2012-2013 Winter Weather thread

[LouisEly]

This is what the HOA is for. To not have to go outside and do a darned thing on a day like today - priceless.

[hawing]

For those of you familiar with State Street in Madison, my Twitter feed suggests there's a fire at Ragstock, for which Johnson St. has been closed at Broom and the Gap and Soap Opera have been evacuated. Our TV service is out again, so I haven't found more information yet.

[adamb100]

Looks like it just started snowing in Milwaukee.

[fondybrewfan]

NWS only has FDL at about 8 inches so far which is quite a bit below projected. However I am not complaining because the weight of this snow is just awful. Darn near gave myself a heart attack

[owbc]

It seems that the warm air made it farther north than expected up the eastern 2 tiers of counties. The unusually warm Lake Michigan temperatures probably helped with that. Usually it evens out later in the year when it is cold enough for lake effect snow.

 

I hope everyone made it out of Ragstock. That place is sort of a fire hazard...

[hawing]

I hope everyone made it out of Ragstock. That place is sort of a fire hazard...

Yeah, I was realizing that there may well be nothing in Ragstock that ISN'T flammable.

[JackNicholson1974]

I guess Oshkosh has 9 inches so far, I guess that is probably correct, but with the weight of the snow there is absolutely no drifting so it doesnt seem as bad, except for how heavy it is.

[fondybrewfan]

Can someone please explain to me why several schools around FDL county have already cancelled classes for tomorrow? The snow is going to be done well before buses go out and you would think the plows would hit even the rural roads in the next 10 hours.

 

Doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

[RightFieldCoder]

Because it was the day before Winter Break. There probably wasn't going to be a lot of teaching going on. Now add in the amount of absent students and it doesn't make sense to have the others come in just to watch movies and party all day.

[1992casey]

Isn't there supposed to be a wind portion of this storm that's likely to mess with the snow that's already fallen?

[jerichoholicninja]

First snow of the day that is actually sticking is falling right now. I think you can put the Manitowoc and Two Rivers totals at about 2 inches of slush and a light dusting.

[fondybrewfan]

Schools only have a limited number of snow days before they need to stay longer in June. They are probably playing with fire taking a day that perhaps they don't need to in December.

 

That being said it looks like a lot of the leftover wet snow froze to the roads this morning so I can see why some rural towns might have to delay or cancel school today

[LouisEly]

Can't speak for other parts of the state, but the weight of the snow along with the wind is bringing down trees/branches here in Madison which is taking down power lines and making it difficult to plow. Snow is water, and water and broken power lines don't mix well. I'm guessing that is the reason for the cancellations - can't get around if the streets are blocked by trees and downed power lines. Plus I'm sure lots of parents will "exaggerate" a bit about being blocked in and not able to get their kids to school, so attendance would be light anyway. And if bus drivers can't get to work there is no one to take the kids to school.

[DuWayne Steurer]

In Janesville, they rarely cancel, yet school was cancelled for Friday as of 7 pm last night, despite the storm being mostly over. We got 5-6" of snow Wednesday night into Thursday, then it rained for several hours, and then the 'blizzard' portion of the storm hit, and we got probably another 6 to 8" of snow. It's such a slushy, jagged-icy mess right now that the roads were still an amazing hazard this morning. Don't blame them for making the call last night.

 

The combo of snow/rain/freezing rain/snow turned what we got into a layered effect of something awful.

 

No offense to anyone, but the "I can't wait for this huge storm!" people always bug me. People die in accidents, flights get cancelled by the thousands, people lose power.......I just don't see what's exciting about that to anybody.

 

I understand being interested in it from a scientific/academic point of view, but reading facebook and seeing the "I can't wait!" people........it just makes me want to slug people in the neck.

[TURBO]

Right there with ya RoCo...

 

[fondybrewfan]

People obviously understand that winter weather can cause problems in a variety of ways; but that doesn't mean they can't get excited about what they feel are the good parts of the storm I.E. playing outside with the kids, snow days, beauty of it, etc. I don't think that means they are just insensitive to the problems it may be causing for others.

[owbc]

Judging the positive vs. negative of a snowstorm is much different than other natural disasters like a hurricane, tornado, or earthquake. The snow is worth a lot of money to a number of industries--winter tourism (hotels, restaurants, bars), skiing, snowmobiling, snow removal, etc. There are many people who sincerely enjoy it. As others have pointed out, it is hazardous especially to those that are required to work anyway or need to be out on the streets for some other reason. But for almost everyone, the storm is only a mild inconvenience, power isn't out for 2 weeks or even 2 days. I don't see anything wrong with getting excited about it, I certainly do and it has little to do with my scientific interest in the storm. If it's too warm and there isn't any snow, then a whole new set of problems emerges (droughts, pests, etc).

 

There was only 1 fatal vehicle accident--and the state averages almost 2 per day, so it seems that people were being safe for the most part.

[owbc]

We have a wind chill advisory in South Florida tonight. The wind chill might drop below 35. The NWS put out the following advisory:

 

A WIND CHILL ADVISORY MEANS THAT VERY COLD AIR AND WIND WILL COMBINE TO GENERATE LOW WIND CHILLS. THIS CAN LEAD TO HYPOTHERMIA IF PRECAUTIONS ARE NOT TAKEN. IF YOU MUST VENTURE OUTDOORS...MAKE SURE YOU WEAR A HAT AND GLOVES.

[AZBrewCrew]

We just got our annual Christmas Air Quality warning here in Phoenix. Every Christmas and New YEars they make no burn days. It was looking like we may have seen a decent amount of rain tomorrow and Christmas,but that system over California right now has weakened considerably, but the GFS and NAM are still both in pretty close agreement about snow up north for Christmas.

[RobDeer 45]

Just wanted to thank everyone for their tips on the weather before my road trip. We lucked out and missed anything on Thursday in Chicago. We left early and that was a big help. There was a tone of wind but just rain. We then drove early on Friday through WI. Man, madison was a disaster when we stopped for gas. There were traffic lights completely covered in snow that you could not even see when they changed! I've never seen that before.

 

We did see over 10 semi trucks in the ditch from the night before between Janesville and Black River. I've never seen so many in the ditch and never seen more semis than cars.

[stoutdude04]

After driving countless hours to and from school for 5ish years, I am not surprised by the amount of Semi trucks in the ditch. Way too often they continue to go 60-65 when the rest are going 45-50. Sad really.

[hawing]

Man, madison was a disaster when we stopped for gas. There were traffic lights completely covered in snow that you could not even see when they changed! I've never seen that before.

There are still some road signs facing just the right/wrong way, covered in snow so you can't tell what they say.

[JackNicholson1974]

What was with that snow we had up here in Oshkosh Thursday Night-Sauturday evening? I snowed constantly for about 48 hours straight and the weathermen had more or less no idea when it was going to stop. Ive never seen anything like that.

[hawing]

Lake-effect from Winnebago?

[M Skjellyfetti]

That storm in the Fox Cities was pretty hilarious. I was in Neenah to visit family last weekend, and they probably got 7-8 inches of snow despite a forecast of 1-2. I think it snowed a whole lot longer than expected, too.