I am terrified of this weekends snowstorm!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is wild. This is an average day for my family in Vermont. Get a grip.

Yep, wild how living in a completely different region where the residents and city planners are accustomed to and prepared for receiving massive amounts of snow results in extremely different outcomes….and how people from colder climates seem to have such difficulty wrapping their heads around that fact.

Like people in Cali posting how it’s 70 degrees. Sometimes it’s 1,000 degrees there Karen, and people died. Have respect.

You can’t handle respect, Petunia.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In case electricity goes -
- I have a gas stove and gas fireplace. I also have matchsticks.
- Food will not spoil because I can keep it outside in the patio in the snow.
- I have an unused bathroom in the basement. Any kind of storm in any season, I just fill the bathtub with water. I can always use that water to flush toilets and boil and drink if needed. With a snowstorm...you can always melt snow and drink.
- I always have a stocked pantry because I buy my shelf stable grains, flours, spices, lentils, tea, sugar, oil in large quantities. I also have a cold storage in the basement that has my onions and root veggies.
- All my prescriptions are filled and up to date.


If you are super nervous and want to prep at all -
- Get your prescriptions filled (or make sure you will not run out during the storm and digging out)
- Buy some drinking water. Fill a tub with water. Make sure you have food for a week.
- Fill gas in all your vehicles and snow blower.
- Charge all your devices and powerbanks. Charge your tire-inflator etc.
- Unplug appliances that you do not need in case of an electric surge etc. I always unplug the TV in my basement, games console, music system, electric piano, treadmill etc.
- Buy some candles, matchsticks and torch (with batteries).

Why are you filling a bathtub with water? Are you expecting the water supply to stop?

Water company loses power. We lose fresh water. Roaming gangs wander the streets looking to kill for water. Society collapses and we plunge into an ice age. That’s what I hear the weather man say.

This! Then the killer robots come out. I’m not even joking. 🙃

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In case electricity goes -
- I have a gas stove and gas fireplace. I also have matchsticks.
- Food will not spoil because I can keep it outside in the patio in the snow.
- I have an unused bathroom in the basement. Any kind of storm in any season, I just fill the bathtub with water. I can always use that water to flush toilets and boil and drink if needed. With a snowstorm...you can always melt snow and drink.
- I always have a stocked pantry because I buy my shelf stable grains, flours, spices, lentils, tea, sugar, oil in large quantities. I also have a cold storage in the basement that has my onions and root veggies.
- All my prescriptions are filled and up to date.


If you are super nervous and want to prep at all -
- Get your prescriptions filled (or make sure you will not run out during the storm and digging out)
- Buy some drinking water. Fill a tub with water. Make sure you have food for a week.
- Fill gas in all your vehicles and snow blower.
- Charge all your devices and powerbanks. Charge your tire-inflator etc.
- Unplug appliances that you do not need in case of an electric surge etc. I always unplug the TV in my basement, games console, music system, electric piano, treadmill etc.
- Buy some candles, matchsticks and torch (with batteries).

Why are you filling a bathtub with water? Are you expecting the water supply to stop?

Water company loses power. We lose fresh water. Roaming gangs wander the streets looking to kill for water. Society collapses and we plunge into an ice age. That’s what I hear the weather man say.

This! Then the killer robots come out. I’m not even joking. 🙃

Nah. MoCo got rid of their killer robot. I expect Tesla full self driving to achieve sentience and hoard electricity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In case electricity goes -
- I have a gas stove and gas fireplace. I also have matchsticks.
- Food will not spoil because I can keep it outside in the patio in the snow.
- I have an unused bathroom in the basement. Any kind of storm in any season, I just fill the bathtub with water. I can always use that water to flush toilets and boil and drink if needed. With a snowstorm...you can always melt snow and drink.
- I always have a stocked pantry because I buy my shelf stable grains, flours, spices, lentils, tea, sugar, oil in large quantities. I also have a cold storage in the basement that has my onions and root veggies.
- All my prescriptions are filled and up to date.


If you are super nervous and want to prep at all -
- Get your prescriptions filled (or make sure you will not run out during the storm and digging out)
- Buy some drinking water. Fill a tub with water. Make sure you have food for a week.
- Fill gas in all your vehicles and snow blower.
- Charge all your devices and powerbanks. Charge your tire-inflator etc.
- Unplug appliances that you do not need in case of an electric surge etc. I always unplug the TV in my basement, games console, music system, electric piano, treadmill etc.
- Buy some candles, matchsticks and torch (with batteries).

Why are you filling a bathtub with water? Are you expecting the water supply to stop?

Water company loses power. We lose fresh water. Roaming gangs wander the streets looking to kill for water. Society collapses and we plunge into an ice age. That’s what I hear the weather man say.

