On Friday, the world knew, an apocalyptic snowstorm was coming.<\/p>\n
It was coming up the jet stream, from the south. We could see fifteen inches, twenty-four inches, perhaps even forty inches of snow. A winter storm warning was issued from 10 am Friday to 10 pm Saturday.<\/p>\n
Some thought the office would be closed on Friday. Some called it, in hushed tones, “snowpocalypse” or “snowmaggedon.” I thought these words over-used. I coined my own neologism — “blizzardammerung.” A touch of the Wagner, really.<\/p>\n
The snow started to fall about noon on Friday. Lightly at first, then growing steadily heavier. There wasn’t anything to be concerned about at that<\/i> point; the temperature was still nicely above freezing. Anything that touched the ground melted. The world was wet, not white.<\/p>\n
I left the office about three. Trudged the two blocks to the light rail station, rode the train home. It was pretty.<\/p>\n
The snow picked up. It fell, harder and harder and harder. Giant flakes. Monstrous flakes.<\/p>\n
I went to bed. There might’ve been three inches on the ground.<\/p>\n
I woke up about four. I heard thunder. Thunder and snow — a bad combination.<\/p>\n
I looked out the bedroom window. I couldn’t see anything. Perhaps, the storm had fizzled out?<\/p>\n
No, it turned out. The snow had changed over to fine, heavy snow. There must’ve been a foot or more outside.<\/p>\n
The snow continued to fall unabated.<\/p>\n
Twenty inches. Twenty-four inches. Thirty inches. Thirty-six inches. Records were shattered.<\/p>\n
Blizzardammerung, as I called it, ended about four o’clock Saturday afternoon. The sky cleared off. There was a gorgeous sunset.<\/p>\n
This is what the storm looked like from orbit<\/a> — a vast expanse of white along the mid-Atlantic. It looks like Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where I lived ten years ago, was especially hard hit.<\/p>\n Sunday, I started digging out.<\/p>\n Snow is heavy. Snow to the depth of four feet is especially<\/i> heavy. I ache. I’m sore. I could dig for days and weeks and still not escape the house. I’m still not done<\/i>.<\/p>\n The office may be open today. Or it may be closed. I really have no idea. The office phone system is down. So is the office e-mail system. The governor wants people to stay off the roads today. That’s okay; I still need to dig out more before I can reach the roads.<\/p>\n We’re to have more snow on Tuesday and Wednesday. Five, maybe ten inches.<\/p>\n I am tired of snow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On Friday, the world knew, an apocalyptic snowstorm was coming. It was coming up the jet stream, from the south. We could see fifteen inches, twenty-four inches, perhaps even forty inches of snow. A winter storm warning was issued from 10 am Friday to 10 pm Saturday. Some thought the office would be closed onContinue reading “On Blizzardammerung”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[734,669,530,363],"class_list":["post-2681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","tag-blizzardammerung","tag-neologisms","tag-snow","tag-weather","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2681\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}