because, from what Accuweather says, if we don't get sleet tonight we will get freezing rain, with the concommitant risk of downed powerlines and tree limbs - although, if it gets cold enough, the sleet or freezing rain will change back to snow. Right now it is snow later this morning, sleet, and "possibly freezing rain" today, with probably sleet and a high risk of freezing rain tonight.

I have great sympathy and concern for the upstate & western New York communities, that have had over 100 inches of snow in the past week to ten days ... and, of course, the devastating snows western states experienced in January - but I will admit that right now I am selfishly most concerned about Philadelphia's "northern and western suburbs", as Accuweather refers to the areas where I live and work. I can't tell you how much I hate that phrase - "northern and western suburbs" - in the winter.

By Marg on Tuesday, February 13, 2007 - 06:22 am:

I am praying also Ginny.

I'm in southcentral PA and praying for 1-2 inches of ice from Tuesday into Wednesday.

By Dawnk777 on Tuesday, February 13, 2007 - 07:36 am:

Hoping for the least damaging option. Ugh. Ice is a mess, worse than snow. (Although, if you live in New York, even snow is bad.)

By Colette on Tuesday, February 13, 2007 - 08:06 am:

I hope you don't get freezing rain! This is going to be our first real snowstorm of the year.

By Bobbie~moderatr on Tuesday, February 13, 2007 - 08:23 am:

It is snowing like mad here... We are to get 8 to 14 inches.. Kids are out of school again. One more "snow day" left and then school goes longer into June.

Hoping you don't get freezing rain Ginny....

By Sandysmom on Tuesday, February 13, 2007 - 08:37 am:

I'm right there with you, Ginny. I'm in southeast PA too and as of right now, it is still snowing. My DH gets off work at 6:00 PM and I don't know if he'll make it home. If his relief won't be able to come in, he'll have to stay the night.

By Kernkate on Tuesday, February 13, 2007 - 08:53 am:

I am NE PA and they are now calling for 21 inches here. Its is suppose to start around 2:00. I would much rather the snow then ice.
Ginny hope you get all snow, but the way the forecast is showing looks like a mixed bag for you guys south of here.
Stay safe and be prepared.
DD Alissa is upset because there will be no school tomorrow and they were having a Valentines Day Party. I told her they will be having their party when they go back but once the snow comes and shes out sledding she will forget about it
Time to go dig out the shovel and snowblower

By Vicki on Tuesday, February 13, 2007 - 10:29 am:

It is really starting to get messy here! Like Bobbie, my dd is off school today and we have one snow day left. I am betting they use that tomorrow!! We however have to make it up over spring break before they will add to the school year! The only time they have extended the school year is when we were off 14 days for the flood 2 years ago!!

By Kernkate on Tuesday, February 13, 2007 - 02:52 pm:

Ginny, I am guessing you are getting hit....6 hour delay @ your airport according to the Weather Channel.
Safe Traveling.

By Karen~admin on Tuesday, February 13, 2007 - 03:21 pm:

Wow! Our area got hit with extremely heavy thunderstorms and several tornados during the night last night, but it's nowhere near freezing here.

Weather terrifies me sometimes.

By Karen~admin on Tuesday, February 13, 2007 - 04:46 pm:

It is so rare for us to get any kind of frozen precipitation at all........I really can't imagine what it is like for you all. Stay warm and be safe!!!!!!

By Sandysmom on Tuesday, February 13, 2007 - 05:14 pm:

Well, DH isn't coming home tonight. I'm glad we thought ahead and packed extra food & clothes. He usually gets off between 6 & 6:30 PM and since that is after dark, we're worried about ice. The roads right now are wet. It wouldn't take much of a temperature drop for the roads to freeze.

