Fogot to mention that there was thundersnow here at the height for the storm...I've seen/heard this a few times over the years, but it is pretty rare: it is lightning and thunder while snowing. I suspect because of the cold that it is cloud to cloud lightning and so the thunder sounds different. This storm could have been much worse...the wind was not that strong so drifting exists but is not a lot. Also, most of the first day of the storm it was 25 deg here but raining and freezing rain very hard off to the southeast, but not precipitating until 3 PM here (Thurs). If that have moisture had wrapped around, and if colder air was more established, we could have had additional feet of snow, which would have shot down this area for days.

Below is an email I sent someone on the storm:
As for the storm, my back says not exaggerated here. We got 15" or a little more but after the first 3" it sleeted hard for maybe 2 hours...so the weight of the snow is quite a lot...it is also very cold (8 deg now), and the day before the storm started off slowly it was 65, and 65 to 70 and sunny for the week before that. Some pickup truck plowed a single lane down our road yesterday afternoon...but we had to dig out an extra 15' to get to that lane (we've gone cross country skiing in a nice park/bird sanctuary 200 meters away, but have not driven. As the storm started as sleet Thurs PM I called ******* to say it was getting bad in a hurry but *** still collided with another car on ice (but no significant damage to people or cars. The forecast is for cold and in shady areas the snow may not significantly melt for a week. Apparently the last big storm here was Jan 1995...so people have leaf blowers, leaf vacuums, but they don't have snowblowers (which is fine with me, as long as they don't hurt themselves shoveling....
Chris