Well, the weather service didn't lie. We got slammed by the biggest snowfall in recent history. Bigger than the October 1997 blizzard, probably. Storm totals as of this morning can be found here. Winter Park got 5 feet! But you can't get there because Berthoud Pass is closed. Heh. Breckenridge got about 2 feet, with resorts further west getting less. Classic upslope snowstorm pattern, with the foothill regions getting really slammed. (Check out the 74 inches in Clear Creek County!) They claim 28 inches in Fort Collins, and based on my survey outside the apartment this morning, I believe them. Plus we're due another 3-6 inches today. Have a look at some digital pix I just snapped:

• Some person managed to clean off their car recently. But they ain't driving it very soon. :)
  
• The Calvin Durango's on the right. It got driven yesterday. (What fun!) Ashley's Saturn is somewhere in there.
  
• My Chevrolet's in the left foreground, not that you can see it. :)
  
• A whole suite of snowed-in vehicles
  
• The poor trees! This is really heavy snow for CO, but not quite classic Sierra Cement.
  
• Believe it or not, these actually are stairs.
  
• Even our protected deck got hit. Check out the snow "wall" made by the sliding door. Good thing Ashley brought those bikes back from MA. Heh.
  
• Sunshine checks out the snow: Pic 1 - Pic 2 - Pic 3
  

Needless to say, CSU is closed. But the CSU-CHILL radar has been running and taking observations for the last few days, and is still going strong. Check out some real-time radar images here.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day! Ashley is off in South Dakota at the Rosebud Indian Reservation for the week, doing rural vet medicine there. She's swamped with tons of surgeries every day (traveling service so everyone waits up to get their pets healed). Was here only for a couple days before heading to SD, but still great to see her. It was unseasonably warm here the past week, so I didn't go skiing this past weekend. But I may go either this weekend or definitely the weekend of the 29th as a friend from MA is coming into town. Rained overnight here so maybe we're getting back to regular spring weather. Guess we'll see!

No skiing this past weekend - had to do chores and the like as Ashley returns soon. She left Massasucksit yesterday and made it as far as western Pennsylvania. Short trip, but she was on call the night before and had to go in twice. Ouch! Anyway, she should be back sometime on Wednesday. Looking forward to her return!

Skiing was really good this weekend. My officemate Steve Nesbitt went along. We skied both days, at Beaver Creek and Breckenridge. Unfortunately, someone took one of my poles the first day during lunch! So I had to ski the rest of the afternoon with only one pole. Was pretty amusing since the pole was so ridiculously old and beat-up I'm not sure why anyone would even bother taking it. Had to borrow Ashley's poles the second day. Just got back from a presentation where they showed video of a firestorm-induced tornado ... pretty interesting, although you'll have a hard time viewing all the clips without a fast connection.