The Blizzard of '07?

Remember how last Wednesday I said that I considered six inches of snow to be A LOT of snow? Well, I just wanted to let you know that I've changed my mind. And in a minute you'll understand why.

In 1978 an enormous blizzard buried Indiana under an average of 20 inches of snow and brought wind gusts in excess of 35 miles an hour which created snow drifts 10-20 feet high. Even though it was 29 years go, Hoosiers here still talk about "the Blizzard of '78" like it happened yesterday. Everyone has their own version of the storm and memories of how it affected them. It was jotted down in the books as the worst winter storm on record in Indiana history, and since then there apparently haven't been many storms that have come close to competing with it.

Until, perhaps, today.

This morning around 5:30, NPR awoke us with the terrible home-hitting news of the Salt Lake City shooting at Trolley Square. After we came out of our horrified astonishment that something like that could happen anywhere, let alone in SLC, we were aroused out of bed with the exciting news that the winter storm warning placed in effect yesterday had been upgraded to a blizzard warning. In fact, the blizzard had begun about an hour earlier and we were already getting buried underneath several inches of snow. Nearly everything in Muncie and the surrounding areas have been shut down due to the harsh weather -- classes were canceled at the university and even though campus offices were still operating, I decided to play it safe and stay home from work. Which has turned out to be a pretty wise decision. At the last news report we heard, at about 2:00 pm, the snow accumulation had already reached 11 of the predicted 8-14 inches, with snow drifts piling up to 4 feet high. And it's still coming -- with no signs of slowing down. They're telling us now that it won't be too unlikely that by tomorrow morning we'll have around 20 inches of snow and drifts I don't really want to imagine at this point (partly because our car is parked in front of a growing drift).

We've spent a good part of the day glued to the window. The snow and wind gusts are mesmerizing to watch. In fact, I wish you could look out our window right now. It's pretty amazing. Here are a few pictures to give you a glimpse. Most of them were taken about an hour ago:





We're a loooong way away from anything upstate New York has been getting lately. But I personally am wondering just how we're going to get out of our apartment tomorrow.

You should all be pleased to know, though, that I've been fairly productive today. I started and finished a sewing project I've been meaning to get to for a while now. And now we have pillow shams to match the bedspread my mother-in-law gave me for my birthday: