Photo of the Day: Winter, in Black and White

I photographed this scene Monday morning, midway in the latest winter storm that my area of northern New Jersey has experienced. With five inches of snow cleared from my walk, I trudged several blocks away, through slush and untouched other piles of snow, to the bus stop I take to work. There are actually railroad tracks beneath the dip in the hill, but you can’t see them in this shot because of the snowdrifts.

By the time I made it home that night, two or three more inches of snow awaited me—made all the worse by a sublayer of ice that had formed in the intervening 12 hours. Subfreezing temperatures today ensured that constant sunshine, let alone my efforts, would be unable to make a dent in what had fallen the day before.

The weather forecasters predict more of the white stuff between now and Sunday night. I guess you can say this is Mother Nature’s way of compensating for the comparative warm spell we enjoyed in the New York area in the early part of this winter.