Weather

CC posts a "before" photo of the family snow stick.

Jo wonders: Anyone want to come help me shovel?

Looking south from Millennium Park in West Roxbury around 11:30 this morning.

Lisa reports it was so cold today her iPod stopped working while she was cross-country skiing (at Sandy Beach in Medford).

The Cooperative Bank thermometer on Centre Street in West Roxbury was malfunctioning again this morning - it was missing a digit. Had the same problem earlier this week; they really should do something about it!

Just watched the NECN weather forecast and the map showed a truly frightening prediction for much of eastern Massachusetts this weekend:

WIDESPREAD PLOWABLE SNOW

As Dan asked a few days ago, WTF does that mean? I suppose we should be grateful we're not getting

WIDESPREAD UNPLOWABLE GIANT BLOCKS OF GRANITE

But what other kind of snow is there? Even in the Blizzard of '78 (kids, I ever tell you how we survived that; 16 of us trapped in a dorm suite with no food and then the power went out?), the snow proved plowable.

Many of our snowstorms are brutal affairs. Not last night's, as Shanna describes:

... There is no wind, and the soft, translucent snowflakes drift out of the sky just so, catching and dancing with the beams of the streetlamps on their way down. They nestle into the crooks of the trees and along windowsills. They settle over the ground, making a glistening, glitteringblanket, the kind you only see in the movies and ceramic Christmas villages. Each step kicks up just a bit of sparkling powder, and it dusts the tops of my boots as it settles back to soften my intrusive footprints. ...

Last year, Dunkin' Donuts ran these funny commercials in which the drivers of giant snowplows race to plow a single snowflake. Carpundit reports that's basically what happened last night when the City of Boston paid at least some snowplow operators to drive around damaging the streets.

... There wasn't anything to plow on Beacon Street after the first truck came through, but that didn't stop the second one, or the third one, or the tenth one. And these weren't little trucks. They were big, Mass Pike-style plow trucks with huge sand hoppers on the back. ...I know the plows need to be ready when it might snow. And I know they need to get out and plow as soon as the snow starts, or face criticism for failing to get on top of the storm. But couldn't they build a little pragmatism into the system? If it isn't actually snowing, say, the plow drivers can go to Dunkin' Donuts. ...

Dan is getting annoyed with the inability of Boston meteorologists to speak English:

... Boston meteorologists need to lighten up and give a straight forecast. The forecast last night called tonight's anticipated "snowstorm" as one that will be plowable.

Plowable?

Geez. What's the alternative? That New England shuts down for four days because the plows can't get out?

Plowable.

The Forest Hills overpass at Hyde Park Avenue.

Ana requests that somebody not stuck in an office take some fog photos:

... It is absolutely amazing out there. Fresh Pond is a wall of white smoke.

Beth also wishes for a camera:

... The fog has been hanging around all day, making the view from the windows at work -- usually a harsh and angular one framed by the hospitals and labs -- almost pretty.

Fondofelves comes to the rescue, offering up three fog photos. Bri risks dismemberment to capture a commuter-rail train slicing through the fog. John takes a series of fog photos across the city.

Sonia, meanwhile, wonders what happened to those near-record-high temps the weatherfolks promised us:

I feel ripped off that it's not 60 degrees today.

Update: Ana went out at lunchtime and got some nice shots of trees in the fog.