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Storm threatens 100 million in US with snow, ice, cold

danarhea said:
I know exactly what you mean. A few years ago, Hurricane Rita hit well east of Houston, and the winds here never even made it to 70 miles per hour. However, the news media dramatized the storm so badly that 20 Houstonians were killed in accidents, while evacuating the city, an evacuation that was known to be not necessary 2 days before.
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Youch!

Anyhow, as I get ready to leave again, I noticed that here it is a nice -4, but with windchill calculated, about -19. Tonight it will be -20 without the chill calculated, I think. I think it will be a somewhat decent day...or at the very least average around here. It's a blessing to have some sunlight with no snow. Have fun!
 
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danarhea said:
I know exactly what you mean. A few years ago, Hurricane Rita hit well east of Houston, and the winds here never even made it to 70 miles per hour. However, the news media dramatized the storm so badly that 20 Houstonians were killed in accidents, while evacuating the city, an evacuation that was known to be not necessary 2 days before.
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That was less than a month after Katrina. Of course it was going to get blown out of proportion.
 
Only at DP can we have fights break out over a snowstorm. :lol:

150 years ago it would be bad, but one of the big differences is that back then you really did not need to go much of anywhere during them. Most people could sit back in their house and keep a nice fire going and barely if at all even go outside, and that just to bring in wood. In today's world many people are having to travel miles each day through the storm, and don't have wood heat if power goes out. I think overall it was a real problem for both times, just in significantly different ways.
 
The news is making this to be the storm of all storms. I will be greatly disappointed if not a lot of snow falls like they promised.
 
Gray_Fox_86 said:
The news is making this to be the storm of all storms. I will be greatly disappointed if not a lot of snow falls like they promised.
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Sorry to disappoint you, but not a lot of snow is going to fall. Of course, I live in Houston. :mrgreen:
 
Fiddytree said:
It's an ongoing segment that never ends. Never ends.
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That's the worst part about situations like this. 24 hour news networks have to fill a crapload of time. If nothing is happening, they'll have no problem reporting on this storm for several hours a day. LOOK, here's more footage of a street with snow on it, couple cars going by. Some of them slipping. Ooh here's a car that got stuck! (Cameraman: hey, shouldn't we help them out?) SHUT UP YOU. Err, back to you, Jim.
 
danarhea said:
Sorry to disappoint you, but not a lot of snow is going to fall. Of course, I live in Houston. :mrgreen:
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I can predict, with considerable accuracy, that zero snow will fall at my house. Though, we are projected to get 1-3 inches of rain.

As long as your power holds out, yankees, y'all can watch Jim Cantore postulate on the Weather Channel and speculate about how much hair he has left (we always watch the weather channel in hopes that one of them will be hit by flying debris and provide some much needed levity during storms).
 
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Was golfing in a t-shirt and shorts on sunday in the upper 60's here... tonight it will be -5. Time to fire up the ol' wood burnin' stove again me thinks.
 
Supposed to get 15-24" of snow by 3pm tomorrow. 40-60 mph winds. -30 wind chill. 0 visibility.

I'm looking out a window now. Lol. White stuff is flying by at light speed.
 
The only thing I miss about winter storms up north is chasing the tail end of it as I drove to the ski slopes, and that I really, really miss.

I hope everyone gets through the storm with relative ease, and that you don't lose power and freeze your bums off.
 
We got 3/4" of ice with 1/4 to 1/2" of snow on top of it in Fort Worth. Not leaving the house...not for nothing.
 
I'm hoping my office will be closed tomorrow, otherwise I'll have to take a vacation day. There's no way I'm driving 70 miles to work in this.
 
Fiddytree said:
I just want to say, I am not impressed with this storm. We tend to get a lot worse. We North Dakotans would get on the news every month or every other month if they cared, and we would be on every other week if we followed even the smallest amount of the coast's whining.
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Having lived in Minot ND for two years, I can vouch for Fiddy. It feels colder in Minot than it does in Fairbanks Alaska. Fairbanks has colder temps, but the wind doesn't blow through you like it does in North Dakota.

Stayed home today by the fire. Got about 3 inches of ice and snow. Temp down to 8 for tonight. I think my throat feels scratchy.
 
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Tashah said:
Supposed to get 15-24" of snow by 3pm tomorrow. 40-60 mph winds. -30 wind chill. 0 visibility.

I'm looking out a window now. Lol. White stuff is flying by at light speed.
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So you're not in Israel then? :mrgreen:
 
Snow. I have had snowfall every three or four days since I have been back since early January. Although the one we are going through now is the worst of the year, so far, I think.
 
The wind is howling here up to 42 mph with an air temp of 18 F. last I checked my weather station here in northeastern Indiana. We're projected to get 10 to 18 inches by tomorrow.

I love winter and snow and used to be a diehard icefisherman, but being out side right now is brutal. If your car got bogged down, you weren't dressed extra warm for this, and you were dumb enough to get out and walk I doubt you'd last long. But I see idiots driving back and forth on the highway I live on. I can't imagine what would be so important to have to do in conditions like this in the middle of the night. I haven't even seen a plow. I think they realize it would be futile.


I went out to film footage and my face was in pain in seconds. Even my Akita that loves winter was ready to come in after a couple of minutes.

Chicago is now reportinh gusts to 58 mph and is expecting to get 24 plus inches of snow. If that happens it will be an all time record since records have been kept even surpassing the Blizzard of 67'.

