@narfcake I know, right! I'm going to have to slog through 4' of sunshine on the way to my car after work.

@narfcake have fun paying your 9+% state tax soon... thats like 1.3% for every 10 degrees.

@MrMark Soon? WTF? Californians have been paying it already!

@narfcake i was meaning when you file your taxes for the year.

@narfcake No whinning!! I'd rather have the 70 degrees

@Foxborn My truck doesn't have working A/C. Okay, it doesn't have working heat either, but it's not a complaint.

@DaveInSocal More sunshine. This is my current view out the window at Ikea up in Covina ...

@brhfl thanks! I hope you have plenty of milk too...

BTW depending on how much beer I can bring back from Chicago I may be willing to offload some on you. No guarantees at this point though!

@hashybrown I bought three gallons so we're good. If you're wondering why the shelves are bare, it's me.

@hashybrown don't forget eggs! You can't make French Toast without them.

@brhfl - Do you tend to have power interruptions in big storms? Because staying warm is the most important, I think. (Having experienced 3 1/2 days stranded at home without power during an ice storm).

@KDemo My power seems pretty stable, but I haven't lived at this location through a large snow storm yet. Worst case scenario, I guess I crank the gas oven periodically.

@KDemo It all depends on ice vs. snow, and more specifically freezing rain. Sleet tends to bounce off things more until it hits the ground. I seem to be just far enough west I had mostly sleet at my house and still have power; friends just a little farther east had more freezing rain and are without power. One friend had a tree fall on her house, which she just bought a month or two ago! Damage seems fairly minimal, though.

@PurplePawprints I think they gave up on my forcast last night, it just says 24+ inches. This sucks

@Foxborn Yes, it most certainly does suck. I love the winter, and don't even mind a bit of snow, but I hate how dangerous it can make everything, you know? Hope you can stay warm and safe at home.

@Kevin Except it's two feet on a Friday and not everyone is blessed with a Mon-Fri, 9-5 job.

@cinoclav if you follow tinder rules you have to subtract about 2 inches to get a realistic estimate

@cinoclav - Just dusting this off in preparation -

@cinoclav 12-18" and a blower? Excuse me, I'm getting a bit...um..Hello there.

@KDemo How have I managed to never see that? Brilliant. :-)

@joelmw - Hehe, I agree. Wish I could take credit.

@KDemo I always preferred, "That what she wished!"

@OldCatLady We had similar about 2003ish Charlotte was shut down for 2 weeks people lost they salt water aquariams and stuff. That week I had bought a kerosene heater and 20 gal of oil and had bought a jeep the month before. If you could drivce down to Chester life was normal. All you can do is say thank you sometimes.

@joelmw I am south of you in MS and it hit 24 last night. Locals are freaked. I grew up in the snow belt, worked one winter in NW ontario where -40 degrees was not uncommon... although in an uninsulated place going barefoot in the house is a bit cold on the feet right now.

@carl669 I was thinking the same thing. Even if it's so deep they can't get far. And I fully expect someone to write "meh" in the snow. Just not in yellow.

@carl669 I'll post pics once we get a good amount. It hasn't started here yet.

@carl669 Snow in Southern Illinois:

@jaremelz

What's wrong with yellow snow?
Never heard of painted snow?

@hallmike Nice! Ok, now everyone just see how long we can go before someone mentions the big coc....oh damn it.

@hallmike nice! where in southern illinois?

@jaremelz or the little puss....

@carl669 Richmond, VA

That's after two hours- we're expecting 12-20 inches. Not good in the south.

@carl669 A little to the right of Marion

@hallmike Damn, usually that's the first thing I notice.

@jaremelz It's probably numb from the cold.

@FroodyFrog Nothing, it's all natural! and free range

@cranky1950

Who refers to paint as free range?

@jaremelz I was in until you said no yellow.

@carl669 Snow from the east ...

@mikibell that's a pretty fancy house you've got there.

@carl669 ;) the 10 inches of snow predicted here has barely started.. nothing to photograph here..

