Thursday, January 27, 2011

And God said, let there be snow.

Snow snow and more snow! Last winter, the Connecticut weather was fairly mild. Cold of course, some snow storms, but not too much accumulation. This winter I prayed for snow because I love it (please see previous post) and boy oh boy did God deliver!

There is this special type of storm over here called a Nor'easter. Now, I haven't figured out exactly what makes this different from a good old fashioned Colorado blizzard, but here is what Wikipedia says it is:

"A nor'easter (also northeaster; see below) is a type of macro-scale storm along the East Coast of the United States and Atlantic Canada, so named because the storm travels to the northeast from the south and the winds come from the northeast, especially in the coastal areas of the Northeastern United States and Atlantic Canada. More specifically, it describes a low pressure area whose center of rotation is just off the East Coast and whose leading winds in the left forward quadrant rotate onto land from the northeast. The precipitation pattern is similar to other extratropical storms. Nor'easters also can cause coastal flooding, coastal erosion, hurricane force winds, and heavy snow. Nor'easters can occur at any time of the year but are mostly known for their presence in the winter season.[1] Nor'easters can be devastating and damaging, especially in the winter months, when most damage and deaths are cold related, as nor'easters are known for bringing extremely cold air down from the Arctic air mass. Nor'easters thrive on the converging air masses; that is, the polar cold air mass and the warmer ocean water of the Gulf Stream.[2]
However, in common parlance, "nor'easter" is often used to refer to any strong rain or snow storm that occurs in the northeast part of the United States, regardless of season, prevailing wind direction, direction of storm travel, or the geographic origin of the storm. This "bad storm" usage has even spread to local TV channel newscasts, at least in the greater New York City area, which makes the common use of the term "noreaster" all the more confusing. Within common parlance, even if a particular storm has a generally rotating formation and a portion of it presents northeasterly winds over some part of the northeast, other sections of the same storm may be presenting prevailing winds from other directions over other parts of the northeast but the storm will still be called a nor'easter."

Mostly what I get from this is that nor'easter means bad weather. Here are some pictures from our latest storms.

Last week, I woke up to this:





It was wonderful! About a foot and a halfish. I was so sore from shoveling, had some great fun sledding, I felt more at home then I have in a long time. Then something really strange happened about a week later. It had been really cold, so not too much of the snow had melted. It snowed a little more, and then started to rain!! Ew ew ew. Freezing rain. This was the result



That's no decorative pattern on my window, that is ice!! Somewhere around an inch of ice!



This much ice was everywhere! On all my windows, covering my car, and it was coating the snow! It is not too clear in this next picture, but my backyard was a bonifide skating rink!



You can sort of tell that the "snow" has a glazed, smooth look. Definitely the strangest weather I have ever seen. We got another 5 inches or so a couple days later, not too bad. Then this morning, woke up to another 18 inches! Now mind you we still had a lot of snow on the ground because it hasn't really gotten out of the 20's. Wow!









I figure that there is a total of 3 feet on the ground right now! Boy oh boy I love the snow!!

2 comments:

Nicki said...

I think your house is just tired of seeing traffic and people so it's trying to hide.

Sara said...

Why is there still nothing about your trip on this blog of yours?