2011 Chicago Blizzard

UPDATED

We got a little bit of snow here in Chicago. Blizzard of 2011, storm of the century, Snowpocalypse, SnOMG, Snotorious B.I.G. (I didn’t come up with any of these).

It is still coming down and so far we’re at 3rd largest snowfall in recorded weather history. So, bronze. I mean, you know? We tried. We really tried. I think we focused a little too hard on coverage and not enough on depth. Depth is what matters. Sure, this storm is going to hit 30 states, but…bronze.

The big news to me is this is the first time schools have been closed due to snow since 1999. That blows me away. If you’re a High School senior, AND you were going to Chicago Public Schools in 1st grade, you are getting a second snow day. In Oregon, over .5″ usually meant snow day, and definitely if we got an inch or more.

The most intriguing thing about this blizzard…thunder snow. There was thunder and lightning amidst the heavy downpour. Awesome.

photo by Ron Prokaski

After initially posting this we decided to take a walk down Morse to the lake. We bundled up and headed out the door. Almost immediately we were forced to make the decision of “sidewalk or street?” and it was an easy choice. The sidewalks on the south side of the street were fairly clear, the north side…opposite. But the street, it had been plowed a couple times throughout the night and there weren’t many cars on it. Plus, just down the road we saw two buses just stopped.

As we got closer (and visibility cleared) we noticed right in front of the two buses was a third bus…sideways, spanning across the entire road, and another bus on the other side of that.

Other interesting adventures include continuing down Morse to the lakefront where a huge snow drift waited at the end of the road. It blocked in about six cars, one of which the only thing visible on it was the antenna. Past that, out by the lake it looked like a desolate tundra of dune after dune with low dark clouds and swirling wind-driven snow. For all my bundling, this was the first time I felt the cold. There were a few other people out. Another couple was about 20 feet in front of us on a dune when we realized it wasn’t a dune. It was a wave. We were standing over the lake and they were as well.