We DID get the snow!

Today we woke up to about a foot of snow. This is the storm with the center of rotation just south of Cape Cod. You can see one of the big snow bands, in the darker blue, right over our house. Photos coming.

Finally... Some Snow!

At 10:38 pm, I saw a few flakes in the front outside lights. The next time I looked, at 11:10, it was a white-out and the ground was covered. So... here's our blizzard: The Blizzard of Ot-Nine.

Here it Comes!

Winter on Cape Cod is nothing to feel bad about missing altogether. For the better part of 6 months its just cold damp and monotonous. The weather can never seem to commit to either sleet or rain - rarely snow. But, every so often, the weather service sends a little ray of winter sunshine in the form of a "Winter Storm Warning." Here's the latest; and because of where we're situated; 30 miles out in the relatively warm Atlantic, we sometimes find ourselves in the birthplace of these storms or "Nor-Eastah's" Here's the report I'm watching (doesn't it sound GREAT!)...

A BLIZZARD WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 4 PM THIS AFTERNOON TO 1 PM EST SUNDAY.

A CLASSIC WINTERTIME NOREASTER WILL CONTINUE TO DEVELOP OFF THE MID ATLANTIC COAST TODAY. IT WILL MOVE NORTHEAST TONIGHT AND LIKELY BE SITUATED JUST SOUTHEAST OF NANTUCKET EARLY SUNDAY MORNING. SNOW WILL SPREAD NORTHWARD IN ADVANCE OF THIS LOW AND WILL REACH THE WARNING AREA BY THIS EVENING. THE SNOW WILL BECOME HEAVY AT TIMES OVERNIGHT AND CONTINUE SUNDAY MORNING. THE LOW WILL PULL AWAY DURING THE DAY SUNDAY WHICH WILL ALLOW THE SNOW TO TAPER OFF AND END SUNDAY AFTERNOON.

AS THE LOW APPROACHES TONIGHT... NORTHEAST TO NORTH WINDS WILL BECOME QUITE STRONG. SUSTAINED SPEEDS OF 25 TO 35 MPH ARE EXPECTED TONIGHT AND SUNDAY WITH GUSTS POSSIBLY REACHING 60 MPH. THIS COMBINED WITH HEAVY SNOW WILL CAUSE BLINDING SNOW AT TIMES... WITH VISIBILITIES BEING REDUCED TO UNDER A QUARTER MILE. SIGNIFICANT BLOWING AND DRIFTING OF THE SNOW IS ALSO EXPECTED. THE SNOW MAY MIX WITH RAIN OR SLEET FOR A TIME ON NANTUCKET AND THE OUTER CAPE TONIGHT. STORM TOTAL SNOWFALL AMOUNTS ARE EXPECTED TO BE 7 TO 15 INCHES. LOWER SNOWFALL AMOUNTS ARE POSSIBLE ON THE OUTER CAPE AND ISLANDS IF MORE RAIN MIXES IN LONGER THAN EXPECTED.

TRAVEL IS NOT RECOMMENDED TONIGHT AND SUNDAY AS IT WILL BECOME DIFFICULT AT BEST... AND NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE AT TIMES.

Winter's Here

This early morning, still dark, but light enough to make out remembered shapes, I thought I could make out the cold blue patterns of what could be snow. Not a covering snow, but what I imagined I saw was a wind-swept confectioners-sugar dusting, so sparse and fine it could never hope to make a defining hold in a breeze. It could though, settle in pavement-cracks and between driveway-pebbles. It could cling to the outlines of roof shingles and in the crags of tree-bark. And in these places, I strained to certify the shapes and patterns as snow. And, that it was... with the first pink half-hearted hues of morning pink, I could just make out for sure, our first snow of the season. Our first insignificant snowfall, if you could even call it that. Still it was snow, and if its going to be bitter cold, let it snow!

I planned to get a picture of it on my way to work, but as I left our street and headed onto 6A, I never saw it again. It must have been one of those very local, very fleeting, bursts of precipitation, and just for us... or maybe us and East of us. Now its just cold. Very cold. 20 degrees and blowing 30 kts.