I live in Concord, MA. My wife and I planned to go out for brunch on Sunday. We drove about 10 yards down a snowy and slippery road and let discretion be the better part of valor and, very carefully, and returned home. We enjoyed watching the snow fall outside our Fox Run Farm house in the country during the New England Patriots vs. the Denver Broncos football game (the Patriots won!) and sympathized with the players as they were pelted with snow in the fourth quarter. But we are New Englanders who haven’t had much snow for a while and are delighted to get a really big one. More on how much in a sec.

A Substantial Storm

We have a long driveway that goes to our barn, and our plow guys do a great job, including the walk leading up to our house. But much manual shoveling for me remained to be done yesterday morning. Drifts of snow three feet high were piled in front of our chicken coop and all the way down to the back of the barn where my weight lifting gym is.

As I was moving a lot of thankfully light and fluffy snow, I started thinking about President Trump’s comment on Truth Social — “Could the Environmental Insurrectionists please explain — WHATEVER HAPPENED TO GLOBAL WARMING???” — in response to a major storm forecast across much of the U.S. In parts of the South not accustomed to heavy winter weather. For example, Winter Storm Fern still delivered measurable snow — about 3.6 inches in Memphis, 6.7 inches in Little Rock, 8.5 inches around Oklahoma City, and over 2 inches near Dallas–Fort Worth — while freezing rain and ice coated broad swaths of northern Mississippi and Alabama.

In response to the storm’s widespread impacts for millions of Americans, President Donald Trump approved emergency disaster declarations for at least a dozen states, unlocking federal assistance through the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help with response and recovery efforts across the hardest-hit regions. Trump said the federal government was working closely with FEMA, state governors, and emergency management teams to ensure communities had resources and support during the ongoing severe winter weather.