Mid Atlantic Gets an Icy Blast

The people of Northern Virginia stocked up for the last winter snow storm that blasted the entire Mid-Atlantic region over the weekend. Grocery stores looked like apocalyptic nightmares- sort of- well, the bread was all gone, and you’d be dog-gone to find any 2% milk, but really- people were hunkering down with provisions to get through an announced possible three to five days of being snowed in.

Cabin fever was running high through most households as the snow came down through most of the day on Friday and consistently through the evening into Saturday afternoon. Some of the more adventuresome Northern Virginia neighbors got out to start uncovering their vehicles on Saturday while snow was still falling. Others let it wait- after all, it was still going to be there on Sunday morning…Diving straight into the snow on Sunday afternoon, with the totally clear blue skies with a major glint of snow blindness, it took nearly four hours to dig two cars out of the three feet of snow that managed to fall at our Springfield, VA home. Neighbors teamed up to dig out those who didn’t have as much energy or help, it was actually a rather nice coming together! In DC, the streets should be back to normal; the spokeswoman for the DC Department for Transportation says that they try to clean the roads up within 36 hours of a storm.

What do we know about this week, besides that the last round of snow will melt, refreeze and send more folks into a snow-induced panic? We know that OPM (Office of Personnel Management) has still not made the call on whether or not government agencies will have another closure or liberal leave day. We know for certain that  The Washington Metro will shut any above ground rail systems if more than ten more inches of snow fall. All above ground Metro service has been suspended on all lines due to inclement weather with limited Metro Bus services for all of today, Monday, February 8th. We know that with the heavy burden of snow and ice on tree branches, some limbs will snap and break. We know that all of the local airports have had closures through mid-morning today as did Amtrak making any effort to avoid the next snow storm futile.

Checking the local weather reports for information about the upcoming additional snowfall for this Tuesday through Wednesday of this week shows that NOVA is in for another douse of ten to twenty more inches of snow. The forecasters have been rather liberal the last two snowstorms, so maybe we will only see a few inches of additional snow. We can only hope. With word today that Fairfax County schools have now been closed since Friday, February 6th, and they are setting out to be closed through this coming Wednesday, February 10th nervous parents are probably wishing that the roads would be plowed a bit faster so that they can get to the store to make another run on groceries -hopefully not like the crazy strip the stocked isles clean like DC saw at that one poor Wegeman’s. I bet that the bread still needs to be re-stocked. Who knows about the milk?