By Ginny~moderator on Tuesday, February 13, 2007 - 05:22 pm:

It started snowing lightly mid-morning, and stayed pretty light until around 3:30. I left work at 4:00, and the roads were getting slick - I'm glad I was driving before the heavy home-bound crowd. It's snowing a bit more heavily, and blowing. Snow I can live with - it's the threat of freezing rain that worries me. The thing with sleet is that while it is as much of a problem, or even more, than snow to shovel, it doesn't stick to the power lines and tree limbs the way freezing rain does. Right now predictions are between 1-3 inches for the city and 3-6 inches for the "northern and western suburbs". I'm not very far from the city, so I'm sort of in the middle. Predictions are temperatures getting to about 29 degrees at about this time and going down to 24 tonight. I think I'll set my alarm on my cell phone to wake up every couple of hours to check the power (no point in setting my alarm clock). My bosses know that if the roads are icey, I won't start out until they are cleared.

And still, we're a lot better off in this area than a large part of the country. My firm has an office in Columbus, OH, and they were closed today because of weather - and upstate and Western NY are supposed to be getting more of what they already have a lot of - snow.

By Vicki on Tuesday, February 13, 2007 - 06:51 pm:

I am north of Columbus and south of Cleveland and we are getting hammered. I bet we have easily 8 inches of snow and it has been a mix of freezing rain/sleet and snow for the past 2 hours or so. We are under a winter storm warning until sometime tomorrow. It is a mess!

By Ginny~moderator on Wednesday, February 14, 2007 - 05:40 am:

Well, obviously we still have power. Scott's college is closed (it's off the main roads and no public transportation, so all students, faculty and support staff drive), and the public and Archdiocesan schools in Philadelphia are closed.

Sounds more like sleet hitting my windows than freezing rain, and looks like it on the cars and roads, but the roads are a serious mess. I don't know yet if my office is closed, but I know I won't be going in at the normal time, and may wind up staying home today. I know my bosses and our paralegal took work home, but they can access our office server from home - secretaries can't. Some time after 7 or 7:30 our office will put a message on special number as to whether we're open or closed. But open or closed, I will not be driving on the roads as they are now, and not for several hours. I alerted my bosses yesterday that this was a possibility, and they're cool with that.

By Ginny~moderator on Wednesday, February 14, 2007 - 05:40 am:

Marg, I'm curious. Were you praying for ice, or praying for *only* 1 to 2 inches of ice?

By Mrsheidi on Wednesday, February 14, 2007 - 07:27 am:

Freezing rain for us...we're not going anywhere today! Movie day!!!

By Beth on Wednesday, February 14, 2007 - 08:17 am:

We just have snow south of Chicago and a lot of it. Second day of no school. The roads should be cleared tommorrow if there is no more snow. I have to say though I live right on an alley and whenever it snows people get stuck here. All day yesterday all we heard was engines revving up trying to get through. Dh even went out and was going to help someone but they didn't want it. I told dh I would just like to put a big sign up. DONT GO DOWN THE ALLEY. I even heard someone at 4:30 in the morning.

By Bobbie~moderatr on Wednesday, February 14, 2007 - 08:20 am:

Well we have 14 to 18 inches of snow according to where you are in the county. We are under a level three snow emergency. The snow is supposed to be stopping soon and then the winds will pick up causing drifting. We are on our last day of "snow days" and I sure hope that they don't make the kids go tomorrow if it is unsafe. It is like a ghost town out side. I live off of a main road in town and by this time the traffic is usually fairly heavy but not today...

By Marg on Wednesday, February 14, 2007 - 08:37 am:

Ginny I was praying for sleet. I do not like freezing rain. When power goes out we are one of the last places to have it restored because I road leads back into woods, they do not consider us an emergency.

I'm surprised we didn't get much snow, maybe 3 inches and maybe and inch or two of sleet. It didn't start freezing rain until this a.m. so we got very little of that.

By Marg on Wednesday, February 14, 2007 - 08:51 am:

Sorry Ginny I should have used a comma after the word praying.

By Cat on Wednesday, February 14, 2007 - 08:58 am:

I hope you all are staying warm and safe. Even with our blizzards, we didn't get that amount of snow. Can we get a checkin??? How are you all doing?

