Hard to believe on a day when temperatures reached 70 degrees in Boulder, that we are expecting one of the biggest snow storms of the season to hit this weekend. A “perfect storm” of such is forming and expected to stall, producing snow from Friday through Monday.  The forecast total for Nederland and the surrounding area — 2-4 feet of snow.  Such is weather in Colorado.

On the east coast, snow storm preparations dictate a mad dash to the grocery store to pick up bread, milk and eggs.  I say that, because those shelves seem to be wiped out the eve of a storm.  Why, I’m not sure, unless the preferred meal of choice during said snow storm is to eat lots of french toast.

Our preparations here at our home in Nederland take on a different flavor.  We’re more concerned power lines breaking due to all the heavy, wet snow and the ensuing lack of power.  The more power outages, the longer the power outage for us.  That’s because the priority of the local utility company is to fix what provides the most homes with power.  Translation, the big front range cities of Denver, Boulder and Fort Collins get first priority and the little old town of Nederland with its robust population of 1300 is last on the totem pole.

So this go round of snow storm preparations is taking on a different flavor.  We’re stocking up wood pellets for heat, but we’ve made a preemptive decision to rent a portable generator.  Generators are common around our neighborhood, since between the famous Nederland winds, and the heavy, wet snowstorms, power outages can be the norm.  And during big snow storms, those outages can last for days instead of hours.

The generator is put as close to the house as you can, and runs off gasoline.  It has outlets to plug in extension cords for those critical appliances.  Some are large enough to pretty much power your entire house.  For us, the two critical appliances are our pellet stove (heat), and our refrigerator.  Of course, I figure the fact that we actually have a generator to weather the storm sort of insures we won’t have a power outage — kind of a reverse Murphy’s law sort of thinking.

Stay tuned for more on our big storm later this weekend.

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