So far all three conditions are being met. But it sure is snowing out there, and it sure is windy. The difference between “a blizzard” and just “a big honking snowstorm” seems to be the wind speed, and I think by that measure we’re having a blizzard right now.

This is one of those storms where the New York City area is being hit harder than northern New England. But it’s plenty bad in New England, too, especially southern New England; see this, where I also learn this storm is called “Hernando.” Doesn’t seem to quite fit.

When I look out my window, it’s hard to tell how much snow has fallen, but it’s a lot. And there already was a lot of snow on the ground. But at the moment I’m snug and cozy.

At the moment.

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We were walking (there’s a lot of walking in New York) to a restaurant, and it began to rain. It was a warm night, and the rain was soft and rather pleasant at first.

And then that suddenly changed. And when I write suddenly, I mean nearly instantaneously as well as violently.

It was almost exactly like this (video is from 2010):

Frightening, really. I wondered whether we were about to have a tornado.

The definition of a microburst:

A microburst is an intense small-scale downdraft produced by a thunderstorm or rain shower. There are two types of microbursts: wet microbursts and dry microbursts. They go through three stages in their cycle, the downburst, outburst, and cushion stages…

A microburst often has high winds that can knock over fully grown trees. They usually last for seconds to minutes.

The one I experienced lasted about 5 minutes or even less. But those were looooong minutes. There weren’t too many places to take shelter along the way, as most stores were closed except restaurants, and I was following along with a group that seemed doggedly determined to get to ours.

Great meal, though. Greek.

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