The Progression of a Blizzard

From 9am yesterday to noon today, we were under a blizzard warning.  From what I've read, they don't use the classification of "blizzard" lightly - there are very set criteria as to what constitutes a blizzard.  And you know it's going to be a significant storm when the warnings essentially say "do not travel tonight" (usually our warnings just say, "if you must travel, use caution").  Knowing ahead of time that this would be a pretty good storm, I decided to take pictures throughout its duration to document it.  I took 5 pictures yesterday, and then one for comparison this morning.

2pm - this was about 1/2 hour after the snow really started to come down.  About an hour after I took this picture, we heard thunder outside.  I've heard of thunder occurring during snowstorms, but I'd never experienced it myself (at least not that I can immediately remember).

4pm - it was a very wet heavy snow, and coming down fast

6pm - The snow was really starting to weigh down the tree out there

8pm - The snowfall was slowing down at this point, and some of the snow was starting to fall off the tree limbs a bit

10pm - The wind really started to pick up as the night wore on

9am - And this is what things looked like this morning.  Our driveway had been plowed late last night, but there was still plenty of snow still there from all of the wind blowing things around

Ann and I went out to walk around late this morning to get a better look at the snow.  These are my neighbors' mailboxes across the street

A pile of snow at the end of a driveway (and this was actually one of the smaller piles we saw)

More snow and a broken tree limb

Braving the cold and wind.  We were only out for around 15 minutes before my face hurt too much and I told Ann we had to go back inside.

Weighed down pine trees (it's a gorgeous day out though, with the bright sun and beautiful blue skies)

Walking along a plowed sidewalk.  This gives a bit of an idea of how much snow is just on the grass (instead of the huge piles from the snowplows).  For reference, Ann's about 39 inches tall.