Wow, I'd like to thank the weathermen for being wrong. Or I'd like to thank the storm for acting in a way that made the weathermen so wrong.
When I went to bed Tuesday night the four major computer models were all in agreement. They all had the same track, the same timing, the same accumulation totals. You almost never see that and when you do, it's always dead on accurate. It was supposed to start snowing in my area at like 6am, ramp up in intensity by 9am, snow all day and into the night and finally pass sometime between midnight and 6am Thursday morning. The best case scenario was 14.6" and the worst was 17" or so. Lower Fairfield County was right smack dead center in the bullseye and we expected to get the worst of things.
6am - light snow, little accumlation on grass, none on pavement
9am - flakes, misty rain, no extra accumulations
noon - had stopped completely, a dusting of snow on the grass
3pm - flurries, news reports all agreed, the storm was late, still expected to pack the same punch, would really ramp up in intensity by 5pm, still over a foot of accumulations.
5pm - All news outlets agreed, it had not missed, it was just slower than forecast, still predicted to pack a wallop, forecast accumulations of 1-2" an hour from 6pm to 2am, then tapering off and exiting 6am to 8am or so. Still holding firm to well over a foot.
8pm - Flurries, no accumulations
10pm - News reports: A lot was going to miss, forecast totals were ramped downward and we were expected to get 6-10" overnight as the bulk of the storm arrived. It started snowing hard and sticking, streets were finally covered.
11pm - snowing hard, got about 2" in the last hour, forecast still holding to the 6-10" by 6am. It looked like that would be true, it was a really powerful looking storm at that point.
midnight- all done. That 2" was about all we got. Quickly turned over to misty rain, the streets and sidewalks cleared, still 2" or so on the grass.
I never touched a shovel. Used a broom to clear off my car in the morning, the driveway and walks were just wet. Now the streets are already dry.