Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Colorado Spring Snow Storm

It's a snow day today. There's about 9 inches of snow on the ground in Broomfield (10 in Boulder), and we're expected to get another 2 or so by the end of the day. Our road is deemed a "low priority residential road," which means that it doesn't get plowed until 8 inches are accumulated (yes, that means that when there's "only" 7 inches of snow, we just have to deal with it). The last time that happened was in the big storm back in October.

Most of the snow fell yesterday afternoon and evening. Yesterday it started raining around noon, and continued until 2:30 or 3:00, when it turned into a heavy snow. Between 3:00 and 5:00 (when I left the office), we got roughly 4 inches. As you can probably guess, that means that most of the commuters got caught in the worst of it. By the time I left, traffic was backed up all the way into Boulder. It was stop-and-go, bumper-to-bumper, for about 2 miles. Those 2 miles took 2 hours! What I finally discovered is that about 20 cars and 4 or 5 semis had gotten themselves stuck in the snow, strewn about over probably a half-mile of the highway. I spent the next hour literally weaving my way through all the stuck cars, with several close fits. There were a few police cars around helping guide traffic and push the stuck cars. Several times I had to stop for 5 or 10 minutes while they got a stuck car moving again in front of me. I finally got passed the minefield and got up to 20 MPH. It's good thing, too, because there are several big hills between here and Boulder. Without the extra speed, I might not have made it up some of them. I did almost got stuck on the biggest hill. I somehow got out of the track of the cars in front of me and almost didn't make it back. As I got into Broomfield, I got of the freeway several exits early to avoid the last two hills and took the longer, flatter, way around. All told, my drive home yesterday took almost 4 hours.

To top it all off, tomorrow and Friday it's supposed to be sunny and get into the 50's. Welcome to Colorado!

1 comment:

Debbie said...

There is a reason that I like living in southern California. Snow is REALLY pretty to watch coming down - from inside the house - and rather a pain after a day or so. I'm glad that you made it home safely and didn't become one of the cars in the mine field.