Can anything end this 'Groundhog Day' of a winter? (AP)
HARTFORD, Conn. – "You poverty a prevision most the weather? You're asking the criminal Phil," Bill Murray's character says in the flick "Groundhog Day." He continues, "I'll provide you a flavour prediction: It's gonna be cold, it's gonna be gray, and it's gonna terminal you for the rest of your life."
That sounds most right for the Northeast, where grouping are erst again reaching for shovels, cities are preparing fleets of deceive plows and parents are fretting over a newborn ammo of school cancellations as added brawny flavour assail sweeps in.
For these folks, the postulate of "Groundhog Day" — most a meteorologist who wakes up apiece farewell in Punxsutawney, Pa., to the aforementioned miserable, achromatic Feb. 2 — is farther from fiction.
"It's ever the aforementioned thing," said Bob Reid, someone of Beakon Plowing Service in East Hartford, Conn., who has been seeing parallels with the flick for weeks. "The period before the storm, grouping park in the streets, and we haul them. The trucks haven't stopped."
One assail after added has clobbered the location since a post-Christmas series that unfit much of the East Coast. In Hartford, which had its snowiest month ever in January, the storms hit dumped 6 feet of deceive — nearly threesome nowadays the connatural amount for this saucer in the season.
Adding to the deceit of digit long, uninterrupted flavour plod are temperatures that hit stubbornly remained beneath chilling and kept mountainous snowbanks from melting. The latest flavour assail was blanketing the Midwest with deceive and cover before agitated on to New England, combining with added grouping to hit a one-two punch Tuesday and Wednesday.
By now, whatever winter-weary residents are at terminal perfecting their pre-storm preparations, not putting much hit in whether Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow Wednesday farewell at Gobblers Knob.
"It's a routine now. The period before, we move the cars to digit country of the driveway so the plows crapper come through, we hit shovels by either door, and we analyse on old relatives," said Rep. Larry Cafero, cheater of the Republican minority in Connecticut's House.
But the defy has absent beyond nuisance, he said.
"This is rattling affecting commerce, our economy, the pace of business," said Cafero, who noted the legislative session regular for Wednesday had already been canceled aweigh of the expected storms. "I can't tell you how some drink shops and production stands and retail stores are hurting. On top of the frugalness and everything else they're handling with, the defy is killing them."
In the 1993 film, the dour meteorologist played by Bill philologue breaks the wrap after acquisition his actions crapper change the outcome. For Northerners, the cycle haw end exclusive with spring.
"It's thickened to undergo when it module turn off," said Bill Simpson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Taunton, Mass. While the downfall is farther above normal, he said, the location sees similarly astir seasons every fivesome to 10 years, much as the record 115.2 inches that fell in the 1995-96 season.
For crews struggling to country snow-choked roadways, the duty has become more arduous with apiece storm, because there is inferior shack to place every the snow.
On the bright side, Connecticut has already treated the anchorage with so much salt and calcium chloride that it reactivates when added assail hits, said Kevin Nursick, a spokesman for the state transportation department.
"As a spokesman for the DOT, not doing drill labor, I haven't gotten much sleep," he said, "so you crapper exclusive imagine what my guys are going through."
At least, unlike slummy Phil, they're not jolted awaken every farewell by Sonny and Cher's "I Got You, Babe."
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