Saturday, December 11, 2010

Snowbound Saturday

In case you haven't seen it - either outside (if you live in our neck of the woods) or on the news (if you live elsewhere) - Minneapolis has been whomped with a major snowstorm today.

Everyone points out when I talk about this that this is Minnesota and it is December, so a snowstorm shouldn't be a surprise. And, you know, I was feeling that way early in the week, too, when the forecast was for 2 to 5 inches of snow. And then, on Thursday, they started saying 6 to 10 inches falling from last night through today.

Yesterday, they started saying that anywhere from one to two FEET of snow were expected. Luckily, it wasn't supposed to start until after 10 o'clock, so Christopher and I were able to get both to and from the Valley Chamber Chorale Christmas concert with only minor ick on the roads as we got closer to home.

And then it kept snowing. And snowing. And snowing.

When I watched the news tonight, they said that the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport was reporting 16.5" of snow. And that's without factoring in wind. And the fact that it is still snowing.

Yes. We expect snow out here.

Yes. We know that it happens and that we have to deal with it. (For the first time in a while, I broke down and did serious Holiday shopping online this week - nothing like this major storm 2 Saturdays before Christmas to seriously muck up retail.)

Happily, we also know that the roads will be mostly back to "normal" by the time Monday's commute rolls around.

But, this time, we have the distinction of being able to say that this is the largest snowfall since "The Halloween Blizzard" (which I finally found out, today, was in 1991 - I didn't live here, then, so I had no idea). It also makes this - officially - one of the snowiest Decembers on record, which is kind of daunting considering we still have about 2/3 of the month ahead of us.

On the up side, we're pretty much guaranteed a white Christmas.

On the down side, at this rate, we're also guaranteed a white Easter.

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