Snowpocalypse and Me: Wintertime AWESOMENESS and Hope on the Horizon

If you don't live in Pittsburgh, or if you had another reason to be shut in all weekend and thus haven't looked outside, let me be the first to inform you that we are in the middle of a massive SNOWPOCALYPSE (I am not kidding; the news stations are using this term, as well as 'Snowmageddon,' and quite liberally, I might add). You know what this means, right? I have been bouncing off the walls ever since the first coating of white hit the ground. What I didn't realize was that the snow would ultimately lead me to a great revelation. But I'll get to that ;)

On my Top Billion Favorite Things About Pittsburgh list, somewhere in between 'Fireworks' and 'Folk Festival Potato Pancakes,' there is 'Extreme Pittsburgh Weather.' I've blogged about my love for torrential downpours that result in flooding and the inability to park your car on the Mon Wharf, but now, for the first time, I am enabled to blog about my absolute favorite preciptation, snow.

To fully understand my enjoyment of this snowstorm, I should make it clear that this was my weekend off of work. Insane snowfalls during days when I have to work usually lead to plenty of whining from me, since I can't be home to enjoy the storm. But we'd known since about Monday that a storm was coming this weekend, and that meant that I had about four full days of "You know, there's going to be a BLIZZARD this weekend!" enjoyment. (I do apologize to my friends and coworkers who may be annoyed by this behavior on my part :)

I spent all Friday morning whining about the lack of snow. When was it going to start? Was this another Pittsburgh Extreme Weather Dream Gone Awry? Oh how many times in my life have I been teased by Joe Denardo and Kevin Benson, hoping for feet of snow and waking up to only a dusting? What if this was just another one of those moments? Finally, around 2:00, the flurries began, but it was just too warm for any of it to stick. I was postively heartbroken, so I laid down in bed to read for a bit, and accidentally fell asleep...

By the time I awoke an hour later, the first inch had fallen. Our road was coated, and our back porch and yard had a healthy inch of the beautiful stuff on it. However, I was not ready to get my hopes up yet, so I settled onto the couch to watch a DVR'd SNL special and periodically pull back the curtains to check on the progress.

The snow kept coming. And coming. We decided to abandon our plans of attending First Friday, and instead settled in for a night of snow-watching and gaming. Around 5:30, just before the night began to completely fall, we took little Lucy out back and I took some pictures. The snow was coating everything, but just a light blanket.

By the time I woke up the next morning to take Lucy out again for her 5:30am bathroom break, the snow was so high, she could barely step off the porch into it. When we all awoke for the day around 8am, the Snowpocalypse had fully arrived. The snow was so high that my husband had to dig a little valley for Lucy to walk through, and the snow on each side of the valley was taller than her head. Everything was covered, tree branches and power lines were sagging, and the snow was all the way up to our front and back porches.

Of course, this meant it was time for one of my favorite extreme weather events: obsessively watching WPXI. The news was fantastic - the storm was so severe that Julie Bologna had been forced to sleep at the studio, so not only was our favorite weekend weatherman, Kevin Benson, on duty, we had the Chief Meteorologist present as well! And then, oh then, the moment we had all been waiting for:

In the span of less than thirty seconds, both Julie Bologna and Kevin Benson referenced the Blizzard of '93.

If you didn't live in Pittsburgh in 1993, let me set the stage: It was nearing the Ides of March. We'd all counted winter out. Surely we'd survived, and spring was just around the corner. But oh no, what is this? An oncoming winter storm? WTAE's Joe Denardo, the most famous Pittsburgh weatherman (the man had a theme song, I kid you not), informed us that inches and inches of snow were on the way.

The Blizzard of '93 was the biggest weather adventure this city had seen in ages. The snow fell as fast as two-to-three inches per hour, and it was incredibly windy and freezing. By the end of things, we had well over two feet of snow. School was cancelled almost all week, and the neighborhood kids and I spent the entire time outside in the freezing weather having epic snowball fights and sledding down the gigantic hills behind our houses. We also watched a lot of home movies of beach vacations. For some reason, that was a really popular activity for us on snow days.

Anyway, I mention the Blizzard of '93 because it's important to our city's history, and every time there's a bit of snow involved, it's just a matter of time for the Blizzard to get mentioned. We had a terribly icy day about a month or two back, and the newscasters were all commenting on how it was the biggest shutdown of highways since the Blizzard of '93.

So today, when BOTH of our fantastic weather forecasters dropped the name of the Blizz, it was like my heart leapt a little. My husband moved to the city in 1994, so he never got to experience the magic of the Blizzard of '93 (or, coincidentally, a Buccos winning season), and I was excited for him to see a snowfall of such epic proportions. The resounding decision on WPXI was that this, the Snowpocalypse of 2010, was equal to or greater than the Blizzard of '93 in all ways except for the lack of extreme wind and low temperature.

It was this declaration that lead to my great realization. As we spent the morning running around in the snow with our little puppy, it gradually came to me. If this Snowmageddon was a match to the Blizzard of '93, it could only mean one thing: the curse has been reversed. Pittsburgh has seen a snowfall to equal the epic proportions of THE Blizzard of '93, and therefore, it naturally follows that the Buccos are about to snap out of their 17-season losing streak and go to the World Series.

No, not just go to the World Series. Our Pittsburgh Pirates are going to win the 2010 World Series.

You heard it here first: extreme weather and winning baseball seasons are on the horizon for this fantastic little city. Now if you will excuse me, I must go hop through snow piles and plan vacation days for October.