The wind is! Calm winds and a foot is a relatively easy dig out. 60 mph winds will not only stack that frozen stuff into drifts that require starting shoveling at eye level (or higher) depths, it will expose and fill every outer area of your home with snow that isn't well weather sealed. A few years ago, after a blizzard that was similar to what is forecast for your area, I made the mistake of opening my front door to try to start digging out. The blizzard winds completely packed the space between my screen door (with the glass in place both upper and lower) and my regular door. Not only was there no way I was going to get out (the drift in front was 5 feet deep, and the screen door opens out), the packed-in snow between the two doors dumped onto the floor when I opened the inside door. I couldn't close the inside door without removing the freshly deposited snow that was on my living room floor! That was the first (and I hope the last) time I had to use a snow shovel to transfer snow from my living room floor to my bathtub! My garage door opens and closes up-and-down, so I was able to get out of the house that way, but I still had a bunch of shoveling to do just to get to the front of the house. It took two days to get my driveway and sidewalks cleared, one shovel at a time. That stuff was fun when I was a kid - I'd build snow forts and have snowball fights with neighbor kids. It ain't fun anymore, especially when you read about people having heart attacks while shoveling snow!