Snow Day

The northeast corridor was hit with an epic snow storm over the weekend. It snowed for about 30 hours where I live (southwest of Washington DC between Aldie and Haymarket, Virginia). The snow started at 12:42 pm on Friday and lasted into Saturday evening. Due to the gusting wind and snow, we actually could not tell when it stopped and for all of Saturday it was near blizzard conditions.

The strong winds made it hard to measure accurately due to the drifting, we got over two feet of snow. My rain/snow gauge collected a total of 25 inches of snow and measurements I took had drifts up to my waist and down to just a few inches with a small area in front of the house bare for a few hours last night. Most readings away from the house, tree stand and out buildings seemed to be between 22-32 inches.

I did all that measuring during (and after) the storm for my CoCoRHS report. The Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network (CoCoRHS) is a non-profit, community based, network of volunteers who measure and report rain, hail and snow in their backyards. It is one of many citizen scientist projects you can participate in. CoCoRaHS was started in 1998 to help scientists do a better job of mapping and reporting intense storms. CoCoRaHS became a nationwide volunteer network in 2010 and is now international with observers in Canada. You can join if you are interested or donate to keep the network operating.

My measuring stick showing 32 inches near the snow gauge 

This is my first year and I am still learning the ropes on the best way to take big storm readings. So far my strategy is to collect snow (or rain) from my gauge every 4-6 hours, measure record and accumulate the totals for the 24 hour observation period.

So here are some pictures from around my house during and after the storm:

Looking up the road everything is buried in snow- visibility impaired by the near blizzard conditions.

The backyard in whiteout conditions the third septic tank is  just visible

the deck buried in snow

The husband dug out the heat pump last night in hopes of saving it from damage. it was on aux. heat

The snow slid off the solar panels onto the deck (Hope it holds the weight!)

By noon Sunday the road was plowed and y driveway cleared by. Pev's Paintball.

All of the snow that was on the solar panels slid off the roof- most of it onto the deck. Turns out that solar panels are very slippery! Sunday afternoon after we were all dug out, my husband and Melissa took some of the snow off of the deck to lighten the load, take the pressure off the sliding glass door, the railing and to make sure that the furnace vent was clear.