Bowie Living: The Snowstorm Chronicles

Saturday, February 6, 2010

The Snowstorm Chronicles - The Digout Begins

The snow finally stopped falling in Bowie around 4:30pm on Saturday, and the sun peeked through the clouds. I used the Pat Collins snowfall measuring technique, and I came up with a snowfall total in Bowie of 24 inches. My measurement may be less than measurements reported from people following NOAA guidelines. I took the measurement on the driveway where the snow wasn't collecting for a period of time. The Bill's Baro Clinic blog is reporting 25.5 inches here in Bowie, and Bill is in the know when it comes to meteorological stuff.

The unscientific Bowie measurement at the end of the storm - 24 inches.

If you're not familiar with the Pat Collins snow measuring technique, check out the following video clip that was filmed earlier today on Connecticut Avenue in D.C.

We started digging out the driveway this afternoon. The snow on the top is fluffy, but the stuff near the bottom is pretty heavy. We finished the bottom half of the driveway, but as you can see, we haven't seen a snow plow on our street yet. A lot of the snow that you see here in the street will be pushed into my driveway whenever the plows do arrive - and it's very heavy with a layer of slush on the bottom.

It's tough finding a place to put all of the snow. Our driveway is wide enough for two cars, and the snow is piled up high on both sides. The measuring stick in the snowbank pictured above is 48 inches long, so the snow on the side of our driveway is probably 64 inches high.

We've been fortunate that we never lost power. Maybe BGE's initiatives in Bowie helped. We are hearing that 200,000 homes in the Mid Atlantic region are without power, and we know people in Bowie that have not had power for most of the day.

And here are some before/after comparisons photos showing the results of the storm.