Excited for the week of all of my family and coworkers calling most of the country inept for not having the infrastructure set up to deal with these semi-rare occurrences. If you are in an area...
Excited for the week of all of my family and coworkers calling most of the country inept for not having the infrastructure set up to deal with these semi-rare occurrences.
If you are in an area without the infrastructure in place to deal with this, I hope you stay safe and are able to just sit indoors for a couple of days while things thaw back out!
As someone from the south who moved to the north, I constantly have to explain this to people I know. They’ll make fun of snow for gridlocking southern states, and I’m like “you know they don’t...
As someone from the south who moved to the north, I constantly have to explain this to people I know.
They’ll make fun of snow for gridlocking southern states, and I’m like “you know they don’t have plows and salt and shovels all at the ready down there, right?”
Meanwhile, if there’s even a sprinkle of rain here, people completely forget how to drive, and I’m like “y’all would never survive an actual thunderstorm in a car.” (Note: I don’t actually say this because my “polite” southern upbringing taught me to judge fully but silently. 😂)
Wait, where doesn't have thunderstorms?! I do repeat my mantra of "we don't have earthquakes, we don't have hurricanes, we don't have alligators" a lot lately. (We occasionally have earthquakes,...
Wait, where doesn't have thunderstorms?!
I do repeat my mantra of "we don't have earthquakes, we don't have hurricanes, we don't have alligators" a lot lately. (We occasionally have earthquakes, just little ones. )
I was just in low wind chill and now they keep adding more and more chances of snow and a decent amount of it to our forecast. Hoping the universities all close.
I'm in the Pacific Northwest and we don't really get any thunderstorms at all, it's one of the few things I miss about the midwest. If you hear thunder over here, it's a whole event, you'll see...
I'm in the Pacific Northwest and we don't really get any thunderstorms at all, it's one of the few things I miss about the midwest. If you hear thunder over here, it's a whole event, you'll see people posting about the thunder in the local subreddit.
I would miss them too! Also, I love that local subreddits, Facebook groups, and the like are different in specifics but the same in generalities everywhere
I would miss them too!
Also, I love that local subreddits, Facebook groups, and the like are different in specifics but the same in generalities everywhere
They obviously do have thunderstorms in the north, but nothing like the coastal south. I imagine that is what OP meant by "an actual thunderstorm". I've been living in the north now for 2.5 years...
They obviously do have thunderstorms in the north, but nothing like the coastal south. I imagine that is what OP meant by "an actual thunderstorm". I've been living in the north now for 2.5 years and we've had maybe 3-4 thunderstorms and none of them were substantial compared to what we'd get in Florida.
Also, I like to play up how common gators were to natives here. I tell them it was often like Frogger, and you could jump on them when their mouths were closed. I do hope they never try it :D
Yup! The absolute worst rain I’ve experienced in [being vague about my specific location for privacy reasons] is maybe a tenth of what I used to experience in [being vague again about where I used...
Yup!
The absolute worst rain I’ve experienced in [being vague about my specific location for privacy reasons] is maybe a tenth of what I used to experience in [being vague again about where I used to live for privacy reasons]
I had a co-worker from Florida up here, and we would commiserate about how much we missed “real” rain.
I'm still pretty sure I don't track what you mean! See my other reply about thunderstorms? "North" for someone from Florida "ish" is a huge swath of the country and I'm trying to get a sense of...
I'm still pretty sure I don't track what you mean! See my other reply about thunderstorms? "North" for someone from Florida "ish" is a huge swath of the country and I'm trying to get a sense of whether what I'm used to is what you're talking about.
Like legitimately not being a dick, just not following the vague "you don't know thunderstorms". If it's hurricanes cool, if it's parts of the country that don't get tornado level storms, cool. If tis neither and regular T-storms are super bad on the SE coast, cool. I'm just trying to learn/understand
Where I’m currently at, when it rains, it’s mostly a drizzle. If it ever does pick up, it’s only for a little bit, and you still have decent visibility while driving. The thunder we get is rare...
Where I’m currently at, when it rains, it’s mostly a drizzle. If it ever does pick up, it’s only for a little bit, and you still have decent visibility while driving. The thunder we get is rare and subdued — at most a low growl, and never a heart-stopping “CLAP.”
Where I used to live, when it rained, it was a thick, long-lasting deluge. If you were driving, you only had brief moments visibility in-between wiper swishes, even on the fastest setting. When this hit, everybody knew to slow way down and follow the tail lights in front of them, because those were literally the only things you could see in such intense rain.
Hydroplaning was our black ice.
The thunder was so loud and so booming that it felt like a higher power was mad at you specifically. You could feel it in your chest. It could make you jump out of your seat and quake in fear.
If I had to boil it down, I’d say that I used to regularly experience the blizzard-equivalent of rain on a regular basis (a torrent?), where we measure the precipitation in inches. Meanwhile, I’ve never seen any rain even remotely close to that intensity here in over a decade.
I haven’t lived in your area specifically, so I can’t say which of these is more accurate to your experience, but hopefully that helps make what I’m saying more clear!
It does, thanks so much! We absolutely get a mix of storms, some that blow through quick, some that drench you with every drop of water in the sky, some that make you jump just like that when they...
It does, thanks so much! We absolutely get a mix of storms, some that blow through quick, some that drench you with every drop of water in the sky, some that make you jump just like that when they thunder and some that are the most pleasant sleep experience you've ever had. Plus a decent amount of wind/tornado risk on top of it.
Definitely experienced hydroplaning regularly (and learned to drive on wet roads) and the game of "slowly follow the lead car if you can see them" gets played in both rain and snow as well. Midwest gets a delightful (/hj) mix of most things.
My guess would be we get those big bad storms less frequently than the coastal area you're talking about off and on throughout the year but with more tornado sirens when we do. And then the chance of blizzards and/or ice all winter. (Snow is good for the corn). So yay for some of all of it. I do understand that they don't get those storms where you're at.
I do reserve the right to judge St. Louis for their snow management, I lived there for a few years, and it snowed several times a year plus the occasional winter storm and they lost their mind every time. They did tend to flip an SUV every rush hour so the bar was low, but they lacked the reasonable excuse of places further south.
On the east coast, “The North” generally means north of the Mason-Dixon line, or north of Virginia if you want to be inclusive of Maryland. Edit to add: The northeast does get thunderstorms and...
On the east coast, “The North” generally means north of the Mason-Dixon line, or north of Virginia if you want to be inclusive of Maryland.
Edit to add: The northeast does get thunderstorms and the occasional hurricane (more often remnants of hurricanes); but tornados - particularly strong ones - are fairly uncommon. Thunderstorms can sometimes be severe, but are generally not as bad nor as frequent as in the southeast.
I extremely doubt that the Mason-Dixon line is actually remotely relevant to "where doesn't get real thunderstorms", since weather does not give a rat's ass about Civil War-era political...
I extremely doubt that the Mason-Dixon line is actually remotely relevant to "where doesn't get real thunderstorms", since weather does not give a rat's ass about Civil War-era political divisions.
Certainly the type of storm described upthread (hydroplaning included) happened frequently during the late summer storm season growing up in NE Ohio. Almost definitely not as frequently as in Florida, ofc, but we would absolutely get big storms like that during summer tornado season usually at least once a year. Ofc in that area during winter we'd be getting similar precipitation as snow due to the temperature difference there, whereas somewhere warmer like Florida presumably still gets it as rain.
It's just not super clear which parts of the US they mean when they're talking about rain never being more than a drizzle, and people here are curious. It definitely just isn't true of "anywhere north of the Mason-Dixon line", so more specificity is needed.
Obviously it doesn’t have anything to do with the weather, and I never asserted it did - but when people on the east coast use the term “the north”, that’s roughly where the dividing line (still)...
Obviously it doesn’t have anything to do with the weather, and I never asserted it did - but when people on the east coast use the term “the north”, that’s roughly where the dividing line (still) sits in a colloquial sense.
(Also it predates the US entirely, and the civil war by roughly a century, if we’re being pedantic)
The current conversation is about the weather, so to insist you're not talking about the weather is to ignore the context of the conversation so thoroughly as to be actively unhelpful. The topic...
