Snowtorious B.I.G.

Yesterday, all Chicagoans--maybe during their early commutes home--seemed to be competing to come up with the best name of the impending blizzard. The title of this post was my favorite, but others included: snowgasm, snowpocalypse, snO.M.G, Blizzaster, "Snow you di'int!", snowverkill, snowmaggedon, Snobel Prize. . . you get the picture.

Chicagoans usually laugh in the face of snow. We don't take it very seriously. . . we scoff at southern towns that screech to a halt and make mad stampedes on the Piggly Wiggly for a dusting of a few inches. We're hardy folks up here and are offended by the notion of taking snow days.

But this time is different. This is a bona fide blizzard. Impossible to measure the snowfall because it blew around in 60 mph winds last night, so that in some spots, the snow is 2" deep, but the drift right next to that is 4 feet tall. Everything is closed today as far as I can tell--schools, colleges, businesses. It's a mess out there.

2 PM on Tuesday--no blizzard in sight yet, but I was still sent home early from work. That was maybe the oddest thing about yesterday. . . a town that usually mocks snow and weather, took the blizzard really seriously and cleared out of the city before the heaviest snow had even started. The folks who got stuck on Lake Shore Drive later in the evening were either idiots or had terrible bosses who made them stay later than they should have.

Took a while for the blizzard to ramp up. Tiny snow filled the air, but the most impressive thing was the wind and the lightning/thundersnow. Accumulation was slow. Before going to bed, after 8 hours of blizzard, L.P. was only up to his knees in the snow.

by morning, though, it was clear that the blizzard had continued its work overnight.

for folks unfamiliar with my house. . . this snow covered bush is about 4.5 feet tall. The snow is adding another 12" to its height, which means the snow drift around it is about 4 feet high. Dan has to shovel that some time today.

and it's still snowing as of 9:30 AM.

This final picture just to give you a sense of the kind of wind involved in this blizzard. This is a picture of snow lodged in the southwest corner of our front porch. Snow rarely even gets on the floor of the porch, much less lodged into the most protected ceiling corner. But how do you measure snowfall if some decent portion of it is stuck to walls and windows and doors?