Weather in general

[johnlee1933]

You know, I am kinda amused. We have had a warm spell here for the last week or so and everybody is excited/concerned. I've been in Yankee land for a few winters now and this phenomenon was so old when I was a kid it had a name "January thaw". I guess there is really nothing new under the sun. On yeah, these same people are upset when February is cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey (an old sailing Navy joke). -- J

 

[Knucklehead]

We have a "Blackberry Winter" and an "Indian Summer" though neither occur this time of year.

 

[BigBonner]

I know winters has changed from when I was a kid .I remember the creek freezing soild , even over the riffels . Snow would get deep and when the wind blew it would drift and no one could go anywhere.
Tire chains was a must .

 

[SmokesAhoy]

Yeah all the old timers at work remember winters like this, just cyclical change I guess.

It's nice to have this the though, because I'm guessing it'll just lock the moisture in the ground and we'll have an exceptionally pretty summer.
And hopefully it'll start pushing the ticks back south

 

[Boboro]

I herd the poler bears were haven troble. I saw some ice in a tree today Its excitin.

 

[marksctm]

I know winters has changed from when I was a kid .I remember the creek freezing soild , even over the riffels . Snow would get deep and when the wind blew it would drift and no one could go anywhere.
Tire chains was a must .

That's the way I remember it too Larry. We had a storm come through the day after Christmas this year ( 10 to 12 inch ) and though it was a good one, they made such a big deal of it, and compared it to 1978, what a joke.
In 1978. that storm went from 50 degrees and heavy rain that night, to 2 inch's of ice, to 37 inch's of snow, 6 foot and higher drifts, all in less than 24 hours, then the temp dropped down to around -20 f to -30 f for what seemed like weeks.
I miss the studded tires you could do sparky burn outs with, I hate chains, drove semi for years, had to carry them on the truck, west of the Mississippi, or get fined ( DOT ), and damn sure had to use them when posted by DOT, or get Big time fines.

 

[BigBonner]

I remember the 1978 snow storm .No one went anywhere . Drifts were huge , the creeks were frozen with thick ice . High places had no snow where it all was blown off in the snow drifts .

In 1983 my son was born on a night with bad ice .Thick Ice covered everything . I also didn't have two cents to rubb together .

 

[Michibacy]

I wasn't around during '78 but I have seen my fair share of heavy snows here in MI. I agree though, it really has changed a lot. I have a feeling it's just the cycle though, mother earth will stop messin with us pretty soon

 

[Boboro]

The snow is comin down so I stayed home this morin.

 

[squeezyjohn]

We're supposed to be getting a big dose of it here in England today and tomorrow - well a foot or so anyway which is normally enough to send the whole island in to a complete panic for a week!

We don't do extremes of weather well here.

 

[Boboro]

No snow on the ground just briges and hillsides. I dont mind drivin in it but other ppl dont slow down while goin over the bridges takein pic. wiyh thir damm cell phones. Ant to much I can do at work any way.

 

[Boboro]

Pics.

 

[wazzappenning]

were just having that january thaw too. i cant remember this happening every year. got up to 45 two days ago, today supposed to be close to that. then we are supposed to dip down to -6 for a day or 2.

my mother used to tell me about when she was a kid in montreal. it was like driving through a tunnel she said, the snowbanks were higher than the vehicles. my 10 years in montreal, about 10 yrs ago, i never saw anything like that amount of snow. also my ex girlfriend who lived on a farm showed me a picture of her and her brother as kids
sitting on the top of the clothesline pole, which was only sticking out 1-1/2 ft from probably a 8-10 ft pole.

i hope it is cyclical, and we havent mangled the earth, but if so, i hope i never have to see those amounts of snow in my lifetime. what i've seen up till now is already more than i wanted to.

btw chains and studs are oldschool. we, and the northern states have winter tires/ice tires now. studless and supposedly good on ice. i find you cant really do anything for ice, but they are a miracle on packed snow.

good luck in the UK, i remember last time you guys got a dump of snow, it was complete mayhem.

 

[Knucklehead]

Life comes to a screeching halt in the South with one inch of snow. Nobody is ready for it. No municipality or county owns snow blowers or salt trucks. Schools shut down for three days. It's a big deal. We got a 6 incher in '96 that shut everything down for a couple of weeks. No power and there were alot of folks that were total electric including me. After that I got propane back up heat. We had to abandon the water bed too, it was as cold as a brick of ice. We called the fold out couch hide a bed the "rack". The rack was torture. Every meal was cooked on the grill. We had to rough it with what we had.

 

[johnlee1933]

Yeah Knucks but you learned pretty quick who your friends were. -- J

 

[Knucklehead]

My closest neighbor was 1/4 mile away. I was surrounded by uncles, aunts, cousins, great aunts, great uncles and my grandmother all on one road. Nobody could get out. Even my four wheeler was useless.

 

[johnlee1933]

My closest neighbor was 1/4 mile away. I was surrounded by uncles, aunts, cousins, great aunts, great uncles and my grandmother all on one road. Nobody could get out. Even my four wheeler was useless.

Didn't anybody ever tell you you ain't supposed to run slicks on a four wheeler? -- J

 

[Knucklehead]

Goodyear Bald Eagles. You can see the air in them.

 

[Aaron]

I was living in Dora, AL in 96' and remember that storm. I was driving home that evening and got pulled over by a sheriff telling me to get off the road. I laughed at him because I thought he was joking. He didn't think it was that funny. Nothing had even stuck to the road yet.

 

[wazzappenning]

almost sounds like the 97 ice storm in eastern canada. some of these images are from it, not all, but the bent over power lines are real.
http://www.google.ca/search?q=montr...4FO3xigLDl4CQCA&ved=0CEUQsAQ&biw=1024&bih=530
i think NY state and probably vermont got a taste of it too. freezing rain so thick, i de-iced 1/2 to 3/4 inch off my car with a hammer, just to get to the locks and around the door, then it was a couple hours of idling to get the rest unstuck. no power for 3? days. i kind of enjoyed it other than no TV (watched candles burn). we had a cast iron stove, so we had heat, and food pretty much was toast on that stove, yummy.

it got warmer after, and i was doing pizza deliveries. i remember thinking the icicles were going to stab me in the head every time i had to cross under power lines to get to the house. you could hear them falling all around, but none on my head.

my brother saw snow in san fran maybe 10 years ago? yeah no one knows what to do when theyve never seen snow. he said the truck in front of him was so annoying because he thought he had figured it out. i guess if you dont go anywhere when you hit the gas, you hit it more, and if you dont slow down when you hit the brakes, you hit them more. apparently thats what he got to drive with in stop and go traffic, every time traffic moved, the guy was fishtailing all over the place, and i guess stops looked about as contolled.