Alabama/Atlanta Snowpocalypse: When meteorology goes terribly wrong

Re: Alabama Snowpocalypse: When meteorology goes terribly wrong

It's funny that people in DC are making fun of the South today.

As if the assholes here are the picture of calm when it comes to snow.

As if schools weren't closed for four days after we got three inches of snow last week.

 

Re: Alabama Snowpocalypse: When meteorology goes terribly wrong

Meanwhile, Chipper Jones and his ATV "rescued" Freddie Freeman from his icebound car last night:

http://extramustard.si.com/2014/01/29/chipper-jones-snowstorm/

BTW, updated thread title to include Atlanta.

 

Re: Alabama Snowpocalypse: When meteorology goes terribly wrong

As much as I like to bang on my fellow Southerners for emptying the bread and milk aisles at the Piggly Wiggly when the weatherman gives a 20-percent chance of a dusting, this one is different.

One of my friends needed six hours to go 10 miles. Mainly because everybody was on the road at once. She said it was a little slick, but the gridlock was a bigger problem. Another friend spent the night in his office in downtown Atlanta, where he was posting videos of the insane traffic jam on the highway right outside his window. Bumper to bumper as far as you could see. Folks having to push cars out of the road because they ran out of gas.

 

Re: Alabama Snowpocalypse: When meteorology goes terribly wrong

The problem with that is the suburban folks don't want the, ahem, "rougher" element having easy access to their suburbs. Not that I blame them. ATL in some spots is pretty damned scary and I wouldn't want those folks an easy train ride away from my front door.

My uncle was trapped for 7 1/2 hours and a college classmate's wife was still trapped in that mess this morning.

In defense of James Spann, predicting snow/ice in the South is like trying to herd cats or get an interview with Marshawn Lynch. It's easier said than done.

 

UGA professor and president of meteorology society says the notion that forecasters blew it is way off base:

http://politics.blog.ajc.com/2014/01/29/top-weather-guy-to-those-who-talk-of-unexpected-snowjam-wrong-wrong-and-wrong/

 

The NBA All-Star game shut down Atlanta.

I wasn't there for the Super Bowl, but that was a mess too.

Average speeds on the highways around Atlanta went from about 60 MPH to zero in about an hour yesterday.

 

This is great. Some dope tries to crash Jim Cantore's live shot:

nyp.st/1lm6O8h

 

Re: Alabama Snowpocalypse: When meteorology goes terribly wrong

As a Canuck it's easy to laugh at this friggin disaster but that would be a cheap shot. Not funny at all.

It doesn't snow in Atlanta very often, people don't have winter tires on their cars and I suspect a lot of people have rarely if ever driven in snow at all. Three inches doesn't sound like a lot but it can screw up traffic anywhere if the roads aren't salted or plowed and it's rush hour times 100.

To put the four snowplows Atlanta has in perspective, Toronto has: 600 snow plows, 300 sidewalk plows and 200 salt trucks to keep the city clear and moving.

And we still have a mess everytime it snows because of idiot drivers. And yes, I'm speaking to you, SUV Douchebag Driver.

 

About five or six years ago here in a December, there was an afternoon snowstorm, more severe than the one in Atlanta, but not terribly so, which resulted in similar if shorter gridlock. Took me five and a half hours to drive 30 miles home from work. I attribute the difference to the fact Boston has lots of snowplows compared to Atlanta. Snow was in the forecast, too. I just think storms which begin during the day on workdays are traffic catastrophes in every big city.

 

Folks were trapped overnight on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago a couple of winters ago.

I got home that day from the loop just before the worst of it, and it still took be an hour to go three miles.

It was a similar situation where heavier than expected snow led to the whole city deciding to leave work early, and at the same time.

Now, in Chicago, it was heavy snow, and the road became impassable. But, a little ice, a couple of accidents, and every car in the city on the road at the same time is a recipe for disaster anywhere.

 

Best snowfalls start Friday night and end Sunday morning.

Turns even a large city into a winter wonderland.

 

The funny thing with that statement, which I have heard here many, many times in the almost two decades I have lived here, is it assumes that 'rougher element' doesn't have access to motor vehicles, which is quite simply, not the case.