It's Snowing in Philly Again! Fourth Snowstorm of Season Dumps 6-10 Inches in Philadelphia Area

The snow started falling in Philadelphia yesterday morning before dawn. The snide emails started arriving yesterday afternoon from my snow-hating friend Linda-- "Are you happy now?" She might want to be nicer to me, I AM babysitting her grandson.

Yes, it's snowing in Philly again, started yesterday morning, snowed all night and is expected to continue into this afternoon. It didn't start laying on the concrete until last night, however. It did cover up the piles of old dirty snow still hanging around Philadelphia from the two nor'easters of February 6th and 10th, so it's pretty out there again. Philadelphia is supposed to get 6-10 more inches of snow, a spit in the wind after the blizzards. The official measurement at the Philadelphia International Airport at 8 a.m. was a little over four inches, but there's eight inches on top of our truck. They need to find a new place to measure snowfall amounts.

The last two storms gave us more snow than Buffalo, so it really serves no purpose to state how much we've had this year -- I think that says it all. But just for the record: the 73.1 inches of snow Philly got before this storm broke the old record of 65.5 inches set in the winter of 1995-96, when the "Blizzard of '96" laid down three feet. This is also the snowiest February in Philadelphia ever. This new storm's official inch measurement of 5.5 inches (but it was deeper in different parts of the city) made this the third snowiest winter in Philadelphia since official records began to be kept in 1884.

We expect scattered snow showers all Friday afternoon and into tomorrow, and there are signs that another storm could hit next week. (So sorry, Linda. Wanna come for dinner Sunday? I'm crock-potting a roast and making Baked Alaska, and we can watch Stephen King's "The Storm of the Century.") There are some scattered power outages in Philadelphia and about 2,200 customers lost power in New Jersey (Hey, Nana, if you're reading this I guess you're not one of them.)

Anyway, now I have snow pictures of my front windows decorated for Christmas, Valentine's Day AND St. Patty's Day! Hubby's outside with his trusty snowblower doing his civic duty, digging out next door's driveway and all up and down the street. It keeps him busy, and he's not coming into the computer room every half hour (my office, as I've taken to referring to the combination library, computer room, hunting gear sanctuary and miscellany storage quarters) and distracting me. It's amazing you can even find me in here, but he always does, with the same question: "Did you miss me?" The poor weekly paper was buried and didn't survive the Tecumseh -- I found the chewed remains when I went out to photograph the windows. And I am feeling sorry for the squirrels -- they've taken to coming to the bottom of the backs steps, standing on their hind legs and begging with their little paws! (See photo No. 2.)

They closed the schools for two days in a row again. Nobody's graduating this year! Seriously, Philly has to learn how to deal with snow better. It's not like it's a new phenomenon here -- we live in a snow belt, get used to it! Which brings me to my magnum opus on snow and weather in particular, "Snow on New Grass," which is poetic prose on the beauties of nature, no matter what the season. Hope you all enjoy it. I have to go sweep the steps now.

Sources: Looking out my window; Philly.com-Snowfall, strong winds; Philly.com News Local