Historic Groundhog Day Blizzard of 2011

As we approach the third anniversary of the historic Groundhog Day blizzard of 2011, I thought I would review my experience with it. The official snow total for Chicago was 21.2". The first thing I noticed on the morning of February 2nd 2011 was that there was such a large snow drift covering the front door, that it would not open!

At the beginning of the next video, you see can that snow had been forced underneath the door and into the house before I even opened the door.

I forced the front door open and looked around outside...

The snow drifted into an interesting pattern around a large tree in the backyard. Snow can be seen blowing off the roof at 0:32.

This was recorded on the afternoon of February 2nd. Although some shoveling had been done now, it would still take a long time before the van would be dug out. A substantial part of the pine tree seen at 0:33 was later taken down.

The top of the pine tree that was knocked down: