Snowbound!

Late yesterday, a low pressure system from the Ohio Valley trekked across the eastern half of the country, headed for the coast. At the same time, another low was churning over the Atlantic just off the coast, driven up from the south by the jet stream. The two storms collided off the coast of Long Island during the night and hooked back over Massachusetts, exploding into a Nor'easter - the signature new England storm that meteorologists compare to a winter hurricane. 

Blizzard conditions raged through the early morning hours and when the dim light of dawn broke over New England, the sights were surreal. Over a foot of heavy snow muffled everything, bending trees and breaking branches, and swathing our entire world in a thick, downy blanket.

The clothesline post looks like a frozen crucifix in some far northern shrine. 

The kicker is, it has not stopped yet!  As I write this, it is still snowing outside, albeit, not at the crazy rate it was this morning. 
The weather folk are calling what happened over us in the wee hours a "snow bomb", because when the two storms combined and settled over southern New England, it caused thunder and such intense, heavy snow that the storm "blew up" right on top of us.
The snow reportedly weighs about twenty pounds per square foot, according to newscasters.   As I was hoisting a heaping shovelful and tossing it over the drifts that stood taller than me, I wondered aloud why it is that we don't live in the Bahamas.  Mac is a man of few words and never answers rhetorical questions.  He simply shrugged as he dug in again.

I am very grateful that the Governor ordered all state workers in the executive branch to stay home today.  It would have been a life-threatening ordeal to try and drive the short distance to the office in these conditions.
By mid-day we had been smothered by about eighteen inches of heavy snow.  Mac has spent the entire day shoveling us out here at CatBird Heaven.  My son joined him for a few hours, and I helped for about an hour and a half too, before I had had enough.  Now he is off to the new house in my little four-wheel drive to un-bury it as well.

The picture immediately above shows the area where we have our little umbrella table in the spring and summer.  The one below is the same view in warmer weather.  I thought you might like the "then and now" comparison.

Oh sweet summer, I miss you so...