Robot Claw

Today we are in the middle of the biggest snowfall Albany has seen for years, and perhaps the biggest I have ever seen in all my years in America. Overnight saw about 4 inches fall, but we are told the worst is yet to come.

We just finished clearing the driveway (the old fashioned way, with shovels), which took a little under an hour. We’re going to have to do this multiple times because the forecast for today is 18-24 inches of snow (yes, up to 2 feet) with another 6-12 tomorrow. It is falling very heavily right this second.

Here’s some shots of what it looks like right now (about 9 am). I will update this post as the day moves on:

Later that same day…

We just finished our second driveway clear, and it’s now about 1pm. We estimate 8 inches or perhaps slightly more had fallen since 3 hours earlier, which means there was more snow to remove at midday than there was in the morning. Furthermore, it is actually falling much faster now, and according to the forecasts we’re not even halfway done.

As the pictures show, we’re running up against the limit of where we can actually put the snow. Given that it’s getting denser as well, shovelling it up and over the 4 foot piles you can see in the middle shot is out of the question. I wonder what we’ll do?

And into the evening…

I next went out about 4pm, since at that point a further 6 or so inches had accumulated. Even worse, the snowplow’s passing had created a metre high, metre thick wall of densely packed snow that made the end of the driveway impassable. It obviously had to be removed or we weren’t getting out tomorrow.

The snowfall itself had lessened, and it’s possible the worst is over. Although even now they are calling for a few more inches overnight. At about 4 this afternoon, this is what the yardstick said:

So the total of 2 feet seems certain, and possible exceeded at this point. This would be our last time shovelling today, and since we were bone-tired when we began it took a great deal of effort to finish clearing the driveway a third time, much less removing the giant wall of snow at the end…

For those not familiar with our property, here are two shots of the hedge and small garden (containing black-eyed susans) to the left of our driveway, from different angles. One was taken last summer, one today. The pile of snow is almost as tall as I am.

I can’t wait to see what tomorrow morning brings…

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 14th, 2007 at 9:05 am and is filed under Family, Miscellaneous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.