In the winter of 1971, Ottawa got 441 centimeters of snow. Over FOUR METERS. You’d never think they’d be able to beat that, and while they haven’t (yet) this winter’s been pretty close.

I have a horrible habit of not knowing when Ottawa is supposed to get a snowstorm, so when one of the financial advisors at the bank tells me “Hannah I need to know where to reach you tomorrow in case we’re closed” I wondered what could possibly possess the bank to close. I found out we were supposed to get about 20 cms that night and another 30 cms on Saturday. Well, we did get about 15 centimeters Friday night and opened Saturday, though we had to close early as things did get really, really bad.

I didn’t quite realize just how bad though until Sunday morning:

This was the parking lot at the bank on Saturday: the snow in that huge pile has been steadily increasing since our first major snowfall in November, but other than that it looks relatively snow-free.

This was looking directly outside of my door. That pile of snow in front is about 3 feet high.

This was the view outside of my apartment. The street basically became a one-way, and the sidewalk nonexistant. At one point I had to walk where the sidewalk would normally have been, and the snow came up well past my knees, almost up to my hips.

In the end we got over half a meter of snow, and came 34 centimeters short of breaking that 35 year old record. But given the way this winter is going, mother nature hasn’t given up, and we might just see the end of that record!

It’s interesting, to say the least!

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