Minnesota versus Philadelphia: Snow Harder

My boss brought a particularly incendiary article to my attention this afternoon, the topic at hand being the cancellation of the Eagles game on the day after Christmas. It was postponed until Tuesday, as Philadelphia was expected to receive a hefty amount of snow during the day. The NFL cited its decision as having been influenced by the traffic more than anything, and the fear that the game's attendees would be in danger should they congregate and get out on the roads.

Anyway, the article is here, anyway, and he cites a lot of statistics to make his points. And you know what that means!

First of all, population. See, you can take population one of two ways: only the city proper, or the entire metropolitan area. The Twin Cities are unique in the fact that they're made up of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, and although Minneapolis is larger, they tend to go in a pair when it comes to population. The populations of the cities themselves is:

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - 1,547,901 (11,457 per square mile)
Minneapolis, Minnesota - 385,378 (7,020 per square mile)
Saint Paul, Minnesota - 287,151 (5,438 per square mile)

Thus, the combined population of the Twin Cities is about 43% of the population of Philadelphia proper. Now, the metropolitan areas, just to show that the MSP metro is proportionally less urban than the Delaware Valley:

Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington - 5,968,252
Minneapolis-Saint Paul-Bloomington - 3,269,814

Now, snowfall totals. The Twin Cities gets an average of 54.4 inches of snow per year, according to NOAA. The peak months are:

January - 12.8 inches
March - 10.4 inches
November - 9.9 inches
December - 9.5 inches
February - 7.9 inches
April - 3. inches
October - 0.6 inches
May - 0.1 inches

The same information from Philadelphia:

Average yearly snowfall: 20.5 inches
January - 7.4 inches
February - 6.9 inches
March - 3.2 inches
December - 2.1 inches
April - 0.5 inches
November - 0.4 inches
October - 0.1 inches

In the article, one of the points is that "Philadelphia gets more snow now than Minnesota". This was certainly true last year - in the 2009-2010 season, Philadelphia received 78.7" of snow, where Minneapolis got just above 40.7". In the 2008-2009 season, however, Minneapolis received about 45.0", where Philadelphia had 22.8". Here's a comparison of the last thirty years in both:


On average over the past thirty years, Minneapolis gets 31.6" more inches of snow than Philadelphia.
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Snowpacalypse: Snow Fear

I woke up today like it was any other day. I rose from bed, brushed my teeth, took a shower, and got dressed. As usual, I flipped on the television and what confronted me was literally the most horrifying thing I've ever heard. Well, at least in the top thousand most horrifying things.

Now, what I'm about to show you, if you were a trained meteorologist, might give you a heart attack. See if you can spot what's so frightening about this PROFESSIONAL RADAR IMAGE:


It's difficult to see on the image, but there is a fairly large snowstorm on the horizon for the east coast. Gasp! Just in case you missed it, I have circled it here for your convenience:


Whoa!

Anyway, after hearing this devastating news, what did I do? Of course, as a lifelong Minnesotan, I am used to snow and ice having a presence around me for several months of the year. I should be able to simply shrug off the notion of its danger, right? But then, I'm a resident of New Jersey now. And what would a lifelong New Jerseyan do in such a situation?


Run to the nearest grocery store and panic whilst purchasing as much food and water as possible. I could be trapped in my apartment for what, almost a month at this point! After heading into the nearest Wegman's, I was greeted with chaos and panic all around me.




Frightening. At least six people were trampled in the shuffling, though the gore and bodies were mopped up before I could withdraw my camera.


This is one of the many people purchasing a shovel. Now, being from Minnesota, the idea of a homeowner owning less than three shovels terrifies me more than you could imagine.


My survival supplies. God help me.

Anyway, here's some "before" pictures so that I can keep track of some of the action.




Me looking very worried.


Stay tuned for my impending death!

UPDATE @ 11:41p
Apparently Philadelphia is already planning on declaring a state of emergency now. There's no wind outside and it's kind of scary.