Whiplash Weather

Tuesday was beautiful.  I went for a walk around the neighborhood without a coat, listening to the melting snow trickle into the storm drains.

wednesday am

Wednesday, we hunkered down and prepared for a storm.  The weather was calling for a blizzard-like storm and school had been cancelled the night before in anticipation.  Still, upon waking, there was grass to be seen.  I wondered if this would be another alarmist snow day, like last year when school was canceled in anticipation of Hurricane Sandy only to have our school district be virtually unaffected by the storm.

But we didn’t have to wait long before the weather forecasters were proved right.  The snow began to fall around nine in the morning and didn’t stop all day.  By night fall, we had dune-like drifts in the backyard, but weirdly we could still see pavement on our driveway. The school announced a two-hour delayed start for Thursday.

wednesday noon

Upon venturing out at six on Thursday morning to shovel the driveway, we discovered that the snow had not stopped falling all night.  But, since the wind had stopped, we now had over two feet of snow accumulated in our driveway.  Alexander and I both grabbed a shovel and set to work.  Between the two of us (and then our extremely kind next door neighbor, who walked over with his snow blower and helped us tackle the three plus feet piled at the end of our driveway by the snowplow), it took almost two hours to dig out. When we got back inside, a message from the school was waiting for us: another snow day.  Turns out we didn’t have to hurry to shovel after all!

The kids spent the day alternating between playing in snow drifts taller than they were and drinking hot cocoa with marshmallows.

Today, we’re back to sunny skies and highs in the forties.  And I’m back to walking around the neighborhood without a coat, listening to the melting snow flood into the storm drains.