This! Then the killer robots come out. I’m not even joking. 🙃

Nah. MoCo got rid of their killer robot. I expect Tesla full self driving to achieve sentience and hoard electricity.

It'll be too cold for that to happen for the rest of January.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Power loss is unlikely. The snow will be light and fluffy due to the very low temperatures.

You probably will not be able to get out for a few days. Stock up on food and entertainment.

No longer necessarily true if warm air moves in in the upper atmosphere, even though it will stay cold on the ground, we’ll get sleet and freezing rain, which will bring down trees and power lines.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband think he's driving to Raleigh on Monday with our teenager. So. Yeah. Right there with you.

I bet this will be fine? The snow is supposed to end on Sunday, right? The highways should be no problem on Monday.

Snow will continue off and on every day next week. More importantly, temps will be extremely low.

Kids are likely home all week. Plan accordingly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My husband think he's driving to Raleigh on Monday with our teenager. So. Yeah. Right there with you.

He’s not. I am in Raleigh and we will get ice. and Ed Rhône stays home. He should wait til tues or we’d.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband think he's driving to Raleigh on Monday with our teenager. So. Yeah. Right there with you.

I bet this will be fine? The snow is supposed to end on Sunday, right? The highways should be no problem on Monday.

Snow will continue off and on every day next week. More importantly, temps will be extremely low.

Kids are likely home all week. Plan accordingly.

No, current forecast is for the majority of snow to fall on Sunday. May start late Saturday and may continue into early Monday morning, but like 90% of expected snowfall is supposed to happen Sunday. Forecast calls for sun on Tuesday and Wednesday. Right now the range of snowfall predictions is between 6 and 14 inches. No additional weather predicted until at least the following Friday, as this is a large but someone fast-moving front that is coming through.

Temperatures are supposed to be cold though, with highs below freezing, which could be an issue. However, consistent low temps can actually make snow removal easier because you don't get melt and then re-freeze overnight, allowing plows to move the snow while it's light and fluffy and letting the salt do its job. Since odds are good we are not looking at more than a foot of snow, and strong chance it's less, then there will be ample opportunity Monday and Tuesday for plows to get through and I'd be a little surprised if kids were not back in school by Wednesday. Sooner if we wind up on the low end of predicted snowfall. I would assume kids will be home Monday and it's likely for Tuesday. My kid is in DCPS which is off for a teacher PD day on Monday anyway, so the discussion right now is around the likelihood of day off camps being cancelled. We are definitely preparing for kids to be home Tuesday and potentially Wednesday if snow is heavier than expected and/or city response is bungled, but I think an extended closure is unlikely. We are getting lucky with the timing of the storm hitting on a Sunday, and with everyone having so much warning.

[Anonymous]

I am confused by the panic. We got around 10 inches in 2019, and this storm is projected to be around that or less. That's not that long ago. I don't even remember that storm being that big of a deal other than, I recall, it being a huge pain getting our alley clear of snow because it didn't get warm enough to melt it and we didn't have enough shovels or other gear to clear it ourselves (we tried), so we didn't have trash service for a week and some people couldn't get their cars out. Which sucked but is not something I'd say I'm "scared" about.

I was also here for the Snowzilla in 2016 and while that was a ton of snow for DC (like 18 inches) it was also not some dire event. I worked from home for a week, I remember going cross country skiing around our city neighborhood (a total blast), and we never lost power.

And then remember winter of 2009, I think, where we had Snowmageddon which I think was two separate storms a week or two apart that both dropped a ton of snow? It took weeks to dig out of that one and I know there were power outages in some places but also... it was fine. I was working for a law firm at the time that bragged about how people were in the office every single day of that storm (this sounds so stupid now in 2026 when remote work is so easy and there is zero reason to drag people into a white collar office during a snowstorm for "client service"). I think I missed one day of work because, while I lived walking distance away, the snow was coming down so hard that I walked about two blocks and then decided it was stupid and called in (had to use my own leave!).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Buy milk, leave outside if power goes out!
Buy a box of family size cereal.

The milk freezes and you have no way to thaw it out. Sometimes people have no logic.

[Anonymous]

I stocked up in anticipation of not leaving the house between Friday-Tuesday. We live in a place that doesn’t even treat the roads, so yeah.

[Anonymous]

This morning Capital weather gang gave the following percentages:

1 inch: 85%
4 inches: 75%
6 inches: 65%
8 inches: 50%
12 inches: 35%

Looks like most likely scenario will be between 4-8 inches. Absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. People really like to work themselves up.

[Anonymous]

I have four bags of marshmallows do you think that’s enough

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have four bags of marshmallows do you think that’s enough

How many boxes of Rice Krispies do you have?

[Anonymous]

Everybody check your iPhone; it will be 20 to twenty-five inches of snow!