That was some nor’easter they got all along the U.S. Eastern Seaboard this past weekend, eh? Parts of Maine were especially hard-hit, with hundreds of thousands of people in the New York City area without power at one time during the height of the storm.

(Funny, I don’t recall experiencing any kind of similar conditions here in Gilbert, Arizona last weekend. Strange…)

Bryan Woods at The Storm Track has this cool story about what it was like up on the Mount Washington (NH) summit, where they recorded subsequent wind gusts of 151 and 158 miles per hour (!), and a 10-inch snowfall to cap an October that featured 34 inches, the second highest total on record for the month of October.

I always looked forward to that first major storm that would barrel up the East Coast every late October-early November, turning trees loaded with their fading fall foliage to bare branches in a day’s time. In the next few weeks the yellows, oranges and reds of early fall will be transformed into the browns and grays of November, awaiting that first cold snap and the prospect of the first snow. A lot of people out here in AZ consider snow (and cold, for that matter) a four-letter word; I never felt that way and hopefully will see some when I get back to MA after Christmas (God willing!).