Hi Folks!
Well, ol' Alberta Clipper came roaring through the DC area yesterday. There
were quite a few power outages across the DC/Baltimore area, as well as tree
damage. I saw one report on the 11 pm news showing a house in Fairfax, VA
(if I remember the location correctly) that was missing most of its roof,
due to the extremely large oak tree that fell on it. The removal crews
guesstimated that they were having to cut up around 8 tons of tree!!!!
Fortunately, my power stayed on.
Temps last night fell to the upper teens/low 20's in the area. We did have
a quick little flurry scurry through, around 8 pm, as my husband and I saw
the little flakes as we got off the commuter train to go home. It was one
of my two favorite kinds of snow--quick, non-stick, and gone. My other
favorite kind is the kind that snows at least a foot, guaranteeing me a day
off of work. I work for the Federal Government in DC, and it takes a foot
or more to get us off work. Of course all the school systems close after 3
or 4 inches--except for the DC school system--they follow the Government.
All of us natives know that people in this area can't drive worth spit in
the snow--a few flakes and they go berserk!! It's the old DC Snow
Mantra--"milk, bread, toilet paper, abandon your car" ooohhhhhmmmmm! :-D
It's not the snow that bothers me so much as the wackos on the road--THEY
scare me--and I've seen a few snow accidents to prove my point!!
It was 22 degrees when I left the house this AM to go to work and of course
the wind chills were in the single digits--leaving my single digits quite
cold, sending me digging around for my gloves!!
Reading the forecasts for next week, and listening to Doug Hill (the head
meteorologist on WUSA Channel 9) last night, AND reading Larry Cosgrove's
forecast, it looks like we, in the Mid-Atlantic area, just might get our
first REALLY SIGNIFICANT snowfall since the blizzard of '96--what we call
here in the DC area as the Furlough Blizzard--after the furlough of us
Government workers in Dec '95-Jan '96. Congress had just gotten their act
together and we were due to go back to work on Mon. Jan 6, '96, and that
Sunday night/early Monday morning, the blizzard struck. The Government was
closed for another 3 days, while everyone dug out. They actually opened for
business that Thursday, although area schools stayed closed. Thursday
night/Friday morning we got another 6-8 inches--closing everything that had
opened the day before. My husband made the one-mile hike to the Giant
grocery store for supplies in about 4 hours--normally a 15-minute walk-3
minute drive. I could use a few days off with pay!! :-D
Sharon Kimbleton
Lanham, MD (an eastern suburb of Washington, DC)
kimbleton_s{at}bls.gov
-OR-
skakim{at}mindspring.com
URL: http://polaris.umuc.edu/~skimblet/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Mar 09 2000 - 21:55:39 EST