The morning news is on full panic alert. We had a whopping one inch of snow over night. During the next 15 hours, we may have another inch or two. Then over night maybe 3 inches.
"Heavy snow warning!" Weather updates every 20 seconds! They are looking hard for disaster on the roadways, but all of the traffic reports are "things are pretty smooth out there."
I remember when 5" of snow was a typical winter afternoon. 5" over the couse of 30 hours was considered "light flurries", not "heavy snow warning." Man, did things get pussified around here.
I remember one year many moons ago I was living in El Paso and they had 1" of snow. It shut that place down. They had no way of coping with it. It was rather humerous.
Living in New Orleans it's kind of funny too with the say there's going to be a "hard freeze". By that they mean 31 degrees. Of course when it does lots of people's pipes freeze as they're not insulated for freezing temps there.
It snows so rarely here (minor accumulation once every 3-4 years or so?) that we're in the same boat. 1/2 inch of accumulation is enough to shut schools down. Heck, most of the time they will at least delay opening schools 2 hours if there's even a threat of snow.
About 15 years ago or so we had a freak blizzard come through and dump several inches on us. We made national news. The city was practically shut DOWN for over a week.
Looks like I'm stuck at home today. Everybody except weather.com says it's not going to get above freezing today and there's going to be freezing rain throughout the day. The highway patrol is calling the roads "slick and hazardous" just to the west of me, and that line keeps inching eastward. I called in and said "I'm sure I could get in this morning, but I'm more worried about getting home tonight." So I guess I've got a day off.
Which is cool, except that I've just had a week and day off and kind of need the money. Oh well, it won't make that big of a difference.
Here it has been raining for the past 2 days and now teh temp is dropping to freezing. We are supposed to have freezing rain for the next day or 2. And as far as I can tell the only thing they are doing is letting kids out of school early.
We got about 5 inches of snow in Va Beach the day after Xmas this year. That pretty much shut things down, since they have no snowplows (only the state plows to do the interstate highway, I believe). The sand/chemical trucks were working OT though!
When the sun goes out, we'll have eight minutes to live.
When my wife and I lived in Florida, we always used to laugh at the morning weather forecasts, especially once "winter" hit and the meteorologists gave breathless exhortations to "bundle up!" as "it's going to be a chilly morning out there!"
The current temperature would be something like 60.
Maybe two inches of snow last night and I was a half an hour late for work this morning. I swear it's better driving around here when we get an inch every other day. People's short term memories on how to drive won't go to mush then.
Jeff V wrote:
I remember when 5" of snow was a typical winter afternoon. 5" over the couse of 30 hours was considered "light flurries", not "heavy snow warning." Man, did things get pussified around here.
The Bride and I, Michiganders both, call Bostonians "weather wimps". They boast of their hardy natures in the face of epic winters, then absolutely panic when actual snow is expected. We call snowy forecasts "bread and milk alerts" because desperate residents mob the grocery stores to strip the shelves of these perishable items (why bread and milk specifically, we can't figure out); anything over four inches is a "two-loafer". Schools close based on forecasts alone. My friends think I'm a madman for driving a rear-wheel drive car year-round. We average a piddling 41" a year, and it always seems to take the natives by complete surprise.
When challenged, they throw The Blizzard of '78 (tm) at you -- another standing joke among us expatriot Michiganders. Get over it!
It's snowing lightly today, not even sticking on pavement. The Bride's commute will be a nightmare as she gets penned in by all those thousands of SUV drivers who can't cope with wet roads.
When challenged, they throw The Blizzard of '78 (tm) at you -- another standing joke among us expatriot Michiganders. Get over it!
As a Michigander, the only bad blizzard I remember was the blizzard of 76. We lost power for two weeks and had to get a kerosene heater and go to the township offices to have water pumped to bring home. As a kid, it didn't bother me. We went outside and dug tunnels in the snow drifts. The animals didn't even have a huge problem with it. Of more concern is when it seems like it gets too cold to snow. Every so often you see those humid wind chills of -40 and you are all like "fuck going anywhere. " I am done with outside until April. The chill goes straight through whatever you are wearing and the wind froms condensenation and freezes again on your body. That is teh suck.
Living in Northern Michigan it was the '77/'78 blizzard that looms largest (especially in snowbank size, although admittedly I was only four at the time so everything seemed a bit larger) in my memory. I can distinctly remember what must've been a 12-foot bank like the twin Pillars of Hercules at the entrance to our driveway (that fortunately my *brothers* had to shovel plowslop into place). I have a very vivid memory of playing outside when the mailman came over the top of one pillar (as it covered the land where the sidewalk was) like a bundled-up sand person. Why he wouldn't just walk in the street like everyone else, I have no idea.
Once I got into school, there was an early 80's winter where we went six straight weeks after break (the entire month of January and half-way into February) without ever having school on a Monday, and frequently still missing Tuesday. Unfortunately my father was a foreman for the county Road Commission back then, so I didn't see much of Dad that winter. Even then, the banks didn't get as tall as '77/'78.
And then there was the 330" winter I lived through in the Upper Peninsula. I blew off classes (as is the tradition) for the last day of the school year on May 18th or so. We got three inches of snow while grilling brauts on the shores of Lake Mangenese next to Copper Harbor). The record for the area was something like 363 inches of snow, and I was telling everyone that with a solid June and July we'd break it.
~Neal
"Better to talk to people than communicate via tweet." — Elontra
Ironrod wrote:
The Bride's commute will be a nightmare as she gets penned in by all those thousands of SUV drivers who can't cope with wet roads.