@carl669 MSNBC just (1530 EST, 23 Jan) showed downtown Boston. Perfect blue screen, absolutely nothing to see. They still talked about the view.

@carl669 It's only around a 5 hour drive to Moscow, ID/Pullman, WA. they get plenty of snow when I lived there. Heck you might not even make it over Snoqualmie pass for the snow. You often need chains even in the summer to get over that (I forgot to sell my chains I bought for that mountain and got very, very lucky and was able to sell in them in southern, MS - now if I could only find someone to buy my snowblower). The entire city was snowed in for 8 days - no one out, no one in. We had a run on gasoline no less. Like where exactly did they plan to drive to in either of these very tiny towns that were only 8ish miles apart? Had my kid jump off the porch railing into the snow so I could take a photo with no foot prints getting her there. It was nearly up to her shoulders and that was not a drift. Pretty impressive.

She had never seen snow before I adopted her (From SW Asia as a grade schooler). So I was pulling her around the yard on a plastic sled in the snow (her first snowfall - she had been here 3.5 mo) while she was eating an icicle we broke off the house and a snowball (waiting for for some folks to come to go sledding). Before I could stop her she puts her entire face in the snow. Up comes this little face covered in snow. Outraged she yells at me, "You no tell me snow cold mom!!!".

@sammydog01 I highly approve of your snow day.

@sammydog01 That's my ring tone.

@sammydog01 I had somehow never watched all of Bullitt and remedied that tonight. It's a good movie even apart from the justifiably famous car chase!

@jaremelz Today's lesson- "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid".

@sammydog01 And then you can discuss the ending. I never understood those who believe they live.

@jqubed Another classic- I'll add it to the lesson plan.

@jaremelz Dead as doornails. For sure.

@jaremelz Who on earth would think they get out of that alive?

@heartny

@heartny Let's see - hail, fire, locusts, frogs . . . this is a new one!

@heartny You might want to stock up on giant apes.

@heartny do we need to barrow Mechagodzilla from Japan for this.

@pitamuffin I was considering that. Or car insurance.

@Lotsofgoats

@brhfl I always love your work!

@jaremelz thanks!

@sammydog01 Would you rather have a base layer of sleet and ice, topped with a foot of snow? Decisions, decisions. I SO don't miss snowstorms or icy power lines.

@OldCatLady I think I prefer the sleet on top. So I guess I'm lucky?

Good news! Heat is on. Turns out the intake and exhaust pipes were buried in snow. The HVAC tech suggested that was the case. Took about 10 minutes to dig them out and we were back in business. Wish I knew that 24 hours ago.

We got about 24" of snow, with drifts of 30" or more in some places. Here's a morning shot of my deck.

@ACraigL Yay for heat and a cheap fix! I love wind-blown snow sculptures like the one on your table.

@hallmike It was funny, I actually felt like an indoor outdoorsman when I woke up. The first thing I did was get the fire started, then I made coffee and bacon. After that I was going to forage (out of my wood pile outside) for more wood, but I got the call from the tech to dry the cheap fix.

All in all, I came out of this very manly, IMO. :P

@ACraigL And you shared it, so some other novice won't even have to wait for a callback. That was very good of you, and you get a gold star.

@PurplePawprints How does your smaller dog do in the snow? Also, what are you holding in your hand in the last picture?

@dashcloud Roxy does okay. She's not really all that small; she's a boxer, she just looks small there because Galen is really tall and she's crouched down a bit. Anyway, she mostly keeps to the paths that were shoveled or the kids made in the snow while walking around.

I'm holding my e-cig/vaporizer.

@PurplePawprints Thanks for the great pictures and video! I moved to NW Florida from Denver 33 years ago. Sometimes I miss the snow.....and even the misery it can cause. Here we can get god-awful cold, but no snow.

@PurplePawprints e-cig makes more sense than a breathalyzer to see if you're drunk enough yet to go outside

@olddinodude ???

@FroodyFrog Huh, snowplows actually tried to visit you. Sounds nice!

@brhfl

Just because most of my area doesn't drive today, doesn't mean we wouldn't cause an uproar if no plows came.

