It’s Official: The Newports’ Deck Has 29 Inches. Snowzilla Rocks!!

Snowzilla has moved on and left little Falls Church and the D.C. area to start digging out.  Sadly, there seems to be some dispute as to exactly how much snow has fallen in different areas and, of course, it will take days before “official” figures are in.  I have read that in D.C. they had about 25-26 inches.  Compare that to 40 inches in some parts of  Pennsylvania and 30 inches in New York (STBC).

However, there is one official figure that is incontestable.  As you will see from this photo, there are 29 genuine Snowzilla inches of white stuff on my deck!! 

I would have held up the tape measure by hand to make the measurement look more convincing; but I was leaning out of the sliding deck door, holding one arm out to support myself, trying to keep the snow from cascading in with my legs, and taking a one-handed photo at the same time.  Gimmee a break, folks--I can’t afford a camera tripod and I don’t have a snowblower handy in family room.

The deck is groaning under the weight of snow.  I just hope it doesn’t keel over and pull the house down with it.  I did measure the snow on the table yesterday and it was 26 inches.  I stuck the tape measure into the snow on the table this morning (admittedly, at a bit of an angle), and it was reading 36 inches at the highest point.

I really could not take a photo to prove it; or I would probably have fallen into the snow, cracked my head on the table on the way down, and have become a statistic myself!  But I swear it is a reasonably accurate measurement.

Now, just to put all this in perspective, The Washington Post and, in particular, Kevin Ambrose and Ian Livingston (thanks, guys) of the phenomenal Capital Weather Gang, put together this excellent graphic for Newport Newz.  Use of graphic gratefully acknowledged (i.e. don’t sue me).

The all-time D.C. record snow fall was the Knickerbocker Snowstorm in 1922, a storm named after the Knickerbocker Theater which, tragically, collapsed and killed 98 people and injured 133 others.  That storm dropped 28 inches!   Even those of you who, like me, are math-challenged, will have worked out by now that the Snowzilla total on my deck exceeds the Knickerbocker total by 1 whole inch!  Who says size doesn’t matter?  It sure as hell matters in a snowstorm.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.  More on the aftermath of Snowzilla in the next blog.