Alabama/Atlanta Snowpocalypse: When meteorology goes terribly wrong

On his Monday night forecast, famed Birmingham meteorologist James Spann called for a "dusting" for his viewing area. Spann is the most trusted weather man in Alabama, if not in all of the Southeast, so most schools and businesses (and roads) in and around the city stayed open today, when snow and ice fell in bucketloads.

Thousands of people are STILL not home from work, because they are stranded in their cars on iced-out roads (and many have left their cars to walk to shelters). Some kids are having to stay at school overnight, because the buses could not run:

http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2014/01/some_birmingham-area_schools_p.html#incart_big-photo

http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2014/01/rescuers_along_us_highway_280.html#incart_big-photo

Spann --- who was credited with literally saving lives for his on-air work during the 2011 tornado outbreak that leveled much of Tuscaloosa and west Birmingham --- is catching hell on Twitter:

http://ow.ly/t3xo7

Crazy day. Glad I moved out of that area five years ago. We got a little ice and sleet today down her below I-10, but that's it.

 

Re: Alabama Snowpocalypse: When meteorology goes terribly wrong

Weird storm in that the further south you went, the worse you got it. New Orleans was essentially cut off from the rest of the world earlier this evening. I-10, which is essentially one long overpass for long stretches, was shut down from Lafayette to LaPlace. Most, if not all, of the bridges in and out of New Orleans were closed, too.
We got four inches of snow and a lot of icing on roads below I-20 in Mississippi, but almost nothing north of it.

 

Re: Alabama Snowpocalypse: When meteorology goes terribly wrong

The highway situation in Birmingham sounds dangerous, especially if it carries on into the night. There's going to be a few people found frozen to death on the side of the road.

 

Re: Alabama Snowpocalypse: When meteorology goes terribly wrong



Highway 280 in Birmingham.

 

Re: Alabama Snowpocalypse: When meteorology goes terribly wrong

To illustrate how quickly things deteriorated, these three photos were taken in the span of an hour (10:30 a.m., 11 a.m., 11:30 a.m.) from atop Birmingham's St. Vincent's Hospital:

 

Re: Alabama Snowpocalypse: When meteorology goes terribly wrong

 

Re: Alabama Snowpocalypse: When meteorology goes terribly wrong

You call that snow?

 

Re: Alabama Snowpocalypse: When meteorology goes terribly wrong

It's mostly ice, actually. And that's not the point.

I figured someone from the northeast would be a smartass about this situation, but it's really a crisis. Something like this happens only every 20 or 30 years down here, so there's no infrastructure in place to deal with it.

Combine that with a forecast that was woefully inaccurate, and thousands of people are fucked.

But I'll remember to laugh my ass off when you guys get another hurricane.

 

Re: Alabama Snowpocalypse: When meteorology goes terribly wrong

I heard from a very reputable source that the entire city of Atlanta has four (4) snowplows. For a metro area of almost 6 million. More than 5 times the population of the entire trifling state of Rhode Island.

Just for the record.

 

Re: Alabama Snowpocalypse: When meteorology goes terribly wrong

That may be true. I got snowed in Charlotte about 20 years ago when an inch of snow fell. The city had no snow equipment. If you don't get much snow, it might not be worth it to shell out millions of dollars for equipment that's rarely used.

 

Re: Alabama Snowpocalypse: When meteorology goes terribly wrong

There was snow reported this morning on South Padre Island, which is in far south Texas. We're in Central Texas. It's cold, but no snow.

 

Re: Alabama Snowpocalypse: When meteorology goes terribly wrong

Everybody has to deal with weather forecasts that are woefully inaccurate. But 3-4 inches of snow or ice should not cause that kind of chaos anywhere. I feel bad for the people impacted, because I hate driving in bad weather, but having lived down south for a couple years, nothing strikes fear in the locals more than that crazy white stuff falling out of the sky.