A SNOW-LESS Winter in Bahstin...

Still 12-20" total forecast for here, followed by a deep freeze. We've only had 1-2" so far.

The second round of flurries for the day has just started here - kinda cool - from my window at the corner of Yonge and Adelaide, I can see the bands of heavier flurries getting closer by the hour. They're about 3 km away right now.

like a fool, i too am in the office today.
will hit the road in an hour or so.
already told the boss-man he won't see me until thursday...

Be very careful. At least North of Boston and in Cambridge the driving is horrendous - even with only 4" down.

yeah, this morning was slow because the pike hadn't been treated yet...

Just ventured out, the roads are actually fine but anything not yet treated with salt/ calcium/ whatever is WOW. Absolutely sheer black ice. Sozlet wanted to ice skate on our driveway, she probably could've.

A freezing drizzle is still coming down. I still don't have a good feel for where this will end up. ~1,000 people without power in the area, we're fine for now (knock on wood).

they closed our office at 10:30 AM this morning and made us all leave to work from home. We had a minor mishap with a snow bank but it was a lot better than sliding directly into the truck in front of us. No injuries to anyone in the car or the car itself!

Well I am in for the duration....and tomorrow too.

ditto.
saw a dude cross-country skiing across the Charles*





* for you non-Bahstinians, the Charles is a river...

Ha - wonder where my cross country skis are? I bet that will be best method to get to work tomorrow.

Oooh, the beginning of the blizzard phase of this system is just starting. Looks like the big snow is going to pass just south of us, we'll get up maybe to a foot of new if we're lucky. Windy as all hell, though, and there should be some wicked cold (and fiercely clear skies and bright stars!) in the aftermath...

Oh, great news. Environmental Protection gives permission to put snow into the harbor. I'm thinking they've either got too much staff, or too much time on their hands.

I just spent an hour out there. It's still coming down. We didn't have to go anywhere, but I wanted to get a jump on it, particularly as I'd like to go to Worcester on Friday.

The piles are higher than my head. The snow is powdery and does not pile well when you toss it way up high (instead, a good 3/4 of it comes down, so you have to redo). It is messy and nasty.

I am leaving work now. I was hoping by staying later, I'd at least miss the rush hour if not the blizzard.

Crested drifts are ambling across the front and back yards. Can't see farther than that in the blizzard, but there must be long drifts across the road in Resurrection Cemetery, and when this blows over and the sky is clear and the moon comes out, there will be great frozen waves poised to pick up their march among the monuments.

... ,o^o,- ...

I think a walk through the old Protestant cemetery on the opposite side might be in order. Tall groomed trees. Crumbling stones staring across at proud young ones like so many Easter Island sentinels.

When the snow blows over...

After all the hoopla, it didn't snow here all day, until just an hour or so ago. It's coming down steadily, but not heavily.

We was robbed!

We ain't getting much in the way of snow right now, but we're out at the edge. The center of this storm is pretty heavy, I think, and it's going to recharge over the Great Lakes...

At any rate, I'll get up tomorrow morning, put the good heavy head phones on, and dig some music while I dig out from the bulk of this -- may have to come at the front door from the road side, since the snow's piling up there now. Then it's off on freshly plowed, emptyish roads to freshly wrecked, emptyish work to look at some animals I've been wanting to get to, tidy up some records, and make next week's special procedures. Grab a cigarette with the maintenance guy during a break in his shoveling, hear and forget a terrible joke. Again, most of this can be done with music piped in through private speakers. An excellent headphone day.

Have fun with the storm, jefe...

The lake effect was noticeable in t.o. It was snowing downtown from mid-morning onward. Not a flake here on the east side, up on the bluffs.

I don't remember bluffs from the one time I was in Tarana. But, then, I came from the west and went straight downtown...

Looks very nice on the map. Is that you on the southwestern edge of Algonquin Provincial Park? I think you're being eroded...

I been eroding since i was about 16. Algonquin Park is about the size of Indiana, but it's not really that close to here--several hours away, in fact. Beautiful country up there.

Toronto sits on the northwest shore of Lake Ontario. The shoreline runs about a half of a mile to a mile inland, at which point it rises to bluffs which are at least a couple of hundred feet above the shoreline. There is a river, the Don, which drains most of the land north of the city, and effectively cuts the city in half. Many, many creeks drain the bluffs and feed the Don valley, and provide a habitat for all kinds of critters--coons, possums, skunks, coyotes. The old city of York was all west of the Don River, and as the settlement spread east and west, it became necessary to bridge the Don in a dramatic way. During the first world war, a huge viaduct was built over the Don Valley about a half mile north of the bluff line--the Bloor Viaduct. (The street is Bloor Street west of the river, and Danforth Avenue east of the river.)

When you ride the subway, the Bloor-Danforth line, which runs east and west under the bluffs, when you get to the Bloor Viaduct, you come roaring out of ground under the bluffs, and you're carried on a track under the Viaduct, about 150 or 200 feet above the Don valley. It's very dramatic at night, with all the traffic on the Don Valley Parkway.

This is a strange city. Imagine Chicago plonked down in a forest.