The current conversation is about the weather, so to insist you're not talking about the weather is to ignore the context of the conversation so thoroughly as to be actively unhelpful. The topic was "what did a particular person mean when they used the word 'the north' in this conversation (which is about the weather)". Responding with a definition of 'the north' that is irrelevant to the weather is thus not helpful (and is also pretty patronizing to assume others don't know, frankly).
Someone asked what was meant by “The North”, so I clarified it. I am not interested in arguing about this truly innocuous comment, and I presume you also have something better to do with your time.
Someone asked what was meant by “The North”, so I clarified it. I am not interested in arguing about this truly innocuous comment, and I presume you also have something better to do with your time.
I genuinely was asking about kfwyre's definition and they didn't specify whether they were east coastal or not, just that they had a friend from Florida. It was much less helpful for other people...
I genuinely was asking about kfwyre's definition and they didn't specify whether they were east coastal or not, just that they had a friend from Florida. It was much less helpful for other people to explain what they thought kfwyre meant than for them to reply. (I don't think they even mentioned being coastal which could have included being in the Gulf, which would have changed what "north" meant yet again.
I am not trying to start a fight, but am explaining what was and wasn't helpful in the hopes of clarity.
I gotta say, my experience in Pittsburgh tracks with @kfwyre 's. Snow and ice? People are fearless and uninhibited. Rain (even modest rain)? People lose their minds. I literally heard a weather...
I gotta say, my experience in Pittsburgh tracks with @kfwyre 's. Snow and ice? People are fearless and uninhibited. Rain (even modest rain)? People lose their minds. I literally heard a weather report on the radio that said, "it's going to be raining pretty hard, you might want to consider staying home."
I do also think the thunderstorms we get are much milder, mostly sprinkles with intermittent periods of harder rain. But almost always, if you wait a few minutes it will lighten up. Compare that to East Texas, where it might rain so hard you can't see more then 30 feet in front of you, and it might rain like that for hours. Or Houston, where it might rain heavily without stopping for days.
For sure we don't get days worth but idk how long they last, depends on the wind speed (it giveth tornados and taketh the storms away perhaps) and we don't have an ocean feeding it more moisture....
For sure we don't get days worth but idk how long they last, depends on the wind speed (it giveth tornados and taketh the storms away perhaps) and we don't have an ocean feeding it more moisture. We do just get some real big storms and they can last hours though usually more off and on.
It does ultimately get hard to compare but I think my "we get a mix of the weather with a range of intensity and mostly learn to navigate that range" is accurate vs leaning very heavily towards one or the other
After spending some time in what used to be the lightning capital of the US, I don't miss living in the perennial swampiness. Where I live now, we do get violent thunderstorms with heavy rain,...
After spending some time in what used to be the lightning capital of the US, I don't miss living in the perennial swampiness. Where I live now, we do get violent thunderstorms with heavy rain, winds high enough to uproot trees, and flooding, but it's not every day at 2 p.m.
I am asking about thunderstorms because we do have big storms with tornados and tornado-like damage from straight-line winds and flash flood warnings and all that. It's not hurricanes and not...
I am asking about thunderstorms because we do have big storms with tornados and tornado-like damage from straight-line winds and flash flood warnings and all that. It's not hurricanes and not coastal so I'm not sure if my thunderstorms don't count because they're not hurricane strength or if they mean further north where tornados are less frequent, etc.
So I kind of need to know what kfwyre meant by north :)
Also everyone knows you can hold a gator's mouth shut, I watched Steve as a kid.
It's actually less about the wind/tornado-like behavior (though they do that as well) because despite FL having tons of tornados, they are (IMO) wimpy tornados in comparison to the kinds you can...
It's actually less about the wind/tornado-like behavior (though they do that as well) because despite FL having tons of tornados, they are (IMO) wimpy tornados in comparison to the kinds you can get elsewhere. It is the lightning/thunder itself and just the radically different behavior. In a thunderstorm we'd usually get, there would be hundreds to thousands of lightning strikes within the course of a few hours (the weather station actually tracked them which was cool) and the rain could dump a couple of inches in that same period. That sort of rain would cause chaos up here, probably flash floods as well. I consider the storms up here to be more like "Tornado prompting storms with a side dish of a little lightning". I'd prefer the FL storms to be honest, they are just really different.
Also side note on gators: Actually, the trick is to give them something else to bite and distract them. NEVER try to hold their mouth shut unless you're actually Steve.
Well we get plenty of weak ones too, or funnels that don't touch down, we just also get those EF 3+ that thankfully surprise you less often than they used to these days. But I get your point. As...
Well we get plenty of weak ones too, or funnels that don't touch down, we just also get those EF 3+ that thankfully surprise you less often than they used to these days. But I get your point.
As for gators, I am the person that would go "here kitty kitty" to a cougar so I'm aware my abilities are not up to Irwin levels. But I would also recommend Steve not try it either these days.
But if I toss a gator something to bite I'm playing tug of war now. Because he's just a lizard puppy. (Who would merc me immediately)
California doesn't have many thunderstorms in my experience and the ones we get are significantly less intense than the ones I experienced in the midwest.
California doesn't have many thunderstorms in my experience and the ones we get are significantly less intense than the ones I experienced in the midwest.
Interesting I didn't know that, genuinely I just assumed that the thunderstorm portion of our weather was typical. But like I said "North" can be such a wide swath of the country depending on who...
Interesting I didn't know that, genuinely I just assumed that the thunderstorm portion of our weather was typical. But like I said "North" can be such a wide swath of the country depending on who says it and what they mean
Wow, thanks for another data point! I'm used to big thunderheads and lots of lightning with some risk of a funnel cloud (though as I said in another post it varies quite a bit storm to storm. We...
Wow, thanks for another data point! I'm used to big thunderheads and lots of lightning with some risk of a funnel cloud (though as I said in another post it varies quite a bit storm to storm. We get a thorough mix. )
What kfwyre described up thread seems the same as some of the thunderstorms I've experienced in the Midwest - can you explain how they're different? Also where are you referring to in the Midwest,...
What kfwyre described up thread seems the same as some of the thunderstorms I've experienced in the Midwest - can you explain how they're different? Also where are you referring to in the Midwest, as which states one includes (I don't believe Ohio is Midwest personally) and how far north/south you are will make a difference. I believe IL is getting all 4-5 varieties of this particular storm depending on one's latitude for example. And I know my weather experiences are different than in the plains or in lake effect snow areas, etc.
I just didn't know people didn't get thunderstorms on the West Coast.
I don’t want to give exact areas for privacy reasons - but the first thunderstorm I experienced in Florida made me think the world was ending compared to my usual experiences. The raindrops were...
I don’t want to give exact areas for privacy reasons - but the first thunderstorm I experienced in Florida made me think the world was ending compared to my usual experiences. The raindrops were massive compared to what I was used to. The thunder and lighting felt like it was on a totally different scale .
I get that, just hard for me to compare to those subjective experiences. I've been in storms like that here. Just not what most of them range up to. Were they all that intense?
I get that, just hard for me to compare to those subjective experiences. I've been in storms like that here. Just not what most of them range up to. Were they all that intense?
In Florida? Yeah pretty much. Usually intense enough that you had trouble hearing the TV. Maybe my subjective experiences are wrong but it feels like there is a qualitative difference in storm...
In Florida? Yeah pretty much. Usually intense enough that you had trouble hearing the TV. Maybe my subjective experiences are wrong but it feels like there is a qualitative difference in storm intensity.
Hmm ok, like I said, have experienced that here just not all the time. So it's more that we get similar storms but we have a broader range of intensities perhaps.
Hmm ok, like I said, have experienced that here just not all the time. So it's more that we get similar storms but we have a broader range of intensities perhaps.
For my Florida thunderstorm anecdotes - the thunder is just so much louder down there than it was in the Midwest - I always thought it was due to the flat landscape without a lot of leafy...
For my Florida thunderstorm anecdotes - the thunder is just so much louder down there than it was in the Midwest - I always thought it was due to the flat landscape without a lot of leafy deciduous trees around, but that’s pure speculation on my part.
I mean, there's another aspect to this. I live in upstate New York, one of the snowiest parts of the country. There's significant snow every winter, and really massive amounts of snow most...
