Farragut hugely popular subsoil drainage stingo

The Noreaster of 2009

 
I haven’t fact checked this, but I think the Washington DC metropolitan area’s last official Noreaster was in 2004.  I vividly remember digging and re-digging and digging multiple times over the course of 48 hours.  Although that memory stands out, some of my favorite memories from snow storms are driving in it.
 
In fact, one memory that sticks out vividly was driving to the Region’s Annual Awards Banquet in 2005.  That year, the banquet was held in Northern Virginia and on dry roads, it would take us close to a little less than an hour and a half to get there.  Since it had started snowing earlier in the morning, we decided to leave ourselves a little more than 2 hours to get there, figuring that between one of our trusty Subaru WRXs and the snow crews keeping I-95 clean, we’d have no problem.
 
Much to our surprise, the snow crews couldn’t keep up with the snowfall, and there was at least half a foot of snow on 95.  There were no visible lane lines, and cars were just driving wherever, literally.  As we were passing (!) a minivan on our right, the minivan lots all of its grip, turned a full 90 degrees such that I, sitting in the passenger seat, was staring right at the minivan’s headlights as it slid sideways down 95.  Um, yikes??  Then somehow, the minivan caught its grip again and righted itself.  ::phew::  That’s when Steve decided to make sure we fully passed that minivan in short order before it lost grip again…..
 
Another memory I have is a lesson I received in snow driving and learning how to deal with significant loss of grip.  Steve took me to a local parking lot and we did lots of donuts, slides, “stops”, and other fun things.  If the average driver would take the time to teach themselves about snow driving, maybe the mid-Atlantic region of drivers wouldn’t panic when it rains during rush hour!!!
 
Between that lesson and autocrossing, I’m a more confident driver no matter what the road conditions are.  In fact, the only reason I didn’t go driving in this weekend’s Noreaster is because the snow is taller than my WRX’s bumper, and that is one thing the WRX isn’t… a snowplow!!
 
What are your favorite snow driving memories?  Post to the comments section!
 
Stay warm, and enjoy the beauty of the season.
 
Cheers!
 
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-Evanthe
Don’t drive faster than your angel can drive.