Sunday Blizzard Open Thread
Snow
I’m just going to leave this as an open thread where people can let us know if they’re snowed in and bored silly, out shoveling the white stuff for neighbors, or on a long road trip and concerned about getting home.
The Accuweather prediction is for 6 to 12 inches in northern Illinois, also involving southeastern Wisconsin, and the most recent addition was counties to the south of Chicago. If you’re starting to feel the impact of this snowy night already, please let us know. If you got home safely, let us know. We’ve already had one full inch of snow, not counting an hour of slop that turned to snow. Been out with the shovel already.
I’ve been caught out in bad weather like this, only a few miles from home, with snow so deep that I had to pull off the road at a restaurant about a mile and a half from my house, and wait until the plows made it past the restaurant. That was a 2-hour wait, too. I’ll probably be up most of the night shoveling white stuff.
Accuweather’s latest on this storm is here: https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/reports-powerful-winter-storm-slams-central-us-with-heavy-snow-destructive-winds/70006712
Stay safe and if it looks really bad, find a place to get off the road like an open all-night restaurant or a McD’s.
Category: Open thread
And here I was thinking of traveling that way to see my sister … nope. I think I’ll wait. If you have to be caught in it, be caught at a nice restaurant, like Ex says.
Terrible, terrible weather in Arkansas today. Only got up to 63 (grin). Too windy to burn leaves though.
Have you ever been to Grapevine, AR?
Plain ol’ sunshine here in arizona! lol 😉
It’ll get down to 37* tonight in the GB Compound tonight.
Trying to get pics of the foliage, if you don’t get a shot one day, either the color has changed to brown or the leaves have blown off the next day. But it has been very nice.
Hope you snow-sufferers are stay toasty warm tonight.
Amen to the surprise warmth in Pennsyltucky. I almost had a head start on fire wood until I sent a log directly into my knee. Still have enough to last through winter without the propane but for the washer.
Traveling done, and it was to Florida anyway. Saw where Hurricane Michael came ashore- Cat 4 w/ 155 mph winds. Very glad to be nowhere near any of that when it hit.
I lived in Florida for the 2004 “YGBFSM, again?” Hurricane season.
I sure do like McDonalds’s fish sammich. BK’s is pretty decent, too.
May God bless any and all who may be traversing I-80 in the presence of a blizzard.
I just checked the weather warnings. Some parts of I-80 are shut down due to high winds and drifting snow.
It’s 35F here, and the snow did pick up again, but nothing is sticking because of the warm temp. Plenty of cold air elsewhere. Maybe we’ll get off easy this time.
FYI: Just for general info, we now have 13.5″ of wet heavy snow on the ground, low temperature tonight forecast to be 8 degrees F.
I live in a cabin atop a mountain in the middle of the Tioga state forest. My work is located the next state above me in Cuomo and Schumer’s forgotten back yard but I have contingencies in place to ensure I make it despite my 2007 Ford Five-Hundred. Safe travels fellow snow drifters.
P.S. Stay warm, Ex!
Thank you, Rev! I have to check the Doppler radar again, but looks like we’re in a lull right now.
I learned the hard way in 2011 that if a blizzard is forecast, be prepared to shovel all night. I woke on 2/2/2011 to find that 4.5 feet of snow had piled up against my storm door and I was blocked in. Drifts up to 8 feet came up to the bottoms of my living room windows. Lake Shore Drive in Chicago was shut down. I had to wait for my neighbors to come and dig me out.
Better to stay up and shovel than wait for help to come when it can.
Heh. Boot Camp in Wonderful Waukegan, late November. Big snow storm, high winds whipping off the lake, muster all hands for a Midnight Snow Watch. Don just about everything in our seabag, grab a snow shovel and get to it. We lasted about ten minutes, and proceeded to watch the snow from the relative comfort of the heated, inside stair cases.
Good times.
Fort Lost-in-the-Woods MO, October to February OSUT and as soon as it was done snowing about 12 inches it was “GET YOUR GEAR ON, SNOW SHOVELING DETAIL NOW!!!”
I remember the coldest day EVER in the Chicago area. -25F with a wind chill of -85F. 1985.
