Mid-Atlantic Blizzard

About 2.5' in most of Northern Va., worse in Fredericksburg than around DC.

The usual pickups with plow blades aren't going to help anything for this one and many areas unplowed.

I just spoke with a staff person in Germantown, MD. She's socked in under 30" of snow and expecting another foot tomorrow. She has power and plenty of food, unlike many in Montgomery county.

All the trucks with snowplows were being overwhelmed by the depth of the snow. These plaows cant handle the 2+feet we got. You actually needed a V plow or , better yet, a front end loader

"great" photos from an old pal on FB. They're just outside of D.C., near Bethesda - 3' of snow. His kids are marching around in snow up to their armpits. A lot of the gas-powered snow blowers couldn't handle the snow - too deep and heavy. They used his electric snowblower on top of the snow to take off the top layer - then put the gas-powered blowers into use - 14 people with shovels - a day - to get to a road that hadn't been plowed.

I was sent one from my friend in Burke Va and they set up their Coon cat in a snow drift and all you see is this fuzzy tail in the air so the cat obviously dug it, like one big sand box.

10" - 20" more inches to come tomorrow and Wednesday to DC area. I don't think my roommates are going to have to work until next week.

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Never seen snow falling.
Only ever seen small clumps, just the once, on the ground near top of Ben Nevis in summer.

There are times when the wind is low, and snow comes swirling down in the night, deadening sound until you almost feel as though you were on a motion picture sound stage--were it not for the evidence of the snow. Those are the times when the falling snow can have a "magical" quality.

One can never escape, however, the undeniable fact that even in areas prepared for a heavy fall of snow, the event can have deleterious effects. This is even more the case in an example like DC, which is not prepared for such an event.

The government shuts down when the wind blows too hard here. When snow falls... awwwwww ****.

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And Im thinkin that the daffodils are just blooming in Dublin. I gotta get out of here.

I don't think my brother's worked for days (he works for a gummint agency). My nephew's school is closed even though it's break next week. More snow? Ha, the kid'll be in school until July at this rate.

I saw a radar cross-section of the second wave of the snowstorm earlier. It looked like a demon with it's mouth open.

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Ominous...

Snow steadily falling here, nothing too dramatic yet but supposed to be another 8 inches or so on top of what we already got (I know, paltry compared to you guys).

Cool video (from D.C., not here):

Wow. I just saw this, and was going to post it! Super cool video.

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We've got 4 to 8 inches of snow heading for the Boston area. The weatherfolk
are trying to get enthusiastic about it, but you can tell their hearts just aren't in
it. They envy their Mid-Atlantic brethren.

Sah-lippery out there! Only drove about half a mile but there was a lot of fishtailing and weirdness.

I know this has been said before but it does have a lot to do with local reactions to snow. 6 inches in Minnesota is completely uneventful, but that's because Minnesota knows how to deal with snow and has the equipment (plows, personnel, etc.) In Columbus they're not as used to it and they don't have the same resources. So 6 inches stays on the roads and makes things dicey.

Very cool video. Thanks

I got a late flight out of Dulles airport last night. It had been closed thrrough the weekend until early Monday. Now with more snow coming they may have to start over.

The DC area is much better prepared for snowfall now than it was in years past. The main roads were all cleared very rapidly after the latest storm. It was the many mazes of lightly travelled suburban roads that were the main problem. The area is hilly, and this snowfall was dense and deep - one couldn't see over the piles of cleared snow adjacent to the main roads. I suspect things will be much more difficult after the snows today and tomorrow.

30 years ago when I lived in Fairfax County, forget it!
One inch and the whole city locked up.

That area has since become a major concentration of corporate headquarters; as well as operations of the defense and IT industries. Indeed the whole Dulles corridor looks now like an office park. And in the current era of ever bigger government it is thriving.