Saturday
Feb052011
Snowpocalypse or Snowmageddon?
Saturday, February 5, 2011 at 11:06PM
Take your pick. They were used interchangeably by the media to describe on the worst snow storms to hit Wisconsin in recent years. By the time it struck, I don’t think it was as bad as it could have been, but it still hit the state hard.
It began on Monday, with a few inches of snow fall throughout the day. Tuesday during the day was calm, but by evening, when I was still at work staffing the State of the State, it came down thick and fast. 3 inches an hour at times, and continued throughout the night.
What was worse was the wind. It brought the chill factor down to negative 15, and blew the snow everywhere. A blizzard is exactly what it was outside, walking home from the Capitol at 8.30pm, jumping over, around and through snow drifts. I made it home in one piece though.
Snow was blowing everywhere at this point, though it's hard to tell in this photo.
The wind howled throughout the night, and the snow just kept tumbling down. By Wednesday morning, about 14 inches had fallen on Madison. In some places, because of blowing wind, especially from the lakes, it seemed like much more.
Snow had blown under the canopy at our apartment
Schools were closed; UW-Madison had a snow day (which it very rarely does); stores opened late; buses suspended all services; all government offices were closed to the public- many just did not open. But not the state legislature. With all the legislators in town for the State of the State, they decided it was still fine to hold session on Wednesday. So, I battled through over a foot of snow to get to work for 8am. Some streets had already been ploughed by the superb snow service force the city has in operation. In some places, the snow went up to my knees.
Either way, it made for some great pictures, and it was fun. All I wanted to do was jump in the big snow piles, or grab a sledge and find a big hill to race down. Sadly though, work called. Growing up sucks!
Anyone for a seat?
Snow piled on N Frances St.
State Street Snow
More snow on Langdon Street
A buried bike
Ploughing the streets
Back to work, despite the snow
Shovelling State Street
Clearing the Capitol, piling the snow high
A Capitol covered in snow
The Capitol Dome has been lit green and gold throughout this week in honour of the Greenbay Packers, who compete for the SuperBowl title tomorrow!
It began on Monday, with a few inches of snow fall throughout the day. Tuesday during the day was calm, but by evening, when I was still at work staffing the State of the State, it came down thick and fast. 3 inches an hour at times, and continued throughout the night.
What was worse was the wind. It brought the chill factor down to negative 15, and blew the snow everywhere. A blizzard is exactly what it was outside, walking home from the Capitol at 8.30pm, jumping over, around and through snow drifts. I made it home in one piece though.
Snow was blowing everywhere at this point, though it's hard to tell in this photo.The wind howled throughout the night, and the snow just kept tumbling down. By Wednesday morning, about 14 inches had fallen on Madison. In some places, because of blowing wind, especially from the lakes, it seemed like much more.
Snow had blown under the canopy at our apartmentSchools were closed; UW-Madison had a snow day (which it very rarely does); stores opened late; buses suspended all services; all government offices were closed to the public- many just did not open. But not the state legislature. With all the legislators in town for the State of the State, they decided it was still fine to hold session on Wednesday. So, I battled through over a foot of snow to get to work for 8am. Some streets had already been ploughed by the superb snow service force the city has in operation. In some places, the snow went up to my knees.
Either way, it made for some great pictures, and it was fun. All I wanted to do was jump in the big snow piles, or grab a sledge and find a big hill to race down. Sadly though, work called. Growing up sucks!
Anyone for a seat?
Snow piled on N Frances St.
State Street Snow
More snow on Langdon Street
A buried bike
Ploughing the streets
Back to work, despite the snow
Shovelling State Street
Clearing the Capitol, piling the snow high
A Capitol covered in snow
The Capitol Dome has been lit green and gold throughout this week in honour of the Greenbay Packers, who compete for the SuperBowl title tomorrow!
Reader Comments (2)
That blog brought back a lot of memories, particularly of the cold caused by the wind chill. I see that you were ,like me,amazed at the speed and efficiency of the snow clearance. Perhaps we could learn some lessons particularly about budgeting for snow! Roll on Spring!
Hope you are Nicole are keeping warm.
I don't usually take the weather forecasts too seriously because they always seem to exaggerate and then get it wrong. Most of the time when they start predicting a huge storm days in advance, it shifts, loses intensity and isn't nearly as bad as they expected. Those storms almost always seem to miss us. Well, from our perspective here in Racine, this time they got it right! We've never experienced a real blizzard before -- we got almost 2 feet of snow along (higher in places because of the drifts!). We literally couldn't get out of our neighborhood until late on Wednesday night because the streets were covered with so much snow and the plows didn't come. They closed the schools again on Thursday because they had to figure out how to deal with the piles of snow covering the school parking lots, etc. It's been an adventure that we won't soon forget. I guess sometimes you have to trust those weather people!