I put on my warmest coat, took my dog and braved the cold to try to start my car. I had to put half of my coat over my thick-coated German Shepherd because she was shaking with the cold.
Tried to start the car. It said ‘rrrr’ and I said, ‘Well, I’ll wait until Spring to try again.’ We went back to my apartment and did not emerge until two days later.
January 26, 1985.
Was but a nubly student in ET-A School.
Was also the weekend the on-base McDonald’s opened. We were restricted to the BEQ (even those of us just across the street in the 430 buildings. Yeah, watch me, fuckers.
Also the weekend the pipes froze and burst at the NTC galley. Turned the whole place into one huge skating rink.
Fun times, fun times.
I thought the doors up north opened inward to avoid being blocked in.
There is usually an outer door, which opens outward Screen in summer, glass in winter.
If my back were healthier, I would making trips outside with a single stage snowblower. Since I’m in a SNF, shoveling the house driveway will fall on my two sons.
And coincidentally I now remember my better half asking me to assemble our snow blower today.
One of my better purchases was a 3.5kw lp gas fueled generator. Haven’t lost power since.
Here in the northeastern corner of state only got at most 2 in snow, west and south got more, mountains got a healthy dose also, heard !-70 was closed several times up in the mountains. Got walks shoveled of what there was, early, most of snow melted.
The Blizzard wasnt bad here. But the freezing rain beforehand turned the roads to right shit.
Just took me almost three hours to get from Wichita back to Ft Riley. (Normally about 1.5 hours).
When I lived up in Long Beach LI NY, I had a little 2 stroke snow blower which I got a lot of use out of when I was home from FD snow standby at station 1. In Florida now since 2007 and still no snow and that ain’t no snow job I’m giving you. Back in the 1950’s when I lived in Queens NY, we used to skitch on the rear car bumpers during a snow fall.
The best daily cartoon in America !!!
Day by Day !!!
http://www.daybydaycartoon.com/
On my daily go-to list. Deplorable B. Woodman comments there- like today.
Day by Day in my email every morning!
You do realize there’s political content, and not just *cough* art, right?
Nooooo….
Ya don’t saaaaay…..
I want to put this out so it gets in the feed. (Maybe we will have another post on Barwan soon, but this will make it to Gooooogle.
Are any of the commenters that are reading this of the gamer community? I am not. I got a message that Kyle Christopher Barwan, recently released Ex-Convict has gone back to gaming online. Kyle Barwan, now out of prison is back where he can solicit money from unsuspecting people. A friend has seen his gamer tag log in on Xbox live. His gamer tag is X2Girls1SniperX. If anyone here plays XBox, would you let us know what he seems to be doing, and if possible, engage him in conversation to see if he will claim any military experience, present or past? If he even farts like he is in the military, I will notify Sheriff Grady Judd in Polk County Florida, (where he is currently living), and he can slap his ass. Thank you. I will probably post this same comment on a couple other posts as well, to get coverage.
Hi Frankie, my grandson is on that damn thing all the time, I will tell him to keep an eye out for that tag name, if he see’s him, I will try and get him to contact him and do a little fishing! I will have to find a picture to use for the right bait? Good luck on catching the little cocksucker! I hope I can do a prison report on my dear pos brother someday soon!
Take care Frankie,
Willy
The storm came through the Northwest Florida Panhandle, from 4PM until 6:15PM today. We got about 2 inches of rain, no wind, and now at 8:45PM the temperature is 64 degrees. I have no intention of ever living more than a few miles from Interstate 10. This weather suits me just fine.
I remember living in Abbeville, LA when I-10 was being built. Interstate highways came into existence during the lifetime of many of TAH’s community.
I still endeavor to use the old U.S. Highways while roaming around. Did US 90 pass through your area before I-10?
I remember watching I-10 being built, (I lived in the Tampa Area at the time), and as a trucker I used US-90 a lot, running from Tampa to New Orleans and Houston. These days, I use US-90 to go into town, and live just a mile off it. The “Old Spanish Trail” has a lot of memories for me, from Florida through Louisiana, where I lived in Youngstown and Broussard.
Youngsville? Hell, we were nearly neighbors!
