Monster Snowstorm, Arctic Air, Frozen Pipes

After weeks of below normal temperatures, we are finally thawing out!  Although, the weather for this upcoming weekend looks a little sketchy.  After Christmas, those of us here in New England experienced a week of extreme cold with high daily temperatures mostly in the single digits.  I'm not a fan of the cold, mostly because I have Raynaud's and it can be difficult to keep my hands and feet from numbing.  Because I no longer have a city commute, I didn't feel I was in a place to complain about the cold.  There are people who have to be outside; I don't.

The girls returned to school on the Tuesday after the new year.  Schools here only close between Christmas and New Year, with another break in February.  Our washing machine and dryer are located in a closet in the first floor half bath.  The closet has folding doors and if the door in front of the washing machine is open, you can't open the door to the bathroom all the way.  We tend to keep that door closed but the door in front of the dryer open because this is where we keep the girls' dirty laundry.  (I find it so much easier to keep their laundry together.)

On Tuesday morning, I was all motivated to kick off the new year.  I went to start a load of laundry before going for a run.  At some point Monday night, Rich had shut both of the closet doors.  When I say we typically leave one of those doors open, I mean it's open all the time unless we have company over.  When I opened the doors, super cold air came rolling out and I said to myself, I hope nothing froze.  Yeah.  I started up the washing machine only to find that no water was coming into the machine.

The wall behind the washer/dryer is shared with the garage.  It's a real wall with insulation.  We know this because Rich tore into it the next day to check.  Homes in this area just weren't built to withstand these Arctic temperatures for an extended period of time.  We're no strangers to cold weather but extreme cold typically doesn't last for more than a day or two at a time.  I've heard from so many others who've also experienced frozen pipes this winter.

We ran a space heater in the bathroom to keep it extra warm and the outside temperature hit a balmy 28 degrees the next day.  I was finally able to get the washing machine to run that next afternoon without anything bursting.  Fast forward to Friday, the day after the storm.  Temperatures dropped down the negatives again.  The kids were mad I wouldn't let them play in the snow.  Um, the windchill is negative 22 degrees.  You will last one minute outside.  Is it really worth the hassle of getting dressed in winter gear for that one minute?  Do you see any other kids outside?

I ran a few loads of laundry on Friday without issue.  Saturday afternoon, the pipes were frozen again.  I finally managed to get water into the washing machine on Monday but there was ice in the drainage pipe and water spilled out into the laundry room.  Thankfully, it wasn't a flood and I was able to melt whatever ice was left in there.  We got lucky that there wasn't any damage.  I know others weren't so fortunate.  Hopefully, that's the end of this freaking sub-zero stuff.

Without snow days, the school year ends right in the middle of June.  A few months ago, I kept thinking of how awesome it would be if we had a year without snow days.  Maybe we could go to Michigan before summer dance starts up.  Well, that year won't be this year as the "bomb cyclone" storm gave us two snow days, Thursday and Friday.








When a kid's coming at you, so you hold out the camera and shoot.

Here's the deck when the heaviest part of the storm had finally stopped.



I'm not sure exactly what our official snow total was.  I've seen from 14 to 17 inches.  Enough to create a big mess.  Boston recorded its highest tide ever.  The streets in the Seaport area where I used to work flooded.  Actually, there was insane flooding throughout many parts of Boston and the coastal areas.