I mean, there's another aspect to this. I live in upstate New York, one of the snowiest parts of the country. There's significant snow every winter, and really massive amounts of snow most winters. Every goddamn year there's people (who drive in this every single year and should ostensibly know what they're doing) who go way too fast and lose control, or get stuck on a gentle hill because they're driving on half-bald summer tires, or just generally Do Not Drive Appropriately In The Snow.
The city can deal with it. The people sure can't. Anyone making fun of the South for coping extremely poorly with cold weather is, at best, being kind of a hypocrite.
Ditto where I live in northern Michigan, where the historical snowfall record is 4 meters and we have a ridiculous number of Subarus per capita. Even people with AWD don't know how to drive....
Ditto where I live in northern Michigan, where the historical snowfall record is 4 meters and we have a ridiculous number of Subarus per capita. Even people with AWD don't know how to drive.
Everybody, the posted speed limit is for dry pavement, double or triple your following distance in inclement weather, and allow enough time to go at a safe speed if you have to go out.
Also Michigan here. I saw that pileup on the news - not far away from me, crazy stuff. I've called out for any work I was going to have tomorrow and this weekend, told all my customers to...
Also Michigan here. I saw that pileup on the news - not far away from me, crazy stuff. I've called out for any work I was going to have tomorrow and this weekend, told all my customers to basically 'hey, value your lives more than buying my stuff, we can talk next week', and advised my girlfriend to cancel her plans as well.
I don't even want to try to start my van. The damn thing gets grumpy when I run it in the negative temperatures and insists 'insert $10K to continue using this vehicle' at me.
I would be looking forward to staying home and doing nothing, but my cats got into a truly violent fight earlier today (and cut me up impressively badly when I broke it up) so now we're keeping them separated while they are both anxious and upset at the change.
Sorry to hear you're shut in with problem cats. Mine are a bit stir-crazy as well. One of mine is bored with looking at nothing but snow outside and he's getting restless enough to pounce on the...
Sorry to hear you're shut in with problem cats. Mine are a bit stir-crazy as well. One of mine is bored with looking at nothing but snow outside and he's getting restless enough to pounce on the smaller cat. The smaller feistier cat wants to go out and fight with the neighborhood feral that's hanging around, so she's beating up the accessible cat at every opportunity. The situation hasn't turned into a vet trip yet, but I can see it coming if I don't find better ideas to keep them entertained until spring.
There's a product we were given by the adoption house we got our cats from - supposed to help cats stay calm - Feliway is the brand, they make pheromone diffusers. I haven't really put research...
There's a product we were given by the adoption house we got our cats from - supposed to help cats stay calm - Feliway is the brand, they make pheromone diffusers. I haven't really put research time into it but the lady at the adoption house used it and said it helped them all get along.
Anecdotally Feliway has seemed to help my kitties. Mine fight very occasionally now, and mostly it's a "who is in charge" thing between my older girl and my 4 year old boy and that's mostly a...
Anecdotally Feliway has seemed to help my kitties. Mine fight very occasionally now, and mostly it's a "who is in charge" thing between my older girl and my 4 year old boy and that's mostly a power shift thing as she's gotten older.
But when I first got the orange boy it seemed to help the other two adjust to him. They need some positive interactions around the door and swapping scents it sounds like. Good luck.
I know. After I cleaned and bandaged everything (...I think that took about an hour to finish) I drove out to urgent care to get antibiotics. It's kind of crazy how badly hurt I am - I called off...
I know. After I cleaned and bandaged everything (...I think that took about an hour to finish) I drove out to urgent care to get antibiotics. It's kind of crazy how badly hurt I am - I called off all my contract work for the next week so everything can close and heal.
A handful of snow driving clichés: Every car has all-wheel brakes! (AWD is for going. Corollary: it makes it much easier to achieve too much go.) SNOW TIIIIIRES If you haven't done this before,...
A handful of snow driving clichés:
Every car has all-wheel brakes! (AWD is for going. Corollary: it makes it much easier to achieve too much go.)
If you haven't done this before, find an empty parking lot after it snows and intentionally lose control and practice regaining it. (Ideally you never lose control on the street, but ice is a real bastard, and knowing how to recover is important. Also, knowing what it feels like when you're about to lose control will help you not to.)
Did I mention ice is a real bastard? Icy roads are far, far more dangerous than snowy ones.
There are some conditions that your car just can't handle. (Yes, your car. Yes, even though it's 4WD and lifted.) When the weather is super terrible, take the warnings to stay home seriously and don't drive in it.
Trail braking: brake into a turn, then gradually lift off and start accelerating at the apex of the turn. This will shift more of the vehicle's weight onto the wheels that steer you, and applying...
Trail braking: brake into a turn, then gradually lift off and start accelerating at the apex of the turn. This will shift more of the vehicle's weight onto the wheels that steer you, and applying acceleration (gradually, so you grip) at the apex will maintain your traction and pull you through the turn without the backend sliding out on you.
Slowing down on icy hills: shift down (CVTs and modern automatic transmissions all let you move to a lower gear) and engine brake to slow down without losing traction.
If you do get stuck: accelerating more will just spin your tires and overheat your engine (surprisingly quickly). Take the floor mats out and put them under the wheels.
For extreme weather: Preemptive to getting stuck: don't drive unless you absolutely have to and then check and make sure you absolutely have to. When you're stuck: call for help rather than...
For extreme weather:
Preemptive to getting stuck: don't drive unless you absolutely have to and then check and make sure you absolutely have to.
When you're stuck: call for help rather than putting yourself at further risk of another car sliding off the road into you. Yes you might be able to unstick yourself, or you might get hurt and be in more danger. (In this weather getting wet could put you in danger. Are you wearing boots and a snow suit?) If the roads and weather are bad enough they won't tow you out for safety reasons they'll just come rescue you if able. If professionals think it is too dangerous to pull you out, even if you're paying them a lot of money, please think very hard about whether you should be outside with floor mats or any other de-stuck scheme.
And then reconsider whether you should be driving again now before the ice/snow hits. Even if your car can probably or usually handle it. In those hundred car pile ups, how many of those cars should have been able to "handle" it.
Yes, that's very situational. I grew up in Maine, where if you get stranded, it could very well be on a rural road where nobody is going to be coming for a long time. You have to weigh the risks...
Yes, that's very situational. I grew up in Maine, where if you get stranded, it could very well be on a rural road where nobody is going to be coming for a long time. You have to weigh the risks of being out in the cold or getting snowed in worse and not having heat anyway. The state driving manual also strongly suggests keeping chemical heaters, a shovel and a mylar blanket in your car. (And, of course, nobody there would go anywhere without a heavy winter jacket and boots.)
In a city or interstate context, hazards on and calling for assistance is usually the safer move. I honestly would probably never change a tire myself either, for that reason. It's safer to get a tow.
Sure it's definitely possible to be stranded on a rural road which is all the more reason not to go out if you can. But I was definitely coming from a position of adding on, not contradicting. It...
Sure it's definitely possible to be stranded on a rural road which is all the more reason not to go out if you can. But I was definitely coming from a position of adding on, not contradicting.
It may be safe enough for (general) you to get yourself out, but it's often not when folks are skidding off the road to begin with. And to me it makes more sense to start with "don't" and then follow up with "if you must, here's how". Just how my brain works
Yep, that's how I read it, as expanding. I was just brain dumping some assorted tips that might be useful to have in some situations (more from a driving context than a survival one). I definitely...
Yep, that's how I read it, as expanding. I was just brain dumping some assorted tips that might be useful to have in some situations (more from a driving context than a survival one). I definitely agree that that particular one is probably a last resort for most people, and probably should have noted that.
Proper winter apparel is another good addition...that's something I just assume, but my observation from the South/Midwest is that people are not at all prepared in that regard.
If they did have those things at the ready, they would be called wasteful for spending money and time on problems that don't usually come up. It is a very no-win scenario.
If they did have those things at the ready, they would be called wasteful for spending money and time on problems that don't usually come up. It is a very no-win scenario.
Living in Florida during hurricane Sandy, there was a bit of schadenfreude from me towards people I knew who live in New York. Any time there's reports of ice or snow in North Florida, they would...
Living in Florida during hurricane Sandy, there was a bit of schadenfreude from me towards people I knew who live in New York. Any time there's reports of ice or snow in North Florida, they would give me shit because roads and schools were shut down.
