January 2-3 blizzard pictures January 11, 2014

***This is my 300th post!!!***

2014 had barely begun and already a major winter storm was headed my way.  The snowfall wasn’t as great as last February’s blizzard, but Nassau and Suffolk Counties on Long Island were under a blizzard warning, nonetheless.  This was due to blowing snow from wind gusts above 35 miles per hour.  The bulk of the snow came overnight Thursday, January 2, into the morning of Friday, January 3.  I shot this picture before I went to bed:

I woke up around 9:00 Friday morning as snow was tapering off.  I took these pictures outside my bedroom windows, but without opening them:

Then, I moved on to another room to take pictures of the backyard:

With that out of the way, I got dressed for shoveling.  The bulk of my work was on the front porch, in the driveway, and at the curb.  Here are the before pictures:

Before I started shoveling, I measured the powdery snow in driveway with a standard 12-inch ruler.  I measured about 8 1/2 inches of snowfall, which was 4.4 more than the National Weather Service’s official total for Wantagh, courtesy of a trained spotter.  Perhaps that was taken south of my section of Wantagh.  NWS totals for nearby North Merrick (10.6″) and North Massapequa (10.3″) were relatively close to my measurement.

Three hours later, I was finished.  I shoveled the front porch, driveway, curb, and a path around the house through the front yard, right side, backyard, and left side.  I was hoping that neighbors would offer to help with their snow blowers, but I ended doing everything myself.  I didn’t have the energy to shovel the deck in the backyard, opting to save that for Saturday.  Here are the after pictures:

After hitting the shower, I took after pics from the upstairs windows as before:

Unfortunately, the snow was followed by polar vortex temperatures, which were at their worst Friday night into Saturday morning.  Low temperatures reached the single digits, but moderated back to the 20s by Saturday afternoon.  After returning from a haircut and grocery shopping, I did some touch-up shoveling in the driveway…

…and finally shoveled the backyard deck:

The result of three hours of shoveling on Friday was pain in my left foot and right arm, but the pain gradually went away.

Above freezing temperatures and rain helped to melt much of the snow on Sunday and Monday, but what was left froze overnight Monday as the next round of polar vortex air moved in.  I had to dress in layers Tuesday morning just to bring back empty garbage pails from the curb following pickup earlier that morning.  I was only outside for five minutes.  The next time I ventured outside was Wednesday evening en route to dinner with friends.  Luckily, temperatures won’t be that cold again anytime soon.  In fact, the snow that hadn’t fully melted by Monday should melt today and tomorrow thanks to more rain and more above freezing temperatures.  I expect more snow before winter ends, and if there’s another big storm, I’ll have pictures to share.