After Rita took out several sections of the I-10 bridge US 11 remained in service. I don’t know if the bridge on 90 made it through the hurricane or not, probably not, see this link for some interesting photos and narrative:
https://books.google.com/books?id=qRgDUgRFR2kC&pg=PA108&lpg=PA108&dq=us+90+bridges+in+Rita&source=bl&ots=tfoFs2Rg8L&sig=jSHFwZyAPzDZPLYGs4Te8MQXfCM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiBpKuOmfLeAhXxTN8KHSEWAmYQ6AEwAXoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=us%2090%20bridges%20in%20Rita&f=false
Bias ply tires, recaps, $.17 gas, the “good ol'” days!
Tallywagger, do you know that the Atchafalaya bridge is the largest Concrete memorial to the US Airborne? Named “The Louisiana Airborne Memorial Bridge”, it is 18 miles long.
Speaking of Interstate Highway construction, the last piece of I-70 was finished going through Glenwood Canyon, Colorado on October 14, 1992. I-10? BTDT end to end myself, my favorite place to eat Cajun Food was right there in Breaux Bridge LA in a little Mom & Pop Boudin store!
Hoping that all of you in the path of the snowstorm stay warm, dry and safe.
Been in the 40’s here in the AO, with rain starting in the next hour.
Here in SLC Utah, we had an inch or two falling Saturday morning. Stopped about late morning. Sidewalks and streets clear all by themselves by Sunday. Still a short layer on the lawns.
This is the warning shot across the bow.
Nearly 12 midnight my time and while the wind has picked up a little bit, the snow volume is thin and temps remain above freezing. If it stays like this most of the night, with light snow instead of the 2011 volume, then the storm will be memorable, but not as damaging as some have been in the past.
We are in for a blow here on Whidbey Island. High wind warnings and such. Still better than the snow most y’all get.
Shopping in Presque Isle today. Maybe a trip down to Houlton. I hear it might snow. Meh.
Sarcasm aside, during the blizzard of 1979 my GF and I decided to go for a ride on back roads in my CJ5. It was getting scary so we headed back. Came upon a car stuck at a stop sign in a drift. Quick check by GF says there is a woman and infant inside.
Six month old girl. GF wraps the infant in
her down jacket and we take the two back to their home a few miles away. Husband was at work.
People around here go out in storms to look around and see if they can get stuck or have fun pulling some one else out of a ditch.
Used to make few bucks that way.
Be careful out there on the highway.
Check on abandoned vehicles.
Carry a nice warm blanket.
Up here along the 45th parallel in Northern Lower Michigan, not a flake to be seen (other than the two legged kind). It appears our plan of taking our fans out and pointing them south worked. The storm will miss us by about 50 miles.
So, for you southerners, make some home-made chili, bake some bread and stay home.
Today, up at 3:45, took little woman to work, streets and sidewalks all fairly clear, some icy spots on streets on north south running streets. Temp, 18 degrees, supposed to get up to the balmy lower 40’s, hear they got quite a bit of snow in the hills west of here, 39 inches in one spot and I-70 intermittent closures as was needed so could clear highway, haven’t heard anything as to I-80 north and west of here. Be safe out there in the areas that were hit east of here.
Can’t seem to make myself obsess over the weather, but since you ask – awoke to some rain, then some serious gusts of wind. Right now it is neither raining nor winding.
Local forecast is for temps to drop during the day here. Maybe some icing later in the week.
Brrrrr.
PS Thanks for the explanation, PH, for staying up shoveling snow. Never could imagine why anyone would shovel snow as it is snowing – always made more sense to me to wait until it stopped, at least for a while. Now I see why at least some circumstances would make it advisable.
In my domain, the young’uns take care of that sort of thing for us oldsters.
Well now that the sun is up it is time to get started getting things done here, so just a thought for you to ponder out there.As a kid getting that wonderful cereal called Rice Krispies and pouring milk in it to listen in awe and wonder to the sound and how it was done, yeah it was great then but now I sit here and realize if I were to do it today, yes there would still be the wonder like in the past but now that wonder would be, how long do I have to sit perfectly still here to determine which snap, crackle and pop is the cereal and which is the old body sounds.
Hate Houston’s humid heat but haven’t had to shovel it yet. Did enough of that in the first several decades.
It’s a nice 39 in southern AZ todays high will be 63, sunny with a chance of “immigrants”.
