. It seems that half the country will experience snowstorm Benjamin. Here on the East Coast, he isn't expected to arrive until late Saturday night, dumping a foot or more before he leaves. Our meteorologist is very excited. We are lucky in that here in the northern part of the county, we have a weather guy who covers just our small area, so his forecasts are hyper-local.
There isn't a whole lot I can do to prepare, but there certain small steps I will take:
1. Rather than park in the garage or even at the top of the driveway, I will intentionally park a bit further down the driveway, closer to the road. (The driveway is about 100 feet long.) In this way, I can save a good 20 feet of driveway I'd othrwise have to shovel if I parked in front of the garage. It will be easier to just shovel a narrow walking path from my garage to the car. I'd park even further down except that the driveway narrows a bit in the middle and there's shrubbery on one side in that area, making getting around it to clear snow difficult. Honestly, the worst part about shoveling the driveway is how the snow plows pack in the snow nice and tight at the bottom of the drive. It's the most exhausting part of shoveling, hands down, but it's never a good idea to leave it til the following day, because then it gets rock hard.
2. I use those little plastic baggies with the elastic on the edges, used by women to keep their hair from getting wet. (Does anyone still use these anymore?) I put them on my side view mirrors to keep the snow and ice off them, saving me a bit of extra work. With my new SUV, the 1 mirror is heated, but I don't think the other one is. Either way, it still seems better to just cover them anyway. I also have a windshield cover which I guess is good if you're expecting freezing rain or ice, then yes, for sure, it keeps all that ice off your wipers, but with mere snow, you just end up dumping lots of snow on yourself as you work to pull the cover off the windshield.
3. I finally got my EcoFlow power station shipped back to me after they issued a recall last November. I have been testing it to make sure it works properly, and so far it seems like it is. I'll finish with the testing by end of day tomorrow and charge it back up again JUST IN CASE of a power outage. We "should" be fine as it's going to be a light, powdery snow with no wind, but you never know. It would be truly awful to lose power with this storm becus temps will go below zero and with this much accumulation, it could be days before power is restored.
4. Again, just in case, I will make a point to charge up my cell phone Saturday night instead of waiting til Sunday morning to do it, as is my custom. I have several small power banks for phone charging as well but I rarely have needed to use them.
5. Due to the expected accumulation, my front stairs could be quite treacherous, so I think that instead of positioning my snow shovel at the front door, I will exit the house down through the basement and then out into the garage. I'll keep the snow shovel, the shovel for the car and my roof snow shovel ready to go in the garage. I often forget to take the car snow shovel OUT of the car and then I regret it because I have to open the car door and get all kinds of snow inside when I do.
I used to use the roof snow shovel after very heavy snowfalls to avoid ice dams at the gutters, which can lead to water infiltrating your walls, but last time I had my roof done, I had the roofer put the impermeable rubber membrane under the shingles on the ENTIRE roof; building code only requires it from 2 feet above the gutters down. So I "shouldn't" have to worry about ice dams, but I've still hung onto the roof shovel.
6. I'm pretty much set with food in the house except maybe i'll pick up some bananas today when I'm out. I'll also make sure to get my last workout of the week in today so I'm good until Monday.
What, if anything, are you doing to prepare for the storm? Or maybe, depending on where you live, the storm has arrived!
January 23rd, 2026 at 04:34 pm 1769186084
Where I live now though, we are still expecting a weekend full of sleet of all things. Of course, weather is always subject to change, but I will do some advanced prep as well, in case I decide to bunker at home all weekend.
January 23rd, 2026 at 05:36 pm 1769189771
It is supposed to be very cold next week - lows in the 20s, highs in the 50s - but my dad keeps the house @ 80 at all times so I am still wearing shorts!
When I had to shovel a driveway, starting at the plow end and working in would make the job more bearable. But I’ve lived in the city my entire adult life and I can probably count on my two hands the number of times I’ve shoveled even the sidewalk in front of my building so I am extremely spoiled…and I like it like that. 😀
January 23rd, 2026 at 10:18 pm 1769206699
January 23rd, 2026 at 10:43 pm 1769208208
As I told my cousin in Ohio today, I'll be fine as long as I don't lose power. Which is not expected as we won't have high winds or freezing ice accumulating on power lines. However, they have upped the expected snowfall to 14 to 20"!
January 24th, 2026 at 06:33 pm 1769279631
I went out and did a larger than usual grocery shop this morning. I spent an hour and a half Thursday evening going to half a dozen stores looking for rock salt to no avail. Fortunately I found some in my basement plus ordered some more which will arrive the middle of next week. I filled up my gas tank and I know I have electric lanterns for light; I think I might be running low on AA batteries so will stop on the way home to get a package of those. Also I need to remember to charge up devices and rechargers tonight.
Those of us at my job who live in the path of the storm were emailed by HR yesterday and told to take our laptops home. I'm actually in the office right now getting work done because my boss is in Florida meeting with clients. I'm just praying the power stays on. I've had two times in this house where I lost it for two days, but those were both Nor'easters (Irene and Sandy, if I recall correctly) so not as cold as this is. If we lose power I have blankets including a mylar thermal blanket and I have a box of those self-heating handwarmers, so hopefully that would be enough to get through. Plus the concrete block walls of my house are really thick (house built in 1915), so there's always about a 48-hour lag between when the weather gets really hot or cold and when I feel it more inside the house. But the fact that most of the windows are ALSO from 1915 means that they are drafty, so in cold weather, I mostly huddle upstairs in my bedroom, which is the warmest room in the house.
January 24th, 2026 at 06:38 pm 1769279903
I googled and both names are legit. "Fern" is the Weather Channel name. "Benjamin" has been used by local stations. And unlike with hurricanes, where there is a centralized naming source, there isn't one for winter storms. Hence different names for the same storm.
January 25th, 2026 at 12:15 am 1769300159