We got about an inch yesterday and we're supposed to get between 2-3 more today and tonight. It's BITTER cold today! Like a friend of mine (from Michigan, transplanted here like me) says, "When you go outside and your nose hairs freeze, you KNOW it's cold!" rofl

By Sandysmom on Wednesday, February 14, 2007 - 09:55 am:

We have freezing rain and it is coming down in sheets. I'm glad DH stayed at work last night as he would have never made it safely into work today.

By Kernkate on Wednesday, February 14, 2007 - 10:15 am:

We have 5 inches of snow on the ground and now its been sleeting for 2 hours. It is a mess. We are expecting the sleet to change back to snow and another 12 inches is predicted.
Then tonight winds gusting to 50 mph so there will be alot of drifting.
I will get some pics when I decide to venture outside.

By Ginny~moderator on Wednesday, February 14, 2007 - 01:27 pm:

My son just finished shoveling our sidewalks (we have a double lot), and had to use the ice chopper first because it is snow topped with sleet topped with ice and now more snow is falling. After I left the obligatory voicemail messages at work I also emailed my direct bosses about my staying home - one, who lives only a few miles from me, responded that he had been out to shovel and was going to work from home, and fully supported my staying off the roads.

Sadly, we are getting more snow, and will probably get a couple more inches. At least both my son and I parked in the driveway (usually he parks on the street), so that leaves him somewhat fewer square feet of driveway to shovel. I try to get him to park in the driveway when snow is expected for that reason, and so that when the township plows his car doesn't get plowed in. Bad enough to have to shovel away the pile of snow left at the end of the driveway, without having to dig out the car also.

By Ginny~moderator on Wednesday, February 14, 2007 - 01:45 pm:

Oh, and I don't know about other sections of SW PA and Southern NJ, but we got almost all sleet and almost no freezing rain, so no issues with power outages. I set the alarm on my cell phone to ring every 3 hours last night just so I'd wake up and check, so I could start the basement faucet running slow if we lost power, to keep the water lines from freezing. I had that happen once in a semi-exposed water line in another house, and it was *not* fun.

By Sandysmom on Wednesday, February 14, 2007 - 01:52 pm:

Ginny, where I am, it is only snowing now and the roads are wet. I heard that once it becomes dark, the roads will freeze again.

By Annie2 on Wednesday, February 14, 2007 - 02:33 pm:

Everyone stay safe. I was complaining today that it was so cold out. It's currently 51 degrees. It was in the mid 70's a few days ago. Of course I bragged about that to my sister. She's coming tomorrow, from Boston and it's going to be cold for us but warm for her.

By Ginny~moderator on Wednesday, February 14, 2007 - 08:51 pm:

Thanks, Annie.

By Cocoabutter on Wednesday, February 14, 2007 - 10:32 pm:

Getting down to zero in Michigan.

Hang in there, Ginny. Spring is only about a month away!

By Bobbie~moderatr on Thursday, February 15, 2007 - 09:18 am:

We are okay here. It took three hours with 7 people (4 from my house, 3 from the neighbors) taking turns with 5 shovels to get the driveway done. We still need to get our front walk done, we did from the road to the house but not along the road. Traffic was picking up, the main road was slick with slush and I didn't trust anyone being out there. A guy in a truck slid off the road and into my neighbors front yard while we were out there and I was done. I figured it would wait, so that is the "job" for today. The kids are a day over calamity days and I am not sure what they are going to do about that. We have another 2 inches or so storm coming in on Saturday. Everyone had bragged about no snow for Ohio. We had made it through November, December and January with really great weather and BAM we got a winter wake up in Febrary.. I have to venture out today, one of our guinea pig bottles got broke and I have no choice.. Might look into buying a snow blower too.. Our new driveway is huge, if nothing else a couple more shovels..

In our front yard we have 20 inches, we had at least 2 inches of coverage from last week. We did not get the sleet because the sleet belt was about an hour and a half South of us. They are digging us out slowly but we are safe..