Here in Boston/Cambridge we have just survived a historic, record-setting winter of immensely snowy proportions. Only now are the last few snow piles finally melting.
For many people, the snow was a big deal. If you drove to work or school, things were bad for a day or two at a time, but everything cleared up pretty quickly (except the potholes). If you were a public transit commuter, however, things were very bad for a very long time. Especially if you took the red line, the major subway servicing Cambridge. We had friends whose commutes went from 45 minutes each way to 2-and-a-half hours each way!
We did just fine. Even in the middle of a snow-storm, we could walk to our labs:
Indeed, in the midst of a snow-storm we could even ride our bikes:
[A blizzard on Valentine's Day couldn't stop Meg and I from biking to our movie marathon in Boston!]
One amusing thing about walking to work down sidewalks which have been snow-blown: it kind of feels like going through a luge course. Or a maze for dogs.
After the first snow-storm or two there was a good deal of creativity on display throughout the city in the form of snow sculptures. Here's one of my favorites:
Before long you couldn't make a snow sculpture of a guy sitting on a park bench, because all the park benches were covered in snow...
And shortly thereafter, you'd be lucky if you could even identify a park bench under the massive piles of snow:
[Can you find them?]
One of my favorite scenes from the winter was Harvard's sand volleyball court, seen here in its fair-weather glory days of constant activity.
The picture below was taken in in February, and I hope you can appreciate that the snow would have come up to about your chest. I tried to get some people to go out and play, but was unable to convince anyone.
Once the snow was done falling, there were still complications. One was that on cold-but-sunny days, the snow would start to melt, then flow, then freeze. Leading to situations like this:
It also led to more serious things, like truly gigantic icicles (we're talking five feet!) falling from four-story buildings. Also, some of our drain pipes filled with melting snow, then froze, becoming so heavy they fell off the side of our house. Below I am holding a chunk of the solid-ice interior that brought down our backyard downspout.
[Doesn't it kinda look like kryptonite?]
The snow was so substantial, portions of Cambridge/Boston saw giant excavators removing snow from the city. They would load construction trucks full of snow, then transport it all to snow farms. Below was a view from our living-room window. It was fun to watch, but occasionally annoying as well- once this winter I woke up at ~3 am to the surprisingly loud sound of a snow-removal team going full tilt.
