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/hazards/?wfo=lot&lat=42.3231&lon=-87.9821&pil=LOTWSWLOT&iss=1296551880&maptype=text

I don't know how much you remember about Jan 1978.....

My 57 F100 was on an open trailer attched to my 75 F150. I knew the snow was coming so I parked up next to the house. Bad move! Next morning I came out and found the snow had drifted off the end of the house. No sign of the rig! I had to probe with a long broom handle to find it.

It just got worse from there......

One of the "great" memories was seeing dead cattle stacked on the median of I-80 in Ohio, a result of about a million trucks that crashed in the storm.

When that one hit I was on a date with Sue (now my wife) in the western suburbs of Chicago. I took the train back to downtown. It had to creep through the blizzard and arrived at Northwestern Station (now Oglivie Transportation Center) in the wee ours of the morning. I walked outside intending to take a bus back to my college campus. The streets were deserted and unplowed. If I had half a brain, I would have just stayed the station. Instead, I walked the two or three miles back to my dorm through snow up to my knees. I don't know what time I got in, but I slept well.

Its the midwest, its winter. No news there.
Theyve been talking it up big time up here.
Probably 5 inches on the ground when I left the house at 3:15 a.m. and they expect another
2 or so.
Then between 3 p.m. today and 6 p.m. Wednseday, another 9 to 12 inches. But they are saying that Chi-town might be ground zero. Then theres always the wildcard...lake effect. That could surprise everyone and REALLY kick azz.
BRING IT ON!!!!!!!!

At least here its not heart attack snow

We have ice here in central Indiana...about 1/4 - 1/2 depending on where you are, but the freezing rain is supposed to start again here soon and they are saying another 1/2 - 1 of ice...

Give me 2 feet of snow any day....ice, not so much.....

Jim

I remember the winter of 78 over here on the west coast. My little town near Seattle got an unprecedented 2 feet of snow over a two day period that at sea level stayed for abotu 5 day's before beginning to melt off.

It was the coolest snow fall of my entire youth, even after moving to the high desert 4 years later to an average of 3 feet per year (accumulated) around the house.

I hope that it goes easy on you folks out east!

Good luck to those that are in the path of the snow!

In Fla visiting my folks. Um, it got to 80 today here. Whew, I gotta wipe the sweat off my brow...

Didnt have to shovel much when I got home. The 45+ mph wind blew most of it away. The drifts at the house were few and only about 2 feet high.
But they say the big dumper is coming between 7 pm and 2 am.
Life will be back to normal by Friday am, maybe even Thursday pm.

70 degrees and sunny today in Palm Springs Ca.

Must be FREEZING there in PS! That guy by the pool had on a long sleeve shirt & long pants! :o

Just finished clearing out a path to get the rental car out of the garage.
The drift was about 8 feet wide and 2 feet deep at the crest. It ran the full width of my 28 foot driveway.

My return flight to Charleston was canceled this morning so I am going to try to get back to work tomorrow. Got to spend another day at home with my wife.

Should be an interesting drive back to the airport tomorrow morning at 5 AM.

Jerry

Here's a nice picture



http://gizmodo.com/5748771/this-is-the-apocalyptic-storm-hitting-the-us

Man! That looks COLD!

The view out my back door this morning:



It is still snowing.

Tim, thats the view out of any of my doors. I had to dig a path for the dog to do his thing this morning.
I94 is closed from the ILL/WI boarder to Milw.
Ill go out at about 8:30 and shovel a 45 foot path to the garage and start the snowblower. Then I have to get up on the roof and get rid of some of the snow. Ive always said I was going to buy a roof rake, but never have. Today I wish I did.
Living out in the country, they still havent plowed our road so no ones going anywhere, even in a 4 wheel drive truck.Ive never missed a day of work due to weather, ever, but todays the day.

A couple of videos from the storm:

Last night:
http://s78.photobucket.com/albums/j115/tim1859/?action=view&current=100_9841.mp4

This morning:
http://s78.photobucket.com/albums/j115/tim1859/?action=view&current=000_0218.mp4

Sounds nasty for sure. We only had about 1/4 inch of ice with heavy rain afterwards and wind. Some power out and trees down, but not so bad here in S. Ohio.

Rained here with a trace of ice.

Golly I sure miss Chicago!

Starting to dig out:

Tim, WHY on earth are you SMILING when holding a snow shovel?????

Hes smiling because he broke through that damn drift. I know the feeling brother!

Chuck, I wish I had broken through the drift at that point. The walk I was shoveling was one long drift. I had another 25 feet to go. I was smiling because my daughter had a camera in her hand!

Wow! Just imagine the grin if she would have had a cup of hot chocolate in the other hand!

Tuesday night was pretty bad but the sun came out on Wednesday. Overall it wasn't too bad on this side of the lake.