The mainstream media collectively pretended that hurricanes were some new invention that no one has ever heard of before and it was the end of the world because it affected NYC. It was a cat 1 storm. If it hit where I lived, I wouldn't even get the day off of work, and everyone would have just continued their normal routine except they'd wear a rain coat.
Areas that experience things rarely don't tend to invest a lot of resources into preparing for them. Shocker!
Shout out to the 1999 snowstorms where Toronto's mayor had to call in the military for help clearing the snow. Everyone ridiculed the mayor and the city for being a Canadian city that couldn't...
Everyone ridiculed the mayor and the city for being a Canadian city that couldn't deal with the snow so much that they had to call in the army. But what's often overlooked is that Toronto, and the entire region north of Lake Ontario, gets a significantly less snow than the rest of the province and most of the country due to the lake effect. Our neighbours south of the lake, in Buffalo, get the short end of the stick where they usually get more snow as a result. So our entire infrastructure is set up for a certain amount of snow.
That 1999 series of snowstorms was once-in-a-lifetime. There was 6.5' of snow in three weeks. Everything ground to a halt. Even public transit and emergency vehicles. Nothing could move. Canada's biggest city, and economic centre, was completely stuck. Other places get more snow than this regularly but they're equipped to deal with that. Toronto never was. Why would the city have had such contingencies in place when they had never received that much snow in decades, at least? So yeah, they had to call in the military (who were well equipped for the job after helping out with the 1998 Montreal ice storms) which caused widescale ridicule from people that don't think about what overwhelmed infrastructure means.
To be fair, the rest of Canada has always taken any opportunity to make fun of Toronto and you can only make so many jokes about the Leafs. Vancouver drivers get a lot of flak when we have to deal...
To be fair, the rest of Canada has always taken any opportunity to make fun of Toronto and you can only make so many jokes about the Leafs.
Vancouver drivers get a lot of flak when we have to deal with half a cm of snow as well. There's no point in maintaining a fleet of snowplows when snow stays on the ground for maybe two days out of the year.
What I don't understand is why Southern areas don't even make an effort. My tiny little town didn't have snowplows either, but we had snowplow blades that got bolted onto the front of the garbage...
What I don't understand is why Southern areas don't even make an effort. My tiny little town didn't have snowplows either, but we had snowplow blades that got bolted onto the front of the garbage trucks and we sent those out to clear the roads. It wasn't perfect, but it helped a helluva lot.
Meanwhile, if there’s even a sprinkle of rain here, people completely forget how to drive, and I’m like “y’all would never survive an actual thunderstorm in a car.”
It’s me being cheeky. A lot of the northerners I’m around will make fun of southerners for not being able to deal with a little bit of snow, when to me, the same shoe fits them in regards to rain....
It’s me being cheeky.
A lot of the northerners I’m around will make fun of southerners for not being able to deal with a little bit of snow, when to me, the same shoe fits them in regards to rain.
I’m not endorsing either sentiment, rather I’m highlighting that it’s easy to misjudge what you don’t experience. Southerners don’t know snow like northerners do, but northerners don’t know rain like southerners do.
Yep. Already have the text exchanges from friends back in Texas about how well known Canadian coward and US Senator from Texas Rafael Edward/Ted/Fled Cruz has already flown his ass out of the...
Yep. Already have the text exchanges from friends back in Texas about how well known Canadian coward and US Senator from Texas Rafael Edward/Ted/Fled Cruz has already flown his ass out of the state, so you know it's going to be bad.
I on the other hand, being further north now where they know how to handle this, have already applied de-icer to my walkways and the sidewalk in front of my and my neighbors houses and look forward to hearing the plows go by every couple of hours to keep the roads clear.
I was hoping to avoid the inevitable "what happened to global warming" comments from random people, then the official White House accounts had to go post one, because of course that's what the...
I was hoping to avoid the inevitable "what happened to global warming" comments from random people, then the official White House accounts had to go post one, because of course that's what the current administration would do.
Watching The Weather Channel at the bar eating dinner this evening it was like Texas was ground zero for this storm and the rest of the US didn't exist.
Watching The Weather Channel at the bar eating dinner this evening it was like Texas was ground zero for this storm and the rest of the US didn't exist.
I wonder if there's worry of a repeat of February 2021 in Texas. Maybe that's why there was a focus there. I was still living in Kansas City, MO the day that happened. And we were also dealing...
I wonder if there's worry of a repeat of February 2021 in Texas. Maybe that's why there was a focus there.
I was still living in Kansas City, MO the day that happened. And we were also dealing with insanely cold temps for the region and heavy electricity usage due to heating. Enough that rolling blackouts were instituted that morning in the metro to ensure grid stability. But being more north than Texas, we were also more prepared for that kind of event. Because even though it was crazy cold, KC is used to cold and snowy/icy winters every year.
Updated forecast for the entire storm event from Ryan Hall. This is the most precise zero-hype all-science weather forecast channel I know of, and if Ryan is calling this a historic event I...
Updated forecast for the entire storm event from Ryan Hall. This is the most precise zero-hype all-science weather forecast channel I know of, and if Ryan is calling this a historic event I believe it. He will be covering it live, which means tons of storm chasers on call and thousands of people caught in this thing will be sending him videos. It's top tier coverage.
If you're anywhere in the gargantuan ice zone, you are going to be without power for several days - and the cold front behind this thing is brutal and will persist for several days. The USA is not going to warm back up afterwards, and being without power in below freezing temperatures is a significant risk of death.
I'm in the zone that's going to get 13"-24" of snow overnight. No ice for me, just the joy of clearing two feet of snow out of a two hundred foot driveway. My cats are going to freak out when I let them out on Tuesday morning and they can't get through the snow drifts, it'll be their first real snowfall.
By the way, do NOT let your pets get caught out in this, they will freeze to death or at least get frostbitten. It's impossible for them to move around or return home through this much snow or ice.
Forget Ryan Hall. It's all about Frankie McDonald! I kid about about Ryan Hall. He's great. I tend to watch him during hurricane season and when there are major tornado outbreaks.
More details from my fave Polar Vortex site with all the pretty/scary pictures. Hope everyone in the storm zones is safe and able to take due precautions - this is looking very ugly. Locally, I'm...
More details from my fave Polar Vortex site with all the pretty/scary pictures. Hope everyone in the storm zones is safe and able to take due precautions - this is looking very ugly.
Locally, I'm not looking forward to the extra 20 cm of lake-effect snow after the last half-meter over the weekend, and -30°C wind chill, but it's all within normal winter parameters here. And I'm not going outside for a few more days anyway.
I'm in DC. I'm ready for at least 2 days of WFH/snow days next week. I've only been here for a year and a half, since coming from the Midwest, but I've already learned that 1" (~5cm) of snow will...
I'm in DC. I'm ready for at least 2 days of WFH/snow days next week. I've only been here for a year and a half, since coming from the Midwest, but I've already learned that 1" (~5cm) of snow will shut this place down. Which is so wild to me, because it snows here every year. Not much, but to me, enough that 1" should not shut it all down. I don't understand how this area is so unprepared for that little snow.
That said I'm hearing forecasts of like at least 5" (~12.5cm) to potentially over a foot (~30cm). Though I also know, that at the last minute, the forecast could turn to zero inches (0cm, lol). A snowflake if we're "lucky."
Regardless, I do to do some light grocery shopping. Think a 60-pack of toilet paper should be enough /s
I love this modern still life That milk on the table is very mildly stressing me out . Unless it's to imply the house is now without heating and that also stresses me out.
I love this modern still life
That milk on the table is very mildly stressing me out . Unless it's to imply the house is now without heating and that also stresses me out.
Oooh I like that a lot. A still life of an activity in progress, that speaks of working logistics, open stores, money for groceries and ability to obtain goods. Thanks. :)
Oooh I like that a lot. A still life of an activity in progress, that speaks of working logistics, open stores, money for groceries and ability to obtain goods. Thanks. :)
I'm in the southeast (TN) and made my preparations yesterday. I also keep a severe weather box in the basement for times like this with all my essentials.
I'm in the southeast (TN) and made my preparations yesterday. I also keep a severe weather box in the basement for times like this with all my essentials.
