If you think you’ve seen this picture before – you probably have. I seem to take pretty much the same picture every year after the first serious Winter snowfall. What’s different this time around is that it’s January 23. Last Winter the first decent snowfall was on 28 November (and the snow amounts were pretty similar, maybe a little bit less then)! Another thing that was different is that last year there was more snow up here than farther South. This time Manhattan got almost twice as much (24 inches) than we did (about a foot). Luckily it was a light, soft, powdery snow and, at least up here, there was very little wind so there were no power outages.

Following the weather forecasts in the run up to the storm I was once again struck by the fear mongering. OK, it was a pretty bad storm (maybe about the second or third worst historically in New York City). But we’ve been through this before many times. Sometimes I think the media should just say “There’s going to be a storm. It’s going to be pretty bad. Get prepared! We’re now ending all storm coverage. See you again after it’s all over”. It’s not even as if they’re accurate. The forecasts went up and down all week with different sources saying different things. As late as a day or so before some sources were saying that we could get 1-4 inches rather than the foot or so that we eventually got. Just goes to show that weather forecasting is still a very inexact science. I know a bit about this as my wife was for many years the spokesperson of the World Meteorological Organization.

Birdhouse – now looking a bit sorry. We’ll have to repaint it next year.

View across the snowy patio.