the morning after

we're still under a blizzard warning for another hour and a half, but man did it storm while i was asleep!

last night, i could open our balcony door and take pictures with flash (without having it flash back off the glass door), now... well, you'll see shortly

according to weather underground online, we (1 mile from new brunswick, NJ) currently have 14 inches of snow (that was reported at 8am, and from the view out of my house, i believe it!)

according to the weather channel, today's even more fun as we get to deal with 25-40mph winds, with gusts of up to 50mph, to help us rearrange our buckets full of snow, whether we like it or not.

i know one person who's not trying to leave the house today! ;-)

here's a local news story...

click here for the source

WE'RE COVERED
Nature lets it snow (2 inches an hour) and blow (40 mph)
Sunday, January 23, 2005
BY MARK MUELLER
Star-Ledger Staff

A season of meager snowfall became a season of plenty yesterday with the arrival of a howling two- day tempest that slowed highways to a crawl, grounded hundreds of planes and plunged wind chills into negative territory.

With snow-clearing operations hampered by winds and the storm's intensity -- snow fell at a rate of 2 inches per hour at times -- acting Gov. Richard Codey declared a state of emergency until 8 a.m. today. The declaration gave police the authority to close roads.

The storm was different depending on your ZIP code. By 11 p.m., more than a foot of snow had piled up in West Milford in Passaic County, while 10 inches had blanketed Sayreville in Middlesex County, and 8.4 fell in Newark.

The conditions eased for a few hours in the evening, but forecasters were expecting the tail of the storm to pack a more potent punch overnight.

"The first part of storm, there was not a whole lot of wind -- well, that's over," National Weather Service meteorologist Scott Reynolds said late last night. "It's going to get nasty."

A blizzard warning remained in effect until 10 a.m. today across hard-hit northeastern New Jersey, where 45 mph wind gusts were expected along with snow accumulations that forecasters said could reach 24 inches.

A winter storm warning covered the rest of the Garden State.

"All available manpower and vehicles are deployed, but if it's still coming down at noon (today), the road conditions in all likelihood are not going to be very good," said Mark Lavorgna, a spokesman for the state Department of Transportation.

The storm, a convergence of two weather systems from Canada and the Pacific Northwest, hammered the upper Midwest and the Ohio Valley before roaring into the Northeast before noon yesterday, spawning blizzard warnings from northern New Jersey to Vermont.

Temperatures fell to record lows in Maine, reaching 29 below zero in Bangor. In Ohio, the storm was blamed for three deaths.

"It's a major storm. Hopefully not a crippling storm like the Blizzard of'96, but there's no getting around the fact that it's a big one," said Al Cope, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Mount Holly.

The bitter blast made up for what had been a tame New Jersey winter, one that had delivered above-average temperatures and just a few inches of snow across most of the state. Since Dec. 1, only 6.5 inches had fallen in Newark. Yesterday Newark and many other towns surpassed that amount in hours.

In the Burlington County community of Lumberton, 11 inches of snow fell before sunset. By 11 p.m., other towns were catching up: 11.3 inches in Carlstadt, Bergen County; 10 in Manalapan, Monmouth County; 9 in Union, Hunterdon County.

Forecasters said between 18 and 24 inches could fall in Passaic and Bergen counties by the time the storm ended today. Essex, Hudson and Union counties were likely to be close behind.

Central New Jersey was expected to get between 10 and 14 inches, with 9 inches in Monmouth and Ocean counties.

Given ample warning, transportation officials deployed more than 2,000 plows, salters and sanders, but the force struggled to keep up. By 9:30 p.m., police reported dozens of accidents across the state, though none was serious -- a possible sign that people had heeded warnings to stay indoors.

"Either that, or that they are traveling so slowly," said Sgt. Michael Nordstrom, a State Police spokesman.

To help snow-clearing efforts, Transportation Commissioner Jack Lettiere ordered abandoned and disabled vehicles towed from all state and interstate highways.

While road traffic moved slowly, airports fared worse. Thousands of flights were canceled from Chicago to Boston, with 120 cancellations at Newark Liberty International Airport by yesterday evening.

NJ Transit cut service to one train per hour on its busy Northeast Corridor, a condition that would continue today, spokesman Dan Stessel said. To accommodate travelers, NJ Transit tickets would be cross-honored on any train, bus or light-rail system statewide, Stessel said.

The storm also derailed dozens of events. Meadowlands Racetrack canceled its harness racing program, and several college basketball games were postponed. The Paper Mill Playhouse called off this afternoon's performance of "Harold and Maude." William Paterson University moved tonight's graduation to tomorrow.

But not all was put on hold. Thousands of students took the SAT exam. Thousands more crowded the Meadowlands Exposition Center for Auto Expo 2005.

Getting home was another matter. Gusts above 40 mph turned snow into an airborne froth that cut visibility to less than a quarter- mile in many spots. The wind was expected to persist today, making temperatures in the teens feel like 8 below.

As usual, predictions of the impending storm sent people scurrying to supermarkets, hardware stores and big-box home improvement outlets.

"People generally like to wait till the last minute," said Richard Aloi, an assistant manager at a Home Depot in Raritan Township. "They see a snowflake and they run out."

Not that Aloi was complaining. By 10:30 a.m., the pre-storm swarm had snapped up the store's last 50 snowblowers and some 600 bags of sand, half of the load that had arrived hours earlier.

Some people joined the migration because, well, that's just how they were raised.

"My mother always said it's good to get more than you need when possible," said Lue Haskell, a 61-year-old Irvington resident, as she left a Home Depot in Union Township with a new shovel yesterday morning.

At an A&P supermarket in Jersey City, where checkout lines stretched 30 carts deep, Vinny Wycko worked as quickly as he could to replenish stocks of ground beef, the only meat left on the shelves. Within minutes, those packages disappeared, too.

"Every snow scare, people are frantic," he said, smiling. "It's a 24-hour period, and they're afraid they won't survive."

If the storm was a trauma for many, it was a joy for some.

In past years, a heavy snow was a siren call to kids who lived near Walters Park in Phillipsburg. But after a young sledder struck a pole last year, the town halted sledding and tubing there, even planting a sign atop the slope saying so.

But as the inches piled up yesterday afternoon, cousins Brett Johnson, 14, and David Pastic, 11, couldn't resist. They hauled out their snowboards for the first time this season, and had the hill nearly to themselves.

"Last year, when both of us were snowboarding, we had to watch out for people because there was so many of them," Brett said between runs. "They're probably scared to come because of what happened."

This time, the cousins had to share the slope only with Chris Grube and his 9-year-old son, Chris Jr. The Grubes live in Brigantine, but the elder Grube grew up in Phillipsburg and spent many a winter enjoying Walters Park. When he heard about the incoming storm, he decided to relive some memories and start some new ones with his son.

Grube knew about the ban but came anyway.

"What are they (the police) going to do, give you a ticket?" he asked as he watched Chris Jr. fly down the hill in an snow tube. "They've got better things to do."

The storm also was a welcome blast for the operators of Mountain Creek ski resort in Vernon, which until yesterday depended largely on machines for snow this winter. Yesterday, skiers and snowboarders crowded into the resort's parking lot by 8 a.m.

"It's some of the best times to ski when it's snowing," said Debbi Robibero, who works in the resort's guest services department.

"It's absolutely wonderful."

Staff writers Mike Frassinelli, Katie Wang, Kasi Addison, Paul Nel son, Raviya H. Ismail and John P. Martin contributed to this report.

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i woke up and already took 32 pictures of the view from our house in highland park, NJ... i'll be posting them shortly

later dudes! (and stay warm!)