You all are on a tough spot because of ice, ice is the worst. We’re in the snow band further north. Our city shut down for almost a week for 5 inches… 20 will be insane
You all are on a tough spot because of ice, ice is the worst. We’re in the snow band further north. Our city shut down for almost a week for 5 inches… 20 will be insane
A powerful blast of cold air from the Arctic is expected to sweep through much of the United States over the coming days, bringing snow and ice to nearly 30 states and affecting nearly 160 million people, forecasters warn.
The National Weather Service (NWS) expects "life-threatening cold air" to slowly track from the High Plains and Rockies in an eastward direction from Friday.
Meteorologists say temperatures could plunge well below freezing in some areas.
Yeah, not looking forward to this. Our area, at least in the past two decades, is much more used to 6-8" being the occasional outlier, and far less snow being the norm (entire winters without it...
Yeah, not looking forward to this. Our area, at least in the past two decades, is much more used to 6-8" being the occasional outlier, and far less snow being the norm (entire winters without it too). Forecasts are fluctuating a bunch but potentially hitting anywhere from 10"-20", or slightly less but with more ice (which is even worse power-wise).
I have stocked up on a ton of shelf-stable, no-heat/no-fridge meals, filled up tons of pitchers with water, charged all my devices and power banks to full, did a bit of weatherizing, got the shovel and broom ready. Have a candle for a bit of extra warmth if I need it, otherwise will just stay heavily bundled up if power goes out. Put some extra gas in my car so I can use that as a very-emergency backup of heat or charging devices if it comes to that. Etc.
Weatherizing is good, I'm going to cover my windows with blankets tonight and pick up some hot hands on top of the other thing we already have (candles, heating pads). I'm trying to figure out if...
Weatherizing is good, I'm going to cover my windows with blankets tonight and pick up some hot hands on top of the other thing we already have (candles, heating pads). I'm trying to figure out if I need to run my water, our pipes go through our crawlspace and havent has issues yet but they also don't all have cabinets I can open.
Thankfully I'm north of the ice, though they've added snow in to ours lately, because if we lose power for long my partner will have to go somewhere warmer/where his chair can charge.
I realize how I haven't really paid attention to my outdoor faucet still having the hose hooked up to it and it being uncovered, so I bought one of those inexpensive (<$5) foam insulated covers to...
I realize how I haven't really paid attention to my outdoor faucet still having the hose hooked up to it and it being uncovered, so I bought one of those inexpensive (<$5) foam insulated covers to put over the outdoor faucet to help keep ice/snow off of it and give it at least a slight bit of insulation from the freezing wind
My pipes also go through a crawlspace and others in my area have similar setups and some have had pipe freeze problems, so despite a bit of electric bill pain I will be increasing my indoor temp a few degrees (I keep it very cool usually) during the storm and throughout the cold front afterwards, opening my kitchen/bathroom cabinets, and also turning all faucets to a slight dripping stream just to be extra safe. It uses very little water overall and it's worth it IMO. It can't necessarily be done for every single pipe/outlet, but just having a lot more movement in the lines will help.
This is probably overkill as I do also have a portion of my pipe under the home, wrapped in a sensor-based electric insulation that applies a bit of heat to the pipe if temps go under a certain threshold- but it's only on one "main" section of the piping so it's not a complete preventative.
I haven't had any pipe freezes but I also want to take zero chances so I'm going the extra mile this time around
Didn't close, just cold today, snow is forecast all over the place for tomorrow but no temp issues or power issues at home, and I bundled like crazy for the drive to work.
Didn't close, just cold today, snow is forecast all over the place for tomorrow but no temp issues or power issues at home, and I bundled like crazy for the drive to work.
It’s really coming down! I’m trying to shovel as it comes, but we’re seriously hitting around 3” per hour! It’s like the shovel of Sisyphus! (I still think it’s fun though)
It’s really coming down! I’m trying to shovel as it comes, but we’re seriously hitting around 3” per hour!
We're as prepared as we can be for a power outage, we've got a gas stove top that'll heat the kitchen/living room and a way to plug in the spark for the gas water heater, we'll use my computer...
We're as prepared as we can be for a power outage, we've got a gas stove top that'll heat the kitchen/living room and a way to plug in the spark for the gas water heater, we'll use my computer battery backup for the lizards and the rest of us will just huddle under blankets.
Cool thing about gas stove top is we don't really have to worry about cooking, we'll just continue like normal.
I wouldn't use the gas stove top for that. Carbon monoxide poisoning is a real threat in that situation along with a bunch of other things. I'd stock up on blankets/things to insulate you.
I wouldn't use the gas stove top for that. Carbon monoxide poisoning is a real threat in that situation along with a bunch of other things. I'd stock up on blankets/things to insulate you.
Excited for the week of all of my family and coworkers calling most of the country inept for not having the infrastructure set up to deal with these semi-rare occurrences.
If you are in an area without the infrastructure in place to deal with this, I hope you stay safe and are able to just sit indoors for a couple of days while things thaw back out!
As someone from the south who moved to the north, I constantly have to explain this to people I know.
They’ll make fun of snow for gridlocking southern states, and I’m like “you know they don’t have plows and salt and shovels all at the ready down there, right?”
Meanwhile, if there’s even a sprinkle of rain here, people completely forget how to drive, and I’m like “y’all would never survive an actual thunderstorm in a car.” (Note: I don’t actually say this because my “polite” southern upbringing taught me to judge fully but silently. 😂)
Wait, where doesn't have thunderstorms?!
I do repeat my mantra of "we don't have earthquakes, we don't have hurricanes, we don't have alligators" a lot lately. (We occasionally have earthquakes, just little ones. )
I was just in low wind chill and now they keep adding more and more chances of snow and a decent amount of it to our forecast. Hoping the universities all close.
I'm in the Pacific Northwest and we don't really get any thunderstorms at all, it's one of the few things I miss about the midwest. If you hear thunder over here, it's a whole event, you'll see people posting about the thunder in the local subreddit.
I would miss them too!
Also, I love that local subreddits, Facebook groups, and the like are different in specifics but the same in generalities everywhere
They obviously do have thunderstorms in the north, but nothing like the coastal south. I imagine that is what OP meant by "an actual thunderstorm". I've been living in the north now for 2.5 years and we've had maybe 3-4 thunderstorms and none of them were substantial compared to what we'd get in Florida.
Also, I like to play up how common gators were to natives here. I tell them it was often like Frogger, and you could jump on them when their mouths were closed. I do hope they never try it :D
Yup!
The absolute worst rain I’ve experienced in
[being vague about my specific location for privacy reasons]is maybe a tenth of what I used to experience in[being vague again about where I used to live for privacy reasons]I had a co-worker from Florida up here, and we would commiserate about how much we missed “real” rain.
I'm still pretty sure I don't track what you mean! See my other reply about thunderstorms? "North" for someone from Florida "ish" is a huge swath of the country and I'm trying to get a sense of whether what I'm used to is what you're talking about.
Like legitimately not being a dick, just not following the vague "you don't know thunderstorms". If it's hurricanes cool, if it's parts of the country that don't get tornado level storms, cool. If tis neither and regular T-storms are super bad on the SE coast, cool. I'm just trying to learn/understand
Where I’m currently at, when it rains, it’s mostly a drizzle. If it ever does pick up, it’s only for a little bit, and you still have decent visibility while driving. The thunder we get is rare and subdued — at most a low growl, and never a heart-stopping “CLAP.”
Where I used to live, when it rained, it was a thick, long-lasting deluge. If you were driving, you only had brief moments visibility in-between wiper swishes, even on the fastest setting. When this hit, everybody knew to slow way down and follow the tail lights in front of them, because those were literally the only things you could see in such intense rain.
Hydroplaning was our black ice.
The thunder was so loud and so booming that it felt like a higher power was mad at you specifically. You could feel it in your chest. It could make you jump out of your seat and quake in fear.
If I had to boil it down, I’d say that I used to regularly experience the blizzard-equivalent of rain on a regular basis (a torrent?), where we measure the precipitation in inches. Meanwhile, I’ve never seen any rain even remotely close to that intensity here in over a decade.
I haven’t lived in your area specifically, so I can’t say which of these is more accurate to your experience, but hopefully that helps make what I’m saying more clear!
It does, thanks so much! We absolutely get a mix of storms, some that blow through quick, some that drench you with every drop of water in the sky, some that make you jump just like that when they thunder and some that are the most pleasant sleep experience you've ever had. Plus a decent amount of wind/tornado risk on top of it.
