SDC News > SCD photo of the week: March 20, 2003
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White mounds removed from the parking lot at the NCAR Mesa Laboratory show the remains of more than two feet of snow that fell during the Blizzard of '03.
By Thursday noon, with the temperature nearing 40 degrees, the NCAR Tree Plaza was still buried under a white canopy. Photos: Lynda Lester—NCAR/SCD |
Digging outNCAR/UCAR reopened for business as usual on Thursday, 20 March, after shutting down for a snow day during Colorado's worst blizzard in 90 years. The storm began on Monday night with rain that turned to snow overnight, intensifying on Tuesday morning. Denver International Airport grounded all planes on Tuesday night, leaving UCAR president Rick Anthes stranded in Washington. By Wednesday afternoon, the spring storm had paralyzed the region, dumping 22.5 inches of thick, wet snow in Boulder and a total of 7-1/2 feet in the mountains nearby. UCAR closed, along with most institutions in the Denver metro area including schools, government offices, restaurants, and movie theaters. Due to power outages caused by the heavy snowfall, SCD powered down its supercomputer systems on Tuesday evening. Bluesky, blackforest, babyblue, chinook, chinookfe, and mouache remained down for nearly 36 hours due to continuing power hits. Software engineers in SCD's Supercomputer Systems group worked hard through the emergency, both to bring the machines down safely and restore them gracefully to production. On Thursday, with area temperatures approaching 40 degrees, the slushy snow began to melt nearly as fast as it had fallen.
Fog shrouded the mountains behind NCAR, snow melted off the Mesa Lab, and sidewalks were clear the day after the storm.
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by UCAR and sponsored by the National Science Foundation |