We probably have at least 6-8 inches here in Westminster - is there a site that gives recorded snow totals? It is still coming down good here, so looks like the weather folks were right on with this storm! Shall be interesting what the final totals are by Saturday!!

My planned trip for Tucson next week is timely - will be nice to get into 70ish temps for a few days when there's still snow on the ground back home ;^)

Happy snow mulching,

Marj

Oops - my eyeballing the amount of snow was a bit off. Took a ruler out to the back patio and it measured 10in!!

Marj

Yes! I got my coveted snow day! Mother Nature's way of saying, "Take a load off." The better half worked last night, so I have to be quiet a few more hours. I brought in my seed starting trays after trudging out to feed the horses this morning. I'm soaking 3 milk jugs for wintersowing, too.

Sausage gravy simmering on the stove, biscuits just went in the oven.

We're getting a lot of blowing and drifting here. The area around the house is bare dirt, then 2 ft drifts in spots.

The shoveling and snow blowing will start soon enough. The satelite dish is covered with snow, so no tv reception. I don't want to brush it off just yet. Just enjoying the peace and quiet.

I bought 3 balled and burlapped Xmas trees on clearance last month, 2 Fat Albert and 1 Baby Blue Eyes Picea pungens. (why do I ever think they'll make it?) Last weekend I dug holes, pulled them out of the pots and put them in the ground with the burlap intact to be properly planted come spring. The ground is still moist here from our fall storm. It was pretty easy digging, actually.
I've loved not having to water. What a difference from last winter!

Timer on the biscuits just went off, so better go.
Hope you're having a good day!

Barb

The sun was shining here a little while ago! It's started to snow lightly again, but I have to say, it sure doesn't look like we're gonna get much more on NOAA radar! It just looks like the whole thing is lightening up to me--in spite of the fact that the Weathermen are still predicting it to go on into tonite!

Don't know yet how much I got, and not sure I'm gonna be able to figure it out very well! Like Barb, it's all blown around, so it's almost bare in spots, with drifts in other spots. Maybe I'll measure one of the drifts and make you all feel sorry for me by making you think I really got Dumped On!!! ;-)

Misty, here's a couple places where you can get an idea of what the snowfall totals are. I'll link a new interactive one I just found below, and you can zoom in to any area to see the "overall" snowfall amounts, tho the way it's set up, you don't really need to zoom in very close to see which section you fit into! And here's a second page which lists the amounts Spotters have reported in specific areas. You just need to look down the list to see if you can find a report in your area. Most recent reports on top! Don't have time to live-link it, so it's a do-it-yourself, copy/paste link!

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/product.php?site=BOU&product=LSR&issuedby=BOU

I need to get outside and start to shovel this stuff! Have a feeling if I don't get it done soon it's gonna freeze into one big impervious iceberg and I'm never gonna be able to get it off the walks!

Snowing a little bit heavier again right now! Will be interesting to see if it really does keep going for the rest of the day!

Skybird

Here is a link that might be useful: Snowfall Analysis - Denver/Boulder

Man, oh, man, we are up to about 28.5 inches up here. So much fun in a small town when it snows like this. We all get outside and walk around and laugh and talk and wave. Everyone is all smiles and we even got the path and car shoveled without too much effort.

I hope you all get lots of snow and stay very safe and sound! Luckily, the school is closed so I didn't have to drive down the canyon.

Oddly enough, I'm starting to plan and get ready to start my tomato seeds! They get such a short season that is really makes sense to start them in March which is much closer than I'm ready for!

Jennifer

Thanks for that link, Skybird! Westminster is in the 10-12 range according to that, which sounds about right. Although when the DH and I shoveled the cars and driveway, it sure seemed like a lot more!! We had to shovel a path out in the street, too, so we could even begin to get the cars out without getting stuck.