Definitely experienced hydroplaning regularly (and learned to drive on wet roads) and the game of "slowly follow the lead car if you can see them" gets played in both rain and snow as well. Midwest gets a delightful (/hj) mix of most things.
My guess would be we get those big bad storms less frequently than the coastal area you're talking about off and on throughout the year but with more tornado sirens when we do. And then the chance of blizzards and/or ice all winter. (Snow is good for the corn). So yay for some of all of it. I do understand that they don't get those storms where you're at.
I do reserve the right to judge St. Louis for their snow management, I lived there for a few years, and it snowed several times a year plus the occasional winter storm and they lost their mind every time. They did tend to flip an SUV every rush hour so the bar was low, but they lacked the reasonable excuse of places further south.
On the east coast, “The North” generally means north of the Mason-Dixon line, or north of Virginia if you want to be inclusive of Maryland.
Edit to add: The northeast does get thunderstorms and the occasional hurricane (more often remnants of hurricanes); but tornados - particularly strong ones - are fairly uncommon. Thunderstorms can sometimes be severe, but are generally not as bad nor as frequent as in the southeast.
I extremely doubt that the Mason-Dixon line is actually remotely relevant to "where doesn't get real thunderstorms", since weather does not give a rat's ass about Civil War-era political divisions.
Certainly the type of storm described upthread (hydroplaning included) happened frequently during the late summer storm season growing up in NE Ohio. Almost definitely not as frequently as in Florida, ofc, but we would absolutely get big storms like that during summer tornado season usually at least once a year. Ofc in that area during winter we'd be getting similar precipitation as snow due to the temperature difference there, whereas somewhere warmer like Florida presumably still gets it as rain.
It's just not super clear which parts of the US they mean when they're talking about rain never being more than a drizzle, and people here are curious. It definitely just isn't true of "anywhere north of the Mason-Dixon line", so more specificity is needed.
Obviously it doesn’t have anything to do with the weather, and I never asserted it did - but when people on the east coast use the term “the north”, that’s roughly where the dividing line (still) sits in a colloquial sense.
(Also it predates the US entirely, and the civil war by roughly a century, if we’re being pedantic)
The current conversation is about the weather, so to insist you're not talking about the weather is to ignore the context of the conversation so thoroughly as to be actively unhelpful. The topic was "what did a particular person mean when they used the word 'the north' in this conversation (which is about the weather)". Responding with a definition of 'the north' that is irrelevant to the weather is thus not helpful (and is also pretty patronizing to assume others don't know, frankly).
Someone asked what was meant by “The North”, so I clarified it. I am not interested in arguing about this truly innocuous comment, and I presume you also have something better to do with your time.
I genuinely was asking about kfwyre's definition and they didn't specify whether they were east coastal or not, just that they had a friend from Florida. It was much less helpful for other people to explain what they thought kfwyre meant than for them to reply. (I don't think they even mentioned being coastal which could have included being in the Gulf, which would have changed what "north" meant yet again.
I am not trying to start a fight, but am explaining what was and wasn't helpful in the hopes of clarity.
I gotta say, my experience in Pittsburgh tracks with @kfwyre 's. Snow and ice? People are fearless and uninhibited. Rain (even modest rain)? People lose their minds. I literally heard a weather report on the radio that said, "it's going to be raining pretty hard, you might want to consider staying home."
I do also think the thunderstorms we get are much milder, mostly sprinkles with intermittent periods of harder rain. But almost always, if you wait a few minutes it will lighten up. Compare that to East Texas, where it might rain so hard you can't see more then 30 feet in front of you, and it might rain like that for hours. Or Houston, where it might rain heavily without stopping for days.
For sure we don't get days worth but idk how long they last, depends on the wind speed (it giveth tornados and taketh the storms away perhaps) and we don't have an ocean feeding it more moisture. We do just get some real big storms and they can last hours though usually more off and on.
It does ultimately get hard to compare but I think my "we get a mix of the weather with a range of intensity and mostly learn to navigate that range" is accurate vs leaning very heavily towards one or the other
After spending some time in what used to be the lightning capital of the US, I don't miss living in the perennial swampiness. Where I live now, we do get violent thunderstorms with heavy rain, winds high enough to uproot trees, and flooding, but it's not every day at 2 p.m.
Same feels moving east from the Great Plains. These Yankees don't know what a blizzard or a thunderstorm looks like.
I am asking about thunderstorms because we do have big storms with tornados and tornado-like damage from straight-line winds and flash flood warnings and all that. It's not hurricanes and not coastal so I'm not sure if my thunderstorms don't count because they're not hurricane strength or if they mean further north where tornados are less frequent, etc.
So I kind of need to know what kfwyre meant by north :)
Also everyone knows you can hold a gator's mouth shut, I watched Steve as a kid.
It's actually less about the wind/tornado-like behavior (though they do that as well) because despite FL having tons of tornados, they are (IMO) wimpy tornados in comparison to the kinds you can get elsewhere. It is the lightning/thunder itself and just the radically different behavior. In a thunderstorm we'd usually get, there would be hundreds to thousands of lightning strikes within the course of a few hours (the weather station actually tracked them which was cool) and the rain could dump a couple of inches in that same period. That sort of rain would cause chaos up here, probably flash floods as well. I consider the storms up here to be more like "Tornado prompting storms with a side dish of a little lightning". I'd prefer the FL storms to be honest, they are just really different.
Also side note on gators: Actually, the trick is to give them something else to bite and distract them. NEVER try to hold their mouth shut unless you're actually Steve.
Well we get plenty of weak ones too, or funnels that don't touch down, we just also get those EF 3+ that thankfully surprise you less often than they used to these days. But I get your point.
As for gators, I am the person that would go "here kitty kitty" to a cougar so I'm aware my abilities are not up to Irwin levels. But I would also recommend Steve not try it either these days.
But if I toss a gator something to bite I'm playing tug of war now. Because he's just a lizard puppy. (Who would merc me immediately)
Have you seen Ben Brainard's bit on Florida and alligators? It's hilarious.
California doesn't have many thunderstorms in my experience and the ones we get are significantly less intense than the ones I experienced in the midwest.
Interesting I didn't know that, genuinely I just assumed that the thunderstorm portion of our weather was typical. But like I said "North" can be such a wide swath of the country depending on who says it and what they mean
I grew up in the Seattle area and I may have seen lightning on the order 5 times in about 30 years. And probably less than that.
Wow, thanks for another data point! I'm used to big thunderheads and lots of lightning with some risk of a funnel cloud (though as I said in another post it varies quite a bit storm to storm. We get a thorough mix. )
A thunderstorm in Florida is wildly different from a thunderstorm in the Midwest.
What kfwyre described up thread seems the same as some of the thunderstorms I've experienced in the Midwest - can you explain how they're different? Also where are you referring to in the Midwest, as which states one includes (I don't believe Ohio is Midwest personally) and how far north/south you are will make a difference. I believe IL is getting all 4-5 varieties of this particular storm depending on one's latitude for example. And I know my weather experiences are different than in the plains or in lake effect snow areas, etc.
I just didn't know people didn't get thunderstorms on the West Coast.
I don’t want to give exact areas for privacy reasons - but the first thunderstorm I experienced in Florida made me think the world was ending compared to my usual experiences. The raindrops were massive compared to what I was used to. The thunder and lighting felt like it was on a totally different scale .
I get that, just hard for me to compare to those subjective experiences. I've been in storms like that here. Just not what most of them range up to. Were they all that intense?
In Florida? Yeah pretty much. Usually intense enough that you had trouble hearing the TV. Maybe my subjective experiences are wrong but it feels like there is a qualitative difference in storm intensity.
Hmm ok, like I said, have experienced that here just not all the time. So it's more that we get similar storms but we have a broader range of intensities perhaps.
For my Florida thunderstorm anecdotes - the thunder is just so much louder down there than it was in the Midwest - I always thought it was due to the flat landscape without a lot of leafy deciduous trees around, but that’s pure speculation on my part.
Interesting, obviously I can't say and we do have plenty of quieter storms too, it's such a range. I am just trying to wrap my brain around it, ty
Seattle only rarely gets thunderstorms. I assume it has something to do with the mountains, just like all the rest of the weather does.
