Thursday, February 4, 2010

Snow, snow and more snow.

We have had so many snowfalls lately that I have forgotten exactly when they occurred. First we had about 6" on Saturday Jan 30th. I was doing a Home Show at the Baltimore Convention Center. The first day of the show was Friday the 29th, President Obama visited the city and the City Center was closed for several hours. On Saturday it started snowing here in Pasadena around 7.00 or 8.00 o'clock in the morning. I left for the Show at around 10am, by which time we had an inch or two of snow. It continued snowing pretty much all day long. So that was two days messed up as far as customers coming in was concerned. I booked into the Sheraton for Saturday night which was right next door but still required walking about 200 yards through the snowy and icy sidewalks. Driving home through the snow and more importantly back again in the morning was a very unattractive option! Sunday dawned bright and snowless, and we had a good showing and booked quite a few jobs and estimates.
On, I think it was Tuesday we had another snowfall, this time about 5 inches here in Pasadena.
Now it is Thursday. I went to Upper Marlboro and set up the booth for the show that was to be Fri, Sat, & Sun, February 5th, 6th & 7th. On the way home I was informed that the show had been cancelled. (Rescheduled to April 16th, 17th, & 18th). Cancelled because yet another snowstorm is due to start at about 10am on Friday and continue until 10pm Saturday. It is forecast to dump 1 1/2 to 2 feet of snow - some weather forecasters have even said we could get as much as 3 feet! There is also talk of 50 mph winds, which will make for blizzard conditions!
We are due to leave for England on Monday morning!
We shall see.

In accordance with my fascination with figures, records and such like I am going to quote some snow figures. So far this year - Feb 5th 2010 - we have had 36 inches of snow or twice the average annual snowfall for this area. In the last 5 winters we only beat the average once, and that was only by 1 inch - in 2005/2006. In 2002/2003 we had 58 inches. The record was 1995/1996 when we had 62.5 inches - that broke the previous all time record by almost a foot. The previous record of 51 inches had stood since 1899! If we get the predicted 18 to 24 inches today and tomorrow we will come close to breaking the record again - and there are still 2 months to go when we could get snow!