Ventured out around 4:30 to go to the grocery, since we are supposed to get more snow tonight thought that would be best than waiting till tomorrow. Stores were buzzing with folks - all showing signs of cabin fever, a bit, already ;^). Especially the kiddos.

This seems to be a pretty wet snow, so hopefully that will help water things pretty well as it melts - which may take awhile. Wow - 28 inches, Jennifer?! Now THAT'S a lot of snow!! Glad you and your neighbors are having fun with it, though :-)

Marj

When I went out to shovel right after my last post I discovered my neighbor had already shoveled a one-shovel-wide path down my walk--which is what I had been planning to do, so since it was already halfway done, I shoveled it the rest of the way, all the way wide--and then finished shoveling theirs the rest of the way too! Since I'm just hangin' inside most of the time these days, it was good exercise! I suspect the neighbor had just gone in to take a break before finishing the rest of it when I did it, and later in the day I noticed that they had shoveled the drive in front of my garage too! Have told them a couple times that if there's enough snow that it needs to be shoveled--I'm not gonna be out driving anywhere, but they shoveled it anyway! I really do need to get around to making some cookies soon! While I do shovel their walk when I'm out there and notice it needs to be done, they invariably wind up shoveling more of my snow than I do theirs!

After I finished measuring I took my yardstick out and found the "evenest" part of the front yard I could, and it looks like I had about 10" at that point--it was definitely not less than that! And it's been snowing lightly ever since I shoveled, and I'm estimating I have an additional 2-3" by now, making a total of probably a little over a foot! For a "winter storm" there does seem to be a lot of moisture in it, so it looks like this really is gonna be a great soaking for the grass. I love the way snow always melts slowly enough that it has time to actually soak in, rather than running right off like so many of our rain storms do!

A little while ago I went out to get the mail, and I took the shovel along with me and cleaned off the walk one more time tonite--just mine this time! It's actually kinda nice out there! Maybe it's just that I had been craving a snow storm! I had filled up all the bird feeders yesterday, including the suet feeder, and when I looked out of an upstairs window at about 0745 this morning, there were FOUR flickers lined up on a cottonwood branch! The kinda funny thing is that I never saw them again later in the day, and the suet is virtually untouched! But there were house finches waiting in mobs to get at the sunflower and safflower feeders. It looked like a scene out of The Birds out there! I also had six Eurasian Collared Doves lined up on top of the fence at one point, but they're not able to get into the feeders, and with all the snow on the ground they weren't able to effectively scavenge there, so they didn't hang around long!

The little globeda of moisture seems to just keep hanging around right over the Metro area, and I guess they really were/are right that it's gonna keep on going till at least some time in the morning! I'll need to get my yardstick out again to see if I can figure out about what my total winds up being!

Jennifer, I think it's lucky your school was closed too! I don't know how long it lasted, but sometime earlier today I heard the road down the canyon was closed! It woulda been a long walk!!! Well, maybe you could have taken the "back road" and come down Magnolia! LOL!!! I can just see you out there in your little town, celebrating the snow! Sounds like great fun!

Really, really---really---glad I didn't have to try to drive in it,
Skybird

satisfied with this snow, after having used the last two weeks to truck in 7 loads of compost to my new 1100 sq ft garden.

I am dreaming off the day when I start planting in it.

Here is a link that might be useful: naturalist dot org

Well, went out in the yard with a yard stick to measure out accumulation this morning - 19 inches in the back yard, and 17 inches in the front (so let's say an average of 18" then)!!

Here's some pics:

Sun is starting to peak out now - yeah! Ready for the melt to begin, already ;^)

Marj

Wahhh! My front yard is bare! The grass is visible. The wind swept it all onto my driveway including a big drift against my garage door. That's where our 2 feet went, lol. That's what I get for living on top of a hill!

At least my wintersown containers are all well insulated under one of the piles! Hubby's out of town so I had to do all the shoveling. I am feeling it now....