It's the ground or the sky or something in between doing it, we can be sure of that.
You make a good point, haha.
I mean, there's another aspect to this. I live in upstate New York, one of the snowiest parts of the country. There's significant snow every winter, and really massive amounts of snow most winters. Every goddamn year there's people (who drive in this every single year and should ostensibly know what they're doing) who go way too fast and lose control, or get stuck on a gentle hill because they're driving on half-bald summer tires, or just generally Do Not Drive Appropriately In The Snow.
The city can deal with it. The people sure can't. Anyone making fun of the South for coping extremely poorly with cold weather is, at best, being kind of a hypocrite.
Ditto where I live in northern Michigan, where the historical snowfall record is 4 meters and we have a ridiculous number of Subarus per capita. Even people with AWD don't know how to drive.
Downstate, there was a 100-car pileup last weekend.
Everybody, the posted speed limit is for dry pavement, double or triple your following distance in inclement weather, and allow enough time to go at a safe speed if you have to go out.
Also Michigan here. I saw that pileup on the news - not far away from me, crazy stuff. I've called out for any work I was going to have tomorrow and this weekend, told all my customers to basically 'hey, value your lives more than buying my stuff, we can talk next week', and advised my girlfriend to cancel her plans as well.
I don't even want to try to start my van. The damn thing gets grumpy when I run it in the negative temperatures and insists 'insert $10K to continue using this vehicle' at me.
I would be looking forward to staying home and doing nothing, but my cats got into a truly violent fight earlier today (and cut me up impressively badly when I broke it up) so now we're keeping them separated while they are both anxious and upset at the change.
Sorry to hear you're shut in with problem cats. Mine are a bit stir-crazy as well. One of mine is bored with looking at nothing but snow outside and he's getting restless enough to pounce on the smaller cat. The smaller feistier cat wants to go out and fight with the neighborhood feral that's hanging around, so she's beating up the accessible cat at every opportunity. The situation hasn't turned into a vet trip yet, but I can see it coming if I don't find better ideas to keep them entertained until spring.
There's a product we were given by the adoption house we got our cats from - supposed to help cats stay calm - Feliway is the brand, they make pheromone diffusers. I haven't really put research time into it but the lady at the adoption house used it and said it helped them all get along.
Anecdotally Feliway has seemed to help my kitties. Mine fight very occasionally now, and mostly it's a "who is in charge" thing between my older girl and my 4 year old boy and that's mostly a power shift thing as she's gotten older.
But when I first got the orange boy it seemed to help the other two adjust to him. They need some positive interactions around the door and swapping scents it sounds like. Good luck.
Feliway always sounds like woowoo but it genuinely works. It does take some time for it to actually calm them down though as it suffuses the air.
Watch out for wound infections. Animal bites and scratches can be dangerous
I know. After I cleaned and bandaged everything (...I think that took about an hour to finish) I drove out to urgent care to get antibiotics. It's kind of crazy how badly hurt I am - I called off all my contract work for the next week so everything can close and heal.
A handful of snow driving clichés:
Every car has all-wheel brakes! (AWD is for going. Corollary: it makes it much easier to achieve too much go.)
SNOW TIIIIIRES
If you haven't done this before, find an empty parking lot after it snows and intentionally lose control and practice regaining it. (Ideally you never lose control on the street, but ice is a real bastard, and knowing how to recover is important. Also, knowing what it feels like when you're about to lose control will help you not to.)
Did I mention ice is a real bastard? Icy roads are far, far more dangerous than snowy ones.
There are some conditions that your car just can't handle. (Yes, your car. Yes, even though it's 4WD and lifted.) When the weather is super terrible, take the warnings to stay home seriously and don't drive in it.
Trail braking: brake into a turn, then gradually lift off and start accelerating at the apex of the turn. This will shift more of the vehicle's weight onto the wheels that steer you, and applying acceleration (gradually, so you grip) at the apex will maintain your traction and pull you through the turn without the backend sliding out on you.
Slowing down on icy hills: shift down (CVTs and modern automatic transmissions all let you move to a lower gear) and engine brake to slow down without losing traction.
If you do get stuck: accelerating more will just spin your tires and overheat your engine (surprisingly quickly). Take the floor mats out and put them under the wheels.
For extreme weather:
Preemptive to getting stuck: don't drive unless you absolutely have to and then check and make sure you absolutely have to.
When you're stuck: call for help rather than putting yourself at further risk of another car sliding off the road into you. Yes you might be able to unstick yourself, or you might get hurt and be in more danger. (In this weather getting wet could put you in danger. Are you wearing boots and a snow suit?) If the roads and weather are bad enough they won't tow you out for safety reasons they'll just come rescue you if able. If professionals think it is too dangerous to pull you out, even if you're paying them a lot of money, please think very hard about whether you should be outside with floor mats or any other de-stuck scheme.
And then reconsider whether you should be driving again now before the ice/snow hits. Even if your car can probably or usually handle it. In those hundred car pile ups, how many of those cars should have been able to "handle" it.
Yes, that's very situational. I grew up in Maine, where if you get stranded, it could very well be on a rural road where nobody is going to be coming for a long time. You have to weigh the risks of being out in the cold or getting snowed in worse and not having heat anyway. The state driving manual also strongly suggests keeping chemical heaters, a shovel and a mylar blanket in your car. (And, of course, nobody there would go anywhere without a heavy winter jacket and boots.)
In a city or interstate context, hazards on and calling for assistance is usually the safer move. I honestly would probably never change a tire myself either, for that reason. It's safer to get a tow.
Sure it's definitely possible to be stranded on a rural road which is all the more reason not to go out if you can. But I was definitely coming from a position of adding on, not contradicting.
It may be safe enough for (general) you to get yourself out, but it's often not when folks are skidding off the road to begin with. And to me it makes more sense to start with "don't" and then follow up with "if you must, here's how". Just how my brain works
Yep, that's how I read it, as expanding. I was just brain dumping some assorted tips that might be useful to have in some situations (more from a driving context than a survival one). I definitely agree that that particular one is probably a last resort for most people, and probably should have noted that.
Proper winter apparel is another good addition...that's something I just assume, but my observation from the South/Midwest is that people are not at all prepared in that regard.
If they did have those things at the ready, they would be called wasteful for spending money and time on problems that don't usually come up. It is a very no-win scenario.
Living in Florida during hurricane Sandy, there was a bit of schadenfreude from me towards people I knew who live in New York. Any time there's reports of ice or snow in North Florida, they would give me shit because roads and schools were shut down.
The mainstream media collectively pretended that hurricanes were some new invention that no one has ever heard of before and it was the end of the world because it affected NYC. It was a cat 1 storm. If it hit where I lived, I wouldn't even get the day off of work, and everyone would have just continued their normal routine except they'd wear a rain coat.
Areas that experience things rarely don't tend to invest a lot of resources into preparing for them. Shocker!
Shout out to the 1999 snowstorms where Toronto's mayor had to call in the military for help clearing the snow.
Everyone ridiculed the mayor and the city for being a Canadian city that couldn't deal with the snow so much that they had to call in the army. But what's often overlooked is that Toronto, and the entire region north of Lake Ontario, gets a significantly less snow than the rest of the province and most of the country due to the lake effect. Our neighbours south of the lake, in Buffalo, get the short end of the stick where they usually get more snow as a result. So our entire infrastructure is set up for a certain amount of snow.
That 1999 series of snowstorms was once-in-a-lifetime. There was 6.5' of snow in three weeks. Everything ground to a halt. Even public transit and emergency vehicles. Nothing could move. Canada's biggest city, and economic centre, was completely stuck. Other places get more snow than this regularly but they're equipped to deal with that. Toronto never was. Why would the city have had such contingencies in place when they had never received that much snow in decades, at least? So yeah, they had to call in the military (who were well equipped for the job after helping out with the 1998 Montreal ice storms) which caused widescale ridicule from people that don't think about what overwhelmed infrastructure means.
To be fair, the rest of Canada has always taken any opportunity to make fun of Toronto and you can only make so many jokes about the Leafs.
Vancouver drivers get a lot of flak when we have to deal with half a cm of snow as well. There's no point in maintaining a fleet of snowplows when snow stays on the ground for maybe two days out of the year.