Obamigrants, too.
Snow report from my kingdom: 3 power outages in one hour last night. The last one left me with low voltage, so furnace can’t run. Stayed up as long as I could and the slop went to snow AFTER I went to bed. Why? Always does it, but WHY??? Nature hates me??
Woke to no furnace, 180 people in my area alone with low voltage, or none, can’t run the furnace, so no heat. So I’m going blame the eco-hippies for it all.
But ComEd people are working on it, and I;’m hoping it is nothing more than a line that got leaned on, or something like that.
Also had no internet at all from 2AM last night until just now. Shutting down again, but only until this problem is solved, namely furnace working again. I have to use matches to light the stove burners because the strikers aren’t getting enough voltage.
So much for modern conveniences!
You all take care and stay warm and dry.
Low line voltages… you wouldn’t suppose that some fools are running generators or windmills and back-feeding the line?
A couple of guys on here are electricians, what do you guys think?
My understanding is that gas stoves use piezo electric strikers to light the burners.
Hope you get some direct AC, soon, Ex. There’s only so much that blankets, cats, dogs and long johns can do to keep you warm.
Yes, the strikers are piezo electric, but if voltage is too low to strike quickly, it’s safer to use a match. The gas flow is under XXX pressure. If the striker can’t strike fast, the gas flow can become dangerous. I keep kitchen matches on hand, just because of the occasional outage.
I would rather have a stove with a pilot light, or even my Grandmother’s 1932 Roper that she lit with matches.
Frankly, I would rather have a house that is NOT all modernized and has a Rumford fireplace in a keeping room, so that you can cook and keep warm, and is not dependent on all this high-tech junk to run itself.
Backfeeding the line: anything is possible, but probably not in my immediate area. Houses are 1970s split level ranch-style homes, so unless retro fitted recently, it’s unlikely. But ALL my neighbors lost heat because of power level drop. Total outage calls to ComEd were 364,000 with 180,000 in my immediate area.
Saw a BIG TRUCK go north on Main at 3:45 (phone time) and then BINGO! all power went out.
6PM Still no power, neighbors are warming themselves in their cars. Dark, but lights on highway provide some light, Entire area is dark. I piled blankets on the bed and hit the sack. Indoor temp was 59F. House is well-insulated, and am very glad of that.
11:20PM – Woke up because alarm clock light was flashing and the furnace was running. Message from Com Ed said power was restored at 8:05PM.
HUGE THANKS TO ALL UTILITY WORKERS FOR BEING OUT IN THIS NASTY, BEASTLY COLD WEATHER AND DOING THAT JOB!!!!!!
Drove from Casa de Sparky out west to work because, “We REALLY need ya here on Monday!”
Decided to drive Saturday vice yesterday because 1–weather, 2–ever driven the Mass Pike and NY Thruway with every asshole in the world trying to get home?
And of course, the person who “needed” me out here called this morning and had the fucking balls to ask me how my weekend went. I may need surgery to reattach my tongue, to say nothing of drowning in blood.
Here in New England it was quite warm yesterday the 25th and I had the good fortune to be in New York City visiting family over the weekend where it was 55 and sunny on Sunday the 25th…which made for a wonderful day….saw the new Oculus building (new to me at least) and was quite impressed with the site, while saddened by the reminder it sits right in front of the Freedom Tower and assorted memorials to a tragic event…
New York is always an interesting trip, so much to see and do and so much that reminds me why I never want to live in a big city but they are enjoyable in 2-3 day portions…lots of great theater, lots of great art and history…where else can one visit the very restaurant where in 1783 Washington thanked his officers and bid them farewell? Enjoy a great steak and some historical ambiance at the same time.
Anyway, sorry some of you are snowed in, hope it doesn’t last too long and you’re well supplied for the coming winter.
OK. It is officially cold here. Weather talkers say it will get colder. Brrrr.
Just in case, had my generator serviced last month. It test runs itself weekly and just hums along whenever the power goes out.
Looks like winter. Feels like winter. And yep, according to the calendar, the official start of the season is rapidly approaching.
We (my VFW post funeral detail) are scheduled to do a funeral on Sunday. Looks like it will be a mite chilly.