Who Would Have Predicted 40+ Inches of Snowfall?

Wow, what a day. A few days ago when I first heard word that we may be getting a snow event, I kind of shrugged it off. It's too early for anything major, I thought. I thought wrong.

Before I headed to sleep Wednesday night (12/16), we heard the Binghamton area would see a possible 8 to 15 inches of snowfall, which is obviously a lot to deal with. Earlier we were looking at a possible 4 to 8 inches of total snowfall. Yeah, those two predictions would be welcome compared to what we really ended up with.

The Binghamton airport reported around 40 inches of snow and Newark Valley was weighing in at around 44 or so inches of snow. It's been a long time since we have been hit this hard.

And I for one, got soft on winter since the past two or three years have been pretty mild. Only once last year did I have to drag out the snow blower to handle a significant snowstorm, and that one wasn't much to talk about.

I waited until the snow stopped to at least go out and shovel a path from the back porch as far as I could in my backyard so my two Greyhounds and Italian greyhound would have an area to do their business. Of course, my Italian Greyhound wasn't happy about that at all and left me a present in the living room when I wasn't looking.

I trudged out to my back shed to retrieve my small snow blower. It took a while to fire it up since it had been stored away since last winter. It finally turned over and filled the immediate area with white smoke for a bit. That was annoying.

I attempted to clear out more of a path for my dogs, but the snow was just too deep for my tiny, aging snow blower. I went back to my trusty snow shovel to finish the job, and then begged my neighbor who has a huge professional snow blower, to blow out the bottom of my driveway and sidewalk for whatever compensation he wants. There is so much snow at the end of my driveway, it's beyond ridiculous. It's packed in, so it's harder to clear out.

And it's only December 17th. Oh how I hope this isn't a preview of what winter 2021 will be like. Please May 1st, get here fast. I need green grass, warm temperatures, a roaring fireplace, cool beverages and my camper...now.