What I don't understand is why Southern areas don't even make an effort. My tiny little town didn't have snowplows either, but we had snowplow blades that got bolted onto the front of the garbage trucks and we sent those out to clear the roads. It wasn't perfect, but it helped a helluva lot.
This is the realest thing I've seen in a long while. So good!
I'm sorry but what is this even supposed to mean?
It’s me being cheeky.
A lot of the northerners I’m around will make fun of southerners for not being able to deal with a little bit of snow, when to me, the same shoe fits them in regards to rain.
I’m not endorsing either sentiment, rather I’m highlighting that it’s easy to misjudge what you don’t experience. Southerners don’t know snow like northerners do, but northerners don’t know rain like southerners do.
Yep. Already have the text exchanges from friends back in Texas about how well known Canadian coward and US Senator from Texas Rafael Edward/Ted/Fled Cruz has already flown his ass out of the state, so you know it's going to be bad.
I on the other hand, being further north now where they know how to handle this, have already applied de-icer to my walkways and the sidewalk in front of my and my neighbors houses and look forward to hearing the plows go by every couple of hours to keep the roads clear.
I was hoping to avoid the inevitable "what happened to global warming" comments from random people, then the official White House accounts had to go post one, because of course that's what the current administration would do.
Watching The Weather Channel at the bar eating dinner this evening it was like Texas was ground zero for this storm and the rest of the US didn't exist.
I wonder if there's worry of a repeat of February 2021 in Texas. Maybe that's why there was a focus there.
I was still living in Kansas City, MO the day that happened. And we were also dealing with insanely cold temps for the region and heavy electricity usage due to heating. Enough that rolling blackouts were instituted that morning in the metro to ensure grid stability. But being more north than Texas, we were also more prepared for that kind of event. Because even though it was crazy cold, KC is used to cold and snowy/icy winters every year.
Updated forecast for the entire storm event from Ryan Hall. This is the most precise zero-hype all-science weather forecast channel I know of, and if Ryan is calling this a historic event I believe it. He will be covering it live, which means tons of storm chasers on call and thousands of people caught in this thing will be sending him videos. It's top tier coverage.
If you're anywhere in the gargantuan ice zone, you are going to be without power for several days - and the cold front behind this thing is brutal and will persist for several days. The USA is not going to warm back up afterwards, and being without power in below freezing temperatures is a significant risk of death.
I'm in the zone that's going to get 13"-24" of snow overnight. No ice for me, just the joy of clearing two feet of snow out of a two hundred foot driveway. My cats are going to freak out when I let them out on Tuesday morning and they can't get through the snow drifts, it'll be their first real snowfall.
By the way, do NOT let your pets get caught out in this, they will freeze to death or at least get frostbitten. It's impossible for them to move around or return home through this much snow or ice.
Forget Ryan Hall. It's all about Frankie McDonald!
I kid about about Ryan Hall. He's great. I tend to watch him during hurricane season and when there are major tornado outbreaks.
More details from my fave Polar Vortex site with all the pretty/scary pictures. Hope everyone in the storm zones is safe and able to take due precautions - this is looking very ugly.
Locally, I'm not looking forward to the extra 20 cm of lake-effect snow after the last half-meter over the weekend, and -30°C wind chill, but it's all within normal winter parameters here. And I'm not going outside for a few more days anyway.
psssst I think you posted the wrong link
Fixed, thanks - it's the 'flu medicine doing the thinking for me today.
I'm in DC. I'm ready for at least 2 days of WFH/snow days next week. I've only been here for a year and a half, since coming from the Midwest, but I've already learned that 1" (~5cm) of snow will shut this place down. Which is so wild to me, because it snows here every year. Not much, but to me, enough that 1" should not shut it all down. I don't understand how this area is so unprepared for that little snow.
That said I'm hearing forecasts of like at least 5" (~12.5cm) to potentially over a foot (~30cm). Though I also know, that at the last minute, the forecast could turn to zero inches (0cm, lol). A snowflake if we're "lucky."
Regardless, I do to do some light grocery shopping. Think a 60-pack of toilet paper should be enough /s
My favorite take on this:
"Snow predicted" - oil on canvas
I love this modern still life
That milk on the table is very mildly stressing me out . Unless it's to imply the house is now without heating and that also stresses me out.
I see it as having just brought the groceries in... And that the milk will soon be put in the fridge. Or maybe the outdoor fridge depending.
Oooh I like that a lot. A still life of an activity in progress, that speaks of working logistics, open stores, money for groceries and ability to obtain goods. Thanks. :)
I'm in the southeast (TN) and made my preparations yesterday. I also keep a severe weather box in the basement for times like this with all my essentials.
You all are on a tough spot because of ice, ice is the worst. We’re in the snow band further north. Our city shut down for almost a week for 5 inches… 20 will be insane
Hoping the ice isn't too bad here in Texas; I don't particularly want a repeat of 2021...
Yeah, not looking forward to this. Our area, at least in the past two decades, is much more used to 6-8" being the occasional outlier, and far less snow being the norm (entire winters without it too). Forecasts are fluctuating a bunch but potentially hitting anywhere from 10"-20", or slightly less but with more ice (which is even worse power-wise).
I have stocked up on a ton of shelf-stable, no-heat/no-fridge meals, filled up tons of pitchers with water, charged all my devices and power banks to full, did a bit of weatherizing, got the shovel and broom ready. Have a candle for a bit of extra warmth if I need it, otherwise will just stay heavily bundled up if power goes out. Put some extra gas in my car so I can use that as a very-emergency backup of heat or charging devices if it comes to that. Etc.
Weatherizing is good, I'm going to cover my windows with blankets tonight and pick up some hot hands on top of the other thing we already have (candles, heating pads). I'm trying to figure out if I need to run my water, our pipes go through our crawlspace and havent has issues yet but they also don't all have cabinets I can open.
Thankfully I'm north of the ice, though they've added snow in to ours lately, because if we lose power for long my partner will have to go somewhere warmer/where his chair can charge.
I realize how I haven't really paid attention to my outdoor faucet still having the hose hooked up to it and it being uncovered, so I bought one of those inexpensive (<$5) foam insulated covers to put over the outdoor faucet to help keep ice/snow off of it and give it at least a slight bit of insulation from the freezing wind
My pipes also go through a crawlspace and others in my area have similar setups and some have had pipe freeze problems, so despite a bit of electric bill pain I will be increasing my indoor temp a few degrees (I keep it very cool usually) during the storm and throughout the cold front afterwards, opening my kitchen/bathroom cabinets, and also turning all faucets to a slight dripping stream just to be extra safe. It uses very little water overall and it's worth it IMO. It can't necessarily be done for every single pipe/outlet, but just having a lot more movement in the lines will help.
This is probably overkill as I do also have a portion of my pipe under the home, wrapped in a sensor-based electric insulation that applies a bit of heat to the pipe if temps go under a certain threshold- but it's only on one "main" section of the piping so it's not a complete preventative.
I haven't had any pipe freezes but I also want to take zero chances so I'm going the extra mile this time around
Sending good utilities vibes your way. Please check in when you can
Will do, so far my work has not closed and I'm very annoyed about it. Without the ice we should be ok. The extreme cold warning kicks in around 3am
Safe drives, and I hope they do close down if it gets bad
Didn't close, just cold today, snow is forecast all over the place for tomorrow but no temp issues or power issues at home, and I bundled like crazy for the drive to work.
So far this storm is no disappointment. Cheers everyone!
It’s really coming down! I’m trying to shovel as it comes, but we’re seriously hitting around 3” per hour!
It’s like the shovel of Sisyphus!
(I still think it’s fun though)
We're as prepared as we can be for a power outage, we've got a gas stove top that'll heat the kitchen/living room and a way to plug in the spark for the gas water heater, we'll use my computer battery backup for the lizards and the rest of us will just huddle under blankets.
Cool thing about gas stove top is we don't really have to worry about cooking, we'll just continue like normal.
I wouldn't use the gas stove top for that. Carbon monoxide poisoning is a real threat in that situation along with a bunch of other things. I'd stock up on blankets/things to insulate you.
We do it all the time in the mornings and we have two co2 detectors it’ll be alright
Propane / natural gas heaters and stoves produce significant CO only when there's a lack of oxygen, or they're badly adjusted.
No snow for Chicago? That's disappointing. Its a great insulator and I need all the insulation I get.