Selected Scenes From Philly Thundersnow 2011

In addition to being the night of the East Coast's last freakish weather event, aka Thunder Snow 2011, January 26 was also when I watched 'Exit Through the Gift Shop.' The street art subject matter of the film got me feeling a bit mischievous and coupled with the interesting weather outside, motivated a midnight adventure armed with Flip Video and digital camera. I've already shared the motion picture account of that evening, which featured such unusual moments as drunk bastards snowboarding down Market Street, but here share a quieter sampling of my favorite still shots of the city transformed by more snow than most Philadelphians have seen in a generation (unless of course they were here last winter).

Out of the Darkness Came Thundersnow!

I've literally felt like hibernating since the end of December, but then woke up last Wednesday night as the 15 inches of Thundersnow was covering Philadelphia and felt like taking a late-night walk in the otherworldly winter scene outside. I took along the new Flip video camera I got for Christmas and shot a little b-roll of the scene in Old City. Pretty ridiculous that we're on pace this winter to beat out last winter's all time record 85 inches of snow in Philly. I wonder if this is the new winter paradigm for the area, the unpredictable emergence of global warming simply making things crazier, or two freakish blips on the radar. Either way it merits documentation.

Philaberia

The much ballyhooed storm of this weekend panned out big time. The snow started last night around 8pm and by 10 it was coming down like bananas, and drunk knuckleheads on Market street between 2nd and 3rd were ambushing cabs with snowballs.


We woke up with at least 2 feet of snow on the ground, high winds and more snow coming down. I went outside to dig out our cars and the drifts were at least knee deep on a tallish dude. It transformed Old City and Philadelphia in general. The streets were deserted so we walked around with the dog, went to Reading Terminal and enjoyed the complete absence of crowds and the rare environmental ambiance.

Presented below, for perusal at your leisure, is a collection of original photography that feebly attempts to capture the rare, ephemeral beauty of Philadelphia after an enormous snow storm.
Parking lot from my porch. Cars caked in snow.

3rd Street, Old City, devoid of cars per Philly's original design.

Old City Coffee, the only local establishment bold enough to be open.

Dude on the corner, snow on the civic accoutrement.

Nobody's riding these bikes anywhere.