That's a Whole Lotta Snow

We finally remembered to get out and take some pics of the house this morning. Mike was trying to get the trash out for collection and I was in between a work out and shower...hurrying to get to work. Needless to say, we didn't have for stellar shots or seeing the house from the best angle, but this is what our casa currently looks like:

Lots of Icicles and SNOW

That snow bank to the side of Dylan and I is what I had to throw the snow OVER in the last storm when shoveling the stairs. 

Mike unburied Dylan's snowman from several storms ago.


After having no snow in November and no snow in December until after Christmas, Boston has more than caught up. Last month, we had the 3rd snowiest January on record and the 6th snowiest month ever. For a locale that generally sees its fair share of snow, that's saying a lot.

To give you a visual of the amount of total snowfall we've had (and keep in mind this official record is taken at Logan airport which is right on the harbor...it often has less snow totals during storms then more in land), here's the official Shaq-O-Meter:

That's a whole lotta snow!

(To check in on the Shaq-O-Meter for the rest of the winter, click here for a current visual.)

Folks around here are complaining big time. Even though we're all used to snow, this is an extreme and it's causing some headaches. In addition to the sore backs from shoveling, sore butts from falling, there are some other, less obvious (especially to the folks down south who can't conceive of living in this) side effects.

The roads are clear (as in you see pavement on all of them) thanks to the tireless crews of our snow plows. However, there are only so many places to put the snow and those places are piled sky high. Our roads are more narrow (2 lane streets are now 1 and a half lane streets) and snow banks at intersections are so high that I can't see over them even in my tall SUV. This means TRAFFIC! This is the one side effect I have had enough of. My normal 12 minute commute to go 4.5 miles on back roads is taking me 30 minutes! I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to park my car and just run home...it would almost be faster. Unfortunately, that's another issue.

Walking is treacherous. Thanks to some day time melting and night time refreezing, the sidewalks are ice rinks.....if they've even been cleared. Some are not as diligent as they should be in clearing the public paths around their houses of snow (and some are ticketed for this...yes you're fined in the city of Boston for not shoveling the public ways on your property) which causes some dead ends when you're walking. So, many, quite logically, walk out on the street. Hey, the roads have been treated so there's more traction and they're clear. However, refer back to the previous paragraph about narrowed streets and you see how adding pedestrians to the mix can make everything slightly more dangerous for all.

Apparently, the city is very literally running out of places to put the snow. Since snow banks are so high, they're actually transporting some to city empty lots and piling it up there. Given that snow banks in plowed parking lots are up to 20 feet high, I'd love to see how high the snow piles in those overflow lots are!

The strain of the weight of the snow is also causing some trouble for some of the roofs in the area. Since temperatures haven't done their part to melt all the snowfall we've had, snow several feet deep is just hanging out on some of the flatter roofs. If you're a big ol' warehouse roof, this means trouble. We've had several collapse. Before yesterday, I hadn't heard of any issues with residential roofs but earlier this week, the threat of another foot of now weight to be added scared enough of us that we got on our roofs to clear them, including me. Our house has one section of flat roof so I hopped up there, well more realistically slowly and carefully climbed up on a ladder that Mike had held with a death grip, and pushed off a couple of feet of snow. Given that we had some freezing rain the following day and snow acts like a really good sponge, I was very glad I did it.

I know a lot of folks around here will hate me for saying this but I say let's shoot for the record! We're already this close, what's a couple more feet of snow? The main issue, as I see it, is that we just haven't had enough in between storms melting time. Give us an above freezing week or so and those snow banks will get back down to reasonable sizes to make room to break the record. Wahoo! Bring it on winter!