Hell, drivers in your 'hood can't cope with sunny, dry pavement, let alone slushy roads. Last time I was in Boston, there was a couple of inches of snow - I driving around those petrified pinheads like a slalom skiier on the slopes. To make matters worse, my rental car's windshield wipers were shot, so I could hard see where I was going (I called Hertz and bitched up a storm once I got to my hotel...they replaced the car with a rear-wheel drive Crown Vic )
LordMortis wrote:Brats off the grill in winter. Yum. Food from the grill when it is snowing is the best ever. It almost makes you forget about the cold.
I BBQ'd a turkey once in 10 degree weather. One year, we had a "bring your own meat" NYE party with 3 Weber grills going in the middle of a raging blizzard.
The food does somehow taste better cooked in the cold (don't think snow really adds much to it). Maybe because it ties back to all those fond memories of tailgating parties at football games.
The Meal wrote:Living in Northern Michigan it was the '77/'78 blizzard that looms largest (especially in snowbank size, although admittedly I was only four at the time so everything seemed a bit larger) in my memory.
I was a student at MSU. It closed the university for the first time in its history. I think we had three days off. My Mustang was literally buried over the roof -- I stood above it and shoveled down to get it out. But you can't tell a Bostonian that our blizzard in 78 was worse than their Blizzard of 78 (tm).
To be fair, the Boston version was a winter hurricane that caused severe coastal damage and power outages, and poor forecasting caught everyone unprepared. Michigan got more snow, but didn't take any real damage from it. Both storms were genuine three-loafers.
I can only imagine Beantowns point and go until you get there driving philosophy in the snow. I shudder to think how that works. At least it all happens as a snails speed.
Ironrod wrote:
To be fair, the Boston version was a winter hurricane that caused severe coastal damage and power outages, and poor forecasting caught everyone unprepared. Michigan got more snow, but didn't take any real damage from it. Both storms were genuine three-loafers.
'78 being six years before I was born...I think that's the whole big deal about grabbing milk and bread from the stores before every inch of snow. Poor forecasting. If they can't predict five feet of snow or whatever it was being dumped on us, they can screw it up again. I love snow though (even when I have to shovel it) and don't really need that extra bread or milk. That's what my ten pounds of beer-induced insulation is for.
While visiting my grandparents at the farm when I was 16 or so, in 48 hours we had snow so deep that it was chest-high. I loved it! When it quit, I immediately grabbed the shovel and went and spent literally hours digging a path from the driveway out to the road, so grandpa could get his car out. I thought I'd surprise him when he woke up.
No sooner did I get done and was standing there resting, when this big plow comes into the yard and plows out the entire yard, totally obliterating and making insignificant all my labor. Grandpa had woke up, saw the snow, and called his buddy who had a plow.
He thought it was funny. I was mad.
"I've been fighting with reality for over thirty-five years, and I'm happy to say that I finally won out over it." -- Elwood P. Dowd
Don't blame the city for pussifying, Jeff. Blame the media for over-sensationalizing everything. Things ran pretty smoothly where I was (and they're actually saying that we should be getting 6-10" tonight). As far as I know, there were no school closing because of snow or the threat of snow today.
Of course, the local news wants to convince everyone that we're entering another ice age every time the temperature drops into the 20s, so this is hardly surprising.
I was blaming the media, but the people are getting pretty thin-skinned as well. There were too many folks on the road attempting to drive with their head between their legs. It wasn't too bad though, it only took me 1:15 to get home from work (as opposed to 3 hours after those few inches of slush we had the day before Thanksgiving).
What would everyone do if we had 24" of snow followed by -15F temps like the storm back in '78? My nephews were let out of school early today because there was what, 3" of snow on the ground?
Jeff V wrote:The morning news is on full panic alert. We had a whopping one inch of snow over night. During the next 15 hours, we may have another inch or two. Then over night maybe 3 inches.
"Heavy snow warning!" Weather updates every 20 seconds! They are looking hard for disaster on the roadways, but all of the traffic reports are "things are pretty smooth out there."
Are you sure you're not in the DC area? You've just read from the "DC Area: The Use of Snow to Strike Fear Into The Populace With Just 1 Inch!" playbook.
Black lives matter!
Wise words of warning from Smoove B: Oh, how you all laughed when I warned you about the semen. Well, who's laughing now?
Oh, DC is definitely bad for that. A few years ago, I flew in during a 7" snowfall. The morons just stopped in the middle of GW Parkway; I think they really did put their head between their legs. Meanwhile, I weaved around them doing about 50 while on my way to my hotel.
Jeff V wrote:
I remember when 5" of snow was a typical winter afternoon. 5" over the couse of 30 hours was considered "light flurries", not "heavy snow warning." Man, did things get pussified around here.
We call snowy forecasts "bread and milk alerts" because desperate residents mob the grocery stores to strip the shelves of these perishable items (why bread and milk specifically, we can't figure out); anything over four inches is a "two-loafer".
.
Jeff V wrote:
I remember when 5" of snow was a typical winter afternoon. 5" over the couse of 30 hours was considered "light flurries", not "heavy snow warning." Man, did things get pussified around here.
We call snowy forecasts "bread and milk alerts" because desperate residents mob the grocery stores to strip the shelves of these perishable items (why bread and milk specifically, we can't figure out); anything over four inches is a "two-loafer".
.
MMMMMMM. French toast.
Yes. I love French toast, and I would love to know the secret locations of all these French toast orgies that are apparently going on every time it snows.
Instead of milk and bread, I've always wanted to go through the line during a snow alert with a cart full of Gatorade, whipped cream, and condoms.
When the sun goes out, we'll have eight minutes to live.
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