@FroodyFrog So what you're saying is I should organize an uproar? Eh, I have nothing better to do!

@heartny

Think these qualify as leg ends?

@FroodyFrog well, they did Fall

@FroodyFrog The legs ends have feet attached, so I think it serves the purpose.

@thismyusername I'm sure alcohol played no part in those decisions.

@hallmike
Shame, it might have been more entertaining if it did ;)

found another, this time with added trampoline!

@blaineg

I freak out over any snow.
Which is odd, bec based on my background, one would think i wouldn't mind it.

Regardless though, I'm still wearing a T-shirt because after all, it IS the winter.

@blaineg Considering that depending on where you are on the snow storm path, this could be one of the largest storms ever (it was for a neighboring city- they got an entire season's worth of snow in this storm), and the Philly area has this as the 4th largest snowfall on record, people aren't overreacting here.

@blaineg kids today

@blaineg It started snowing Friday morning and the plow hasn't been through yet. Fingers crossed for tonight.

@sammydog01 Nope. Maybe today?

@sammydog01

Possibly tomorrow.

@FroodyFrog Surely by Wednesday?

@dashcloud I've spent most of my life in snow country, in the Rockies, so a foot or two of snow is something we dig out of and carry on. I could see the panic if it were Florida or something, but surely you get snow on a regular basis. Why the chronic, if not catastrophic, lack of preparedness?

Still, best of luck digging out.

@sammydog01

Honestly, it depends on our mood.
But ask again and we'll purposely come mid-July.

@blaineg Folks are used to dealing with snow measured in inches, not feet. Your local stores aren't going to be stocking up on big 2-stage snow blowers when the local demand is for smaller ones or snow throwers. Plowing companies? Not as many around.

@blaineg You folks might be interested in paying extra taxes to be prepared for events that happen every 20 years or so but we don't do that. Still waiting for the snowplow to do our cul de sac, and by snowplow I mean the motor grader that did the main road. I love that thing.

@blaineg I know, silly people. It's not like 18 people died due to the storm or anyth... oh... wait...

@Thumperchick 29
Then there's the guy killed by his friend supposedly by mistake, but he didn't die BECAUSE of the weather.

@FroodyFrog I was hoping the toll hadn't climbed since I last checked. That sucks. I want to say at least 3 died from freaking shoveling snow. It sucks.

@Thumperchick

A U.S Capitol Police Officer died while shoveling by his house in Deleware
:(

Just found this breakdown
sigh...

@Thumperchick In Virginia the deaths reported so far are almost all from hypothermia. I don't think we had widespread power outages so I don't understand this. Usually it's car accidents.

@sammydog01

Acc to the link i posted, 2 were from hypothermia, the rest were from traffic accidents and am unspecified thing while shoveling.

@FroodyFrog The state medical examiner would disagree with that. But I guess if it's on TV it must be true...

@sammydog01

For which?

@Lotsofgoats

Found another picture from Queens

@somf69

Where i live they were saying 1/2 a foot at the most.
Pffft. We got almost 2 feet.

@jml326

Those streets though...
Ugh.

@jml326 The solution to an unusable backyard is children/teens. Presuming it is wet enough to build with suggest a fort. A big fort with a tall tower. Big enough that they might need garbage bags to collect snow from neighbor yards Offer a step ladder so they can build it higher. Then suggest a snowball fight. Or have them build a dragon in the snow or a snow cave... it will get packed down, used up, thrown around into someone else's yard, and trampled. You will discover you will have most of your back yard back. And any radiators in your house will be covered in wet clothing and/or cold kids. LOL

@FroodyFrog 2 lanes for parking 2 lanes for travel all down to 1 1/2 lanes at best.

@jml326 i'd be getting that grill cleaned off an using it tonight! for me, there's something zen about grilling when there's piles of snow surrounding me.

@carl669

So what I'm hearing is that it's BBQ season.
Completely logical.
And no, I'm not being sarcastic.

@FroodyFrog it's always BBQ season in my book.

@ceagee the people of Buffalo has dot who know how to handle 30+inches of snow. This is a once a decade storm for our crews.