Not yet… This crap isn’t supposed to hit for another three months!!!
Another ice storm warning for last night! Low 32, freezing rain, accumulations of up to 1/3 inch predicted (in addition to what is already on the ground from yesterday. You can see the downed limbs and ice on the roofs.
And nobody around here is ready for this… But I find this one pretty funny and true at the same time!
We’re supposed to be back up to ‘normal’ 50s-60s by Friday. I hope…
I remember the first freeze of winter was particularly hard on 13 Oct 1981. I don’t know why I remember that, other than I was crunching through puddles of ice walking across the Texas Tech campus during my first semester.
The weather up there changes hard and fast at times. Sweating during FFA in the morning, and watching snow fly and freezing in the school bus on the way home the same day.
I remember that one because I walked to school in a shirt and slacks. I shivered home from school because the temperature had dropped from the mid-60s to below freezing with a lower wind-chill. Heck of a welcome to Texas! (we’d just moved from the Midwest.)
I’m glad you survived your encounter with the Airzona Ranger and his Big Iron.
We had 20 inches this past Saturday (and zero degrees). That played billy-hob with the second day of elk and deer season. A short climb of 400-600 feet and we were in 30-36″ of snow. Animals were not moving. But winter isn’t here yet – should see highs in the 50’s this week. (location – somewhere just below the Continental Divide in Montana)
Growing up in Noo Englund nawth a’ Baw-ston, you knew there was a good’un coming in when they’d have the salt trucks out in the afternoon before stawm. Like 3pm. But the trick was to check the size of the salt. 1/4″ or smaller meant schools would be open the next day. But cubes the size of gaming dice meant you could blow off your homework that night.
1am was the ‘halfway’ point of a nor’easter; when the snow started, the number of hours before 1am predicts the number of hours it would continue into morning. As a kid it was fun to see whether or not that old saying held true.
When the greenie-weenies banned road salt I bet the lot of them, Audubon, Nature Conservancy, et al, must have been taking kickbacks from the body shop owners.
Had our first “snow” a couple of days ago. About 1/4 to 1/2 inch, enough to give the grass a frosted look and turn the roads slick. Between the Califoricator transplants, and the people who forgot how to drive during the annual warm period, auto accidents were rampant. Around here (Eastern Idaho) the wind is more likely to cause school and road closures than actual snowfall. With 2 foot of snow already on the ground, a 40 to 50 mph wind can create 4 foot plus drifts with the seeming consistency of concrete and requiring heavy equipment to clear.
Yikes! But typical of N. TX, isn’t it – unpredictable as hell. But it is supposed to be in the high 60’s and maybe even low 70’s in Dallas in another three weeks!
Yon mappe is way too true. I remember the Ice Storm of ’89 that hit just before Christmas. In Florida. The interstate in Gainesville was frozen and you could hear cars sliding and crashing for hours. All the bridges over the little creeks were frozen over, along with overpasses, any wet surface, yada yada. Shut the city down. That’s what happens when you go from heavy rain and 70 degrees to 20 degrees in 5 hours.
And the snow afterwards was icing on the cake.
Made me realize that sh..tuff was fun to look at but sucks to try to do anything in. Fugedaboutit. I’m sticking south of the normal snow line. Of course, now that I said that, it’s time for ICE AGE 2020 to commence… I mean, who’d expect that?
But we’re stuck at mid 80s down to low 70s for temps, at least till next week if you believe the professional weather-guessers (who can’t predict what will happen in 24 hours, so how can they predict globull warming?)
That map is not even close to correct. It takes more than “any snow” to close schools in the upper south, though 3″ might do it.
The thing about the south is that we don’t get a lot of snow. Indeed, where I live, we didn’t get any significant accumulation for the past two winters. Therefore, we don’t have all of the expensive snow abatement equipment that you northerners have. We don’t need it. It’s easier to stay home for the day or two before the next thaw.
I know a lot of northerners make fun of southerners driving in the snow. It’s true. Most of us just aren’t worth a shit as snow drivers. But, as I pointed out, we don’t have to be.
My riposte is: “You northerners can’t drive at high noon on the fourth of July. So what’s your excuse?”
All- Thanks for the comments. And yes, Texas…sigh. Roy- I know, but they’re fun to put up anyway!
Posted from my iPhone.
The perception of what constitutes a “heavy” or “dangerous” winter storm varies greatly between localities. A lot of it depends on what people “there” are used to, but the actual nature of the storm can vary, too.
I spent the winter of 1981 in San Angelo, TX, at Goodfellow AFB. Woke up one morning to the radio announcing that “The Spy School is closed.” Insert eye roll here.
IIRC, there were about three inches. Being from Michigan I was not impressed.
Later, my folks moved to Tennesee, up on the Cumberland Plateau, about halfway between Nash’ and Knox’. One inch of will close everything there.
And now here I am in Pugetopolis, where two inches is considered a heavier than usual snowfall. But the nature of the snowfall tends to be that it will start, it will be warm enough to melt, and it will keep falling and get colder. So that initial, melted, snowfall will re-freeze, and you’ll have a couple or more inches of snow on top of ice. Kind of treacherous.
Not that it excuses the idiots who abandon their cars in the middle of the interstate and walk home…
I haven’t seen snow since 2013, on the south side of the Columbia River. Before, that, I did see snow in Minot, ND. MORE than plenty, in the late ’80s. I’m now in SW Washington, a few miles north of the river. We may get some, one day…
Sam L – I remember moving from Michigan to Yacolt, WA. – the moving guys that unloaded the truck looked at my quiver of snow shovels, shook their heads and said, “You won’t be needing those very often.”
Actually in SC we close schools not only if it snows, but if the forecast says there’s a chance of snow.
one casualty of the COVID pandemic, children no longer get snow days. If the school is closed due to weather, it becomes a online learning day.
People here in So. KY don’t believe they put chains on school buses back in PA when I was growing up.We might miss one day but rarely two because of snow. In fact they close school here if it MIGHT snow. Interestingly they do a much better job of snow removal than TN which is 24 miles away.
From my 76 year old memory bank, attending school in Colorado, only one time was school cancelled. We had a blizzard that filled all the roads bank to bank (the banks from previously plowed snow storms). I was irritated because I had snowshoed the 1 1/2 miles to school.
All- Thanks! Granted I’m old, but I don’t remember the schools closing in SW Arkansas the few times it snowed back in the early 60s. I DO remember walking to grade school and getting knocked into the ditch by a car that skidded… Painful!
We got around 12″ here, and it went down to minus 4 degrees the other night.
Now it’s back in the 50’s, and will be 60something next week. Time to put the snow tires on the wife’s car!
Probably to late to add my two cents worth, but I well remember back in ’78, I was a selectman of a small town in central Vermont (pop. 832)(this was before the flatlanders moved in and ruined the state). It started snowing one evening, and the wind was blowing something fierce. Tried to keep the road open, but we had better than 2 feet accumulation, and the drifts in places were 10 feet tall. First time we had to close school in our town. EVER. Had never before been done.
Ow! We’ve been having lovely warm Fall. Spent today wandering around Antietam with pup enjoying the colors.
Late to the party but drjim could probably give you a few tips about snowblowers. 😉
drjim- You can KEEP that!
Ian- Wow!
PH- :-p
DW- NO desire to own one. I got rid of my snow shovels when I left northern Virginia.
I like Autumn, but hate that it signals Winter coming.
The first month of Winter is ok as a change, but the next ten months of it gets tiring.
Ed- Good point!