Well, this century is pretty young, but as NBC reported this morning, the Minneapolis-St. Paul area received the most snow in a single December day since records began in the late 19th century.  Minneapolis got 17 inches of snow in less than 24 hours, but the south suburban area where I live got more than 21 inches of snow altogether. The picture on the front page shows the accumulation on my deck; the chairs stand about three feet high or so, as does the nearly-covered table.

NBC’s report from early this morning came before the news media had realized that the Metrodome collapsed last night:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Last night, I shot a short video after the fourth of five attempts to clear my driveway:

I shot this with a new HTC MyTouch 4G phone, which has a nice HD camcorder built into it. I may use it instead of my FlipCam just to simplify travel to different events. Seems to work nicely, although I’ll want to see how it handles for interviews before I make up my mind. (The front-page pic came from my normal camera.)

John Hinderaker takes a couple of good-natured shots at France in his post on the storm, noting the ease in which we rubes in the Upper Midwest handle snow. Of course, we’re used to it, and if we want commerce and public safety to remain in operation in the winter, we have to prepare for substantial snowfalls. This storm, however, was off the charts. The conditions were so bad in the afternoon that I couldn’t see either end of the street, and the plows couldn’t keep up at all. One weather forecaster warned that driving off into a ditch at the peak of the storm yesterday wasn’t just an inconvenience, but given the difficulty of rescue, could have been life-threatening, especially with low visibility and the plows on the road.

But as soon as the snow stopped, we got back to normal almost immediately. The plows cleared the streets, and it was safe enough for our friends to join us at our house for dinner as planned. (The same can’t be said of the New York Giants and their dinner-date with the Vikings tomorrow, at least not at the Dome.) I’m sore as hell today after all of the snowblowing and shoveling necessary to keep up with the storm and don’t anticipate leaving the house for anything, but the roads and businesses are open, even if it is only 3 degrees above zero and -22 degrees with wind chill. It’s just life in Minnesota, and it goes on.