As regular readers know, The Pond is located near Chicago. If you believe the forecasts, we're currently staring into the barrel of Snowmageddon. A foot or more of the white stuff by noon on Friday, with the worst hitting in the morning.

In preparation for this beast, United Airlines and American Airlines cancelled hundreds of flights into and out of O'Hare for Friday. I saw some quasi-panic buying at the grocery store on the way home from the Duck U. Bookstore this evening ("The End Is Nigh... I need 48 cans of Red Bull!").

This looks like a bad one, but nothing will equal the worst storm I was ever in. Back 15 years ago, I was attending grad school in Minnesota. I Was There during the Great Halloween MegaStorm. The link shows the official numbers, but the real numbers are worse: The Pond (Northern Edition) got 24-1/2 inches of snow in 12 hours.

And after that, the wind jumped to 40-50mph, picked up the top inch or so, and caused blizzard conditions despite it not snowing at the time.

Ever since then, I've not been intimidated by any Illinois storm... but this one looks naughty.

UPDATE 827am: There's six inches or so on The Pond's balcony, and the worst of the storm is reportedly still yet to come. Duck U. is opening at noon.

ANOTHER UPDATE 1101am: Duck U. isn't going to open today, which is smart. Took 'em long enough to decide that, considering that there's another three inches of snow on my balcony since the last update. The town of Duckford has declared a 'State of Emergency'. I think that's a little extreme, but then, I haven't left The Pond at all. Nor do I have a particular desire to do so. Maybe to brush off the Duckmobile later.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE 1235pm: And the snow stopped, as predicted, at noon. Now the shoveling begins...

STILL YET ANOTHER UPDATE 110pm: The Duckmobile is cleaned off, but I'm not going anywhere. The parking lot of The Pond hasn't been plowed yet, and the idiots around here can't understand that if they try to get out of the KNEE-DEEP SNOW with their riddly-plink POS cars, they're gonna get stuck... and they have. The way to get out is to take it in small bites, a foot at a time or so, not to take it all in one go.

And to wait for the plow. Now, if the internet goes out, or even worse the power, I might be able to get out, but only in that level of an emergency. In case you're wondering, the sources of the above photoshop are from the Kanon 2006 OP (of course) and episode 26 of Ghost In The Shell: Stand-Alone Complex.

The title of this post is a tip of the chapeau to Fred Gallagher's "Sad Girl In Snow" concept...

I love Photoshop.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 08:27 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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