Edit: Make that 61 mph now.
 
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Fiddytree said:
Just think of this. My community's ancestors braved much harsher stuff than this (-50 or worse at times) while in holes in the ground-damn near isolated from anyone else, while the North Easterners had homes.
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Yeah and they walked 10 miles to school in the snowbanks blah blah blah. :mrgreen:

Sorry I don't think conditions like this are something to make light of especially with windchills of 40 below zero.

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Yeah and they walked 10 miles to school in the snowbanks blah blah blah.
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I am quite certain many of them did do that :mrgreen: Well, the deal was a lack of shelter for new arrivals. Less than desirable conditions were standard fare for first year settlers. There is a book (or books) out there on the subject....I forgot the name.. but they make us all look to be silver spooned in comparison.

Here's one story:

Tetzlaff remembers the storm in the 1960 recording made when she was 85. She survived the storm in her parents' home on a farm in what is now northeastern South Dakota She recalls that within hours, the temperature dropped from seventy-four degrees to minus forty. The storm was named the "Schoolchildren's Blizzard," because many children were caught in one-room schoolhouses, including Tetzlaff's classmates.

"Two men tied a rope to the last house and went in the direction where the schoolhouse stood. And when they got to that place they tied it to the railing and made each child take a hold of the rope and walk down to the end of the rope, where parents came and took the children on home."
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http://timelines.com/1888/1/12/schoolhouse-blizzard

While not fun, I've driven a lot of times in conditions like that. It sucks and is dangerous, but most of us just expect it dozens of times each winter. You'll just hear that sort of "oooo you knooooow....the roads were **** out der today! I'm goin' to the liquor store to get the cold out!"
 
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I miss a good blizzard not being in Wisconsin anymore. I don't know. i am nostalgic for snow blowing sideways. Now it snows here in North carolina, and being in the western part its kind of mountainy, and can be a bit hairy to be going down a 7% grade around a curve in a snowstorm. But there just doesn't seem to be the same severity to the storms here. Its never a blinding snow, even if you get 10-12 inches. And its gone in 2-3 days.
 
Its is curently 13 degees outside and we have a Super Bowl here this Sunday. Tonights low should be around 7 with a windchill of around -12. Tommorow night is supposed to be even colder. I suggest ya'll be good little sheeple and ignore the last couple of winters. It has nothing to do with the comming ice age. Its global warming foo.
 
Dear La Nina,

Die horribly. In a fire. Your brother El Nino is kindof a dick sometimes too.

Sincerely,
Deuce
 
Haha. I don't know about you, but I grew up with the story of a plains state teacher, who saved two young girls' lives by sacrificing her own body in a blizzard...perhaps that same one from 1888.

Plainview, Nebraska: Lois Royce found herself trapped with three of her students in her schoolhouse. By 3 p.m., they had run out of heating fuel. Her boarding house was only 82 yards (75 m) away, so she attempted to lead the children there. However, visibility was so poor that they became lost and all the children froze to death. The teacher survived, but her feet were frostbitten and had to be amputated.
Holt County, Nebraska: Etta Shattuck, a schoolhouse teacher, got lost on her way home, and sought shelter in a haystack. She remained trapped there until her rescue 78 hours later by Daniel D. Murphy and his hired men. She soon died on February 6 around 9 A.M. due to complications from surgery to remove her frostbitten limbs.
In Great Plains, South Dakota, the children were rescued. Two men tied a rope to the closest house, and headed for the school. There, they tied off the other end of the rope, and led the children to safety.
Mira Valley, Nebraska: Minnie Freeman safely led thirteen children from her schoolhouse to her home, one half mile (800 m) away.[2][3] The rumor she used a rope to keep the children together during the blinding storm is widely circulated, but one of the children claims that is not true. She took them to the boarding house she lived at about a mile away and all of her pupils survived. Many children in similar conditions around the Great Plains were not so lucky, as 235 people were killed, most of them children who couldn't get home from school. That year, "Song of the Great Blizzard: Thirteen Were Saved" or "Nebraska's Fearless Maid", was written and recorded in her honor by W.M. Vincent and published by Lyon & Healy.
Ted Kooser, Nebraska poet, has recorded many of the stories of the Schoolhouse Blizzard in his book of poetry "The Blizzard Voices."
In 1967, a haunting Venetian glass mural of The Schoolhouse Blizzard of 1888 by Jeanne Reynal was installed on the west wall of the north bay in the Nebraska State Capitol building in Lincoln, Nebraska for the 1967 Centennial Celebration[4]. It captures much of the mood and drama of the storm. The mural, in a semi-abstract style, portrays a purported incident in which a schoolteacher, Minnie Freeman, tied her children together with a clothesline and led them through the storm to safety.
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Deuce said:
Dear La Nina,

Die horribly. In a fire. Your brother El Nino is kindof a dick sometimes too.

Sincerely,
Deuce
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I don't think fire will be a very effective method of execution.
 
Fiddytree said:
I just want to say, I am not impressed with this storm. We tend to get a lot worse. We North Dakotans would get on the news every month or every other month if they cared, and we would be on every other week if we followed even the smallest amount of the coast's whining.
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I agree that I have seen worse too... I still have power, heat, running water, and only one tree is in the road that I know of it. Having inches of ice does suck though. I had to chip it off with a my key and melt it with my coffee just to put fuel in my tank. I was actually afraid I was going to be stranded at the station because it was buried so deep.
 
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