There’s no doubt we’ve got a big snow storm on the way. The only question at this point is “how big”?
Are you dreading it? Are you looking forward to it ?
What’s your shoveling strategy? Are you a shovel-every-few-hours person or a dont-lift-a-shovel-til-the-last-flake-falls kind if person?
While the snow piles up through the day tomorrow, what’s you plan – a good book?, NetFlix?, cooking?, board games?, knitting?
Bwa-hahaha! Lovin it!
Question for the more experienced homeowners:
If power goes out, most of our heating systems will stop working (even if gas). If the outage extends into the night, it seems like thousands of people would freeze in their homes But searching for advice online, I can’t find any way to prepare besides buying a generator. This seems very serious, like hundreds could die of hypothermia, but I must be missing something because it’s not being discussed at that level of risk.
You can boil pots of water in a gas stove to tie you over.
You can still run the shower hot. Absolute worst case
Cheapest Generator is few hundred bucks. If freezing to death is a valid concern, you should get one in advance…
Your water heater will most likely not work without electricity.
Concern about power outages is always valid in a big storm, but this storm is going to be light and fluffy because of the cold. It’s less likely to stick on branches and trees that will down power lines, and the last of the oaks have lost their leaves so they won’t blow around in the wind so much.
I worry much more in ice storms, which break things and really slow down repair crews (and endanger their safety more).
Luckily, 911 response is relatively close by if the worst happens, unlike in rural communities.
It will take quite a while for your internal home temp to get down to freezing unless your house is terribly leaky. You can always dress warmly – add layers. Get a blanket or two. By then the roads will be passable and you can get help if needed.
In past outages I’ve monitored my home temp (battery driven thermometer). Slow decline. Seems like Newton luckily gets power back pretty quickly.
I share your confusion about why this is not discussed more often. It is strange that houses don’t routinely have a backup system to run the pump when power goes out. My plan for such an event is to use the fireplace, and I have enough firewood in my basement to last a day or two.
Assuming the power doesn’t go out, I will be putting a pot roast in to my slow cooker shortly after noon. Catching up on some TV and listening to some vinyl. Maybe play my guitar. Shovel enough to get the dog out for a walk, otherwise wait until evening to break out the snow blower.
The kid in me is thinking, “This could be good football weather!”
Sounds like an excellent plan.
I intend to sleep in, work on my ancestry.com tree, work on my current oil painting, walk my dog a few times in between. Watch Villanova beat Saint John’s and create an excellent lamb dish
Sounds like a great day!
Went for a walk, saw that there were cars parked on my street from before the blizzard. Covered in snow, totally messed up plowing. They weren’t towed, nor were they even ticketed. Meanwhile I can’t park on the street in front of my house even if it’s 50+ degrees during the months with the ban. These cars were left on the street without repercussions. This is shameful.
Have otherwise enjoyed the weekend. I especially love a sunny day after a snowstorm ends.
(Apologies – didn’t mean for this to be a reply. Since V14 switched to bested comments the site works poorly on my phone which is why I don’t come here as often.)
Nested not bested!!
… and I forgot to mention …. “THUNDERSNOW” !!!
Sadly, I should spend the day catching up on job work.
to the new homeowner: push the heat up now so that the house takes longer to get cold. Then bundle up. Stay by the fire if you have one. Years, years ago, we all slept in the living room in sleeping bags: we were fine. Good luck to everyone!
Just like our snowblower is two-stage, we’re also shoveling in two stages because the wind will make quick work of whatever is removed. Fortunately, the snow is light and easy to move.
New Homeowner -If you have oil heat be sure to dig out your tank nozzle so delivery truck can get to it.
I do declare this an absolutely first rate snowstorm. Enough snow to cover everything and then some.
It’s eminently light and shove’able and the storm had nice timing too. It just converted our weekend into a relaxed, do nothing affair.
We slept late, hung out all day and did some reading in this afternoon. An elaborate dinner is on the way and we’re heading over to a neighbor’s after dinner for a glass of wine around the fire. What’s not to like?
a must
clear all outside vents, gas heat, dryers etc
lots of drifting today
piles up against the house
We found the storm grates, but they are snow covered again. Thursday’s forecast is 45 and rain. Need to find them again. Our new snowblower (that uses rechargeable batteries) handled the snow quite well. Way better than shoveling.
My snow clearing superpower is a “snow sleigh shovel” (you can search the webs for it).
They are one of the handful of inventions that make New England life bearable. In my humble opinion, they are so awesome that in a more enlightened world we’d throw tribute pottery with pictures of snow sleighs on precious urns. We would sing their praises in epic songs. We would name a constellation after them. Or something.
They allow you to move a large amount of snow from where you don’t want it to where you don’t care about it, gliding over the snow, all silently and without any real lifting. We have an electric snowblower, but it’s often more trouble to pull out of the garage than to just use the sleigh. And it’s better between cars or along paths with fences or hedges. They are also great for building a large snow pile for a fort or other structure.
(In full disclosure, I used the snowblower as well this year. It helped.)
And you can even get one version of a snow sleigh shovel from a local hardware store (with ship to store, or ship to home if you like):
https://www.acehardware.com/departments/lawn-and-garden/snow-removal-and-equipment/snow-shovels-and-pushers/7200603
I’ve used this version and a variety of others for twenty years. All good.
Once again the city did a great job clearing our tiny street (Spring St). That may not sound like a big deal to you but it is to us.
For years, every storm we had to beg, plead, call and pester the city to get our little street plowed. Often times it would be a day or two before we could get in/out of our houses with a car.
We are delighted that after all those years of struggles the Spring St problem seems to have been permanently solved. For the last couple of years through multiple storms, the snow plows just come and clear our street just like all the other streets in the city!!!
Another shout out to Parks and Rec for clearing pathways to Mason Rice from Bowen and Homer. I saw lots of tiny and not so tiny people walking to school as usual. Thank you!
Laid low on Saturday then got to cleaning it all up on Sunday. Thank goodness for last year’s purchase of a snow blower. It still took me quite awhile due to a long driveway and a long side walk out front. Shoveled out our closet hydrant. Got ready to leave the house to discover our driveway plowed in. I thought by waiting until Sunday I could avoid that but no such luck so grabbed the shovel. Found the st drain today. Since we have no curb that is one of the hardest jobs as the area gets covered by heavy snow from the plows. Luckily I could see part of the one across the st to determine where the one on our side is. It is no fun to shovel that heavy snow only to discover the drain isn’t in that spot. My two annoyances are the salt for the dog paws and the sidewalk plows that came through today for nearby sidewalks that covered neighbors previously cleared sidewalks and walks ways.