Gee, Kat, why didn't you just shovel it all onto your grass? LOL! Should I stop making "helpful" suggestions! Shoveling it ANYWHERE is hard enough! Sorry to hear yours all landed in the Wrong Place! MANY years ago (back in the early 70's!) I lived in a little house in far south Aurora, and we got a storm like this last one, but even more snow and even more wind, and the way it happened to blow between the neighbor houses it ALL seemed to wind up RIGHT in front of our garage! It went all the way up to the roof, and if the snow had been hard enough we could have walked up the Snow Mountain and walked straight onto the roof! When we first went out after the storm and saw it, it was hard to really believe there was THAT much snow there! So I do know where you're coming from! It was kinda like: Could we possibly dig a tunnel thru it to drive the car out of the garage--rather than having to shovel it ALL!!!

As near as I can tell I wound up with about 15" total. When I finally got out to measure it today I was getting 14", but the sun had been shining on it for quite a while at that point, and there was no question that it was well into the process of "settling down!" But one thing I know for sure; there is a LOT of moisture in it, and it really is gonna do a great job of watering everything.

When I looked out the front door last nite about 12:30, trying to figure out just how hard it was still snowing, I noticed some flashing lites at the end of the block, and then I heard, Beep, Beep, Beep! It took a minute to figure out what was going on in the middle of the nite, but there was a city plow out there plowing the residential streets. When I looked more closely--over the shoveled pile along my walk, I discovered they had already plowed the road in front of my house! I thought that was kinda nice of Thornton--even if I don't need to go anywhere! And with the sun today now the plowed part is bare and dry again. Lots of piles, still, along the edges where people have shoveled their walks and drives--and shoveled out their cars that were parked on the street!

By the end of the week we're supposed to be well back up into the 40's and maybe even back up to the low 50's so I'm guessing that even most of the piles will be gone by next weekend if they're in the sun! That's the kind of snowstorms EVERYBODY should have! Shhhhh! Don't tell anybody else about out Miraculous Disappearing Snowstorms or everybody will be moving here! We need to keep this to ourselves!

Do any of you remember the March Blizzard of 2003? Funny story! I was working in San Fran at the time, and commuting back and forth, and the Blizzard happened when I was on the west coast. Being in the Airline Business, needless to say I was hearing plenty of stories about how bad it was and about all the flites that were being cancelled. The total (official) snowfall was just short of three feet (in about 24 hours I think it was), and when I had days off and was able to come home again it was on the third day after the storm, and I REALLY wanted to come home so I just made up my mind that I'd shovel my car out of the parking lot--no matter how long it took, and find some way to get home! I got back to DIA and onto the parking lot bus, determined that I was just gonna change into my Survival Clothes that I had in the car and start shoveling, and then we got to the parking lot! Except for the humongous--and I DO mean humongous, piles of snow where it had been plowed, all the cars and roads in the parking lot were DRY! I almost fell over! When I got out onto the two-lane road I took home (for those of you who don't know, DIA is out on the plains, halfway to Kansas!) the road was completely dry--and there were huge 6-8' piles of snow ALL along the road--I couldn't see over the top ANYWHERE! It was like being in a maze where all you could do was to keep going the way you were going! I felt like I was in an hallucination of something! Got back more into the Metro area and, except for the piles along the streets, you could hardly tell there had been a blizzard. I've lived out here since '64, and I KNOW how fast it melts, but even I could hardly believe what I was seeing that time!

This IS the place to live!

Skybird

Yeah, I wish I could throw the snow far enough to cover my grass so it could benefit from the moisture. It just looks odd-the expanse of tawny grass with 3 ft snow piles next to it. A goodly chunk of my back yard is also nekkid.

At least I didn't have to get up on the roof to shovel it off like I did in the mountains of Wyoming. That was in Jackson Hole, which averages 150 inches of snow a year, most of it the light, fluffy stuff. I do have to say that I prefer Colorado winters to those in Wisconsin and Minnesota.