Winter is Here

And so it begins... The view when I walked out my front door this morning:

I am glad our one car fits in our garage. I do not miss scraping the snow off my car every morning.

So it looked like the snow had gotten off to a solid start, and I was happy about my decision to take the light rail. The platform had been sort of cleared and I was able to wait in one of the heated shelters for the train to come:

I promise, I was not the only passenger this morning.

The ride to the Mall of America to transfer to a bus was 100% smooth sailing, and I only had to wait about 10 minutes for my bus, which promptly dropped me off across the street from work. It took 40 minutes instead of my usual 20, but that was still way, way better than trying to drive.

The snow continued off and on throughout the morning. Here's a shot out the windows by my cube, taken around lunch time:

Super dreary. And how much longer until they turn that fountain off? 

As the snow continued to peter off, I began to think that the south metro was going to get the best end of this snow storm. By the time I got home this afternoon, we'd only gotten maybe 2 inches. The official total at the nearby airport was 2.6 inches.

The mailman must have made a shortcut.

After further review of information available on the intertubes, I know we got the best possible outcome of today's weather event.

Exhibit A:

PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TWIN CITIES/CHANHASSEN MN
701 PM CST MON NOV 10 2014

..TIME...   ...EVENT...      ...CITY LOCATION...     ...LAT.LON...
..DATE...   ....MAG....      ..COUNTY LOCATION..ST.. ...SOURCE....
            ..REMARKS..

0610 PM     SNOW             CIRCLE PINES            45.14N 93.15W
11/10/2014  M6.0 INCH        ANOKA              MN   PUBLIC

0600 PM     SNOW             MSP INTL AIRPORT        44.89N 93.23W
11/10/2014  M2.6 INCH        HENNEPIN           MN   OFFICIAL NWS OBS

0600 PM     SNOW             ST CLOUD                45.55N 94.17W
11/10/2014  M12.1 INCH       STEARNS            MN   OFFICIAL NWS OBS

Exhibit B:

Dude..... RT @jljmvacha 10.5" of snow so far in Columbus west of Forest Lake and counting pic.twitter.com/JvTMGtTxs7
— Jerrid Sebesta (@jerridsebesta) November 10, 2014

I'll happily take the snow we've got instead of that! Although we are a bit (only a very small bit) disappointed that we didn't get to give the new snowblower a spin. I am sure it's time will come.

By the way, today's blogging is brought to you by my feline companion:

But Emily, what are you doing? You should be paying attention to me!