We're a bit south of it*:
The storm — called Snowmaggedon2016 on Twitter, and named Winter Storm Jonas by the Weather Channel — could approach the 28 inches in January 1922 that ranks as Washington’s snowiest storm and is likely to easily surpass the highest recent snowfall, 17.8 inches that fell in February 2010.
But Mr. Otto said the region west of Washington, including parts of Virginia, West Virginia, southeastern Pennsylvania and northern Maryland, will form the “bull’s-eye” of the blizzard, with as much as 30 inches of snow expected there. ...
In suburban Bethesda, traffic was clogged with cars trying to squeeze into the parking lot of Strosnider’s, a local hardware store. People in knit caps and puffer coats crowded the aisles in search of batteries, flashlights, salt and snow shovels. One woman, Susan Schwartz, gave up and left, going to another store in nearby Kensington, which was by then devoid of storm supplies.
“There were no shovels and no salt to be found,” she said.
via www.nytimes.com
Test question: In a normally functioning market (devoid of the social stigma of "price gouging"), what would have happened to the price of shovels in advance of the storm? Explain.
Answer: The price would have risen in response to the increase in demand. Those most willing (and) able to pay for shovels would have gotten them. The hardware store should have scheduled a sealed-bid second price auction to extract as much surplus as possible from the poor suckers who don't normally need shovels.
*Note: We've only gotten 8"-10" and are expecting a few more which was much less than was forecast by the local weather guy on Thursday. There are a lot of snow weenies around here and they were spittin' mad (on facebook) that the forecaster dared to be wrong.
