Winter Storm #3: Enough, Already!!

[frigilux]

We've had another 7 inches of snow so far, today, and are preparing for the winds to kick up to 30-35 mph by midnight. Here is a photo of part of my back yard. My air conditioning unit is at the left side of the photo. Can't see it? That's because it's buried under about 16 inches of snow. Notice how high the snow is by the clothesline. It's freaking insane!

I had to dig down over a foot to find my natural gas meter on the south side of my house a few days ago, and I could barely manage to get through the waist-high snow to get there.

I haven't seen snow like this since the winter of 1968-69. I finally broke down and hired a crew to shovel all the snow off my roof (to the tune of $200), as several homes in my neighborhood have had major structural damage from the weight. It was over 2 feet deep in some spots of my roof.

 

[danemodsandy]

Yeah:

Looks like Iowa is going to get six or eight more inches of global warming over the next couple of days, too.

 

[petek]

perfect ski-doo weather. Go buy one tomorrow LOL

Nothing much here yet still, maybe 1/8 of inch if that in places. I'm kinda disappointed because I like playing around with the snowblower and I haven't gotten to use it at all so far

 

[jamiel]

Heavens! We had huge snow in 2008-2009, but have had minimal snow this year in Detroit (although Lake Michigan has nailed Western Michigan). We've probably only had 5 inches all together in about 3 accumulations, and only shoveled once.

 

[qsd-dan]

Iowa is going to get six or eight more inches of global warm

 

[peterh770]

Bring it! They are predicting 1/2 inch in ATL tomorrow, and the grocery stores are having a run on bread, milk and toilet paper. I expect to hear about business and school closings tomorrow as soon as the first flake flies!

 

[danemodsandy]

Peter:

"They are predicting 1/2 inch in ATL tomorrow"

Let me guess:

Glenn Burns has been on WSB for hours, gibbering and howling and speaking in tongues over it.

For anyone who is not in Atlanta: Burns is the meteorologist for the biggest TV station in town, and if anyone ever needed an illustration of the concept of "drama queen," you couldn't do any better than one of his "severe weather" marathons.

 

[a440]

WSB-TV is not the biggest Television Station in Atlanta.

And no, Glenn Burns has not been doing a Marathon. None of the stations have.

 

[danemodsandy]

Brent:

WSB has been the richest, most-viewed, highest-rated station (for its local content) in Atlanta for as long as anyone can remember. And I remember back to 1952, when my dad was working on putting transmitter equipment into the new, unfinished White Columns building.

Has something changed in the six months I've been away?

 

[Unimatic1140]

Time for my nerdy side...

Winter '09-'10 is turning out to be an absolutely fascinating winter. I've always loved weather watching, I could never happily live year round in a place like Florida or southern California and miss the theater of seasons. What is most unusual about this winter is under normal conditions when its a cold winter in the eastern two thirds of the US/Canada then Europe, Russia and Asia have above normal temperature winters and vice-versa. This year both hemispheres are going through very below normal temperature winters at the same time!!! I don't ever remember this happening in my life time. The two major cities to watch are Winnipeg, Manitoba in Canada and <a href= http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/Nsk_skyline.jpg>Novosibirsk</a>in Russia the capital of Siberia. Both are the largest cities with the average coldest winters in the world and both having extremely cold winters this year. North America has been below normal now for the longest stretch in 25 years.

Here in downtown and south Minneapolis we have 9" of snow cover since December 9 and we've only been above freezing twice since that time. I love it, I wouldn't want winter year round, but for three months is so cool!

And boy is the internet cool if you're a weather nerd...

Currently at Winnipeg Airport:


Currently at Novosibirsk Airport:

 

[a440]

That is wild Robert.
I also love weather watching!
I had the bug since I was a little kid and they taught us about it in grade school. I think I still have the Weather handbook that they handed out for "catastrophic" type weather.
You guys are so cold......but it is a dry cold....
Brent

 

[a440]

Sandy....

Although you are usually so well "googled" on every word that comes out of your mouth....you are not correct on this one.
WSB-TV is not the the top television station, nor the wealthiest in Atlanta.
Local or otherwise.
It has not been since you left, nor was it before you left.
They can hardly keep up with the salaries they pay their top reporters they employ. Trust me....I work in television. I know WSB very well.
Brent

 

[danemodsandy]

Brent:

If you know something I don't about their financial standing, I stand corrected. I will say that I've long thought their talent over-compensated. However, I believe I'm on firm ground when I say that their local news is still the top-rated in Atlanta, as it has been since dinosaurs roamed the Earth and Ruth Kent was a household word.

 

[alr2903]

Its 18 degrees here right now and suppose to snow. I am never frightened until "Jim Cantore" TWC, shows up. If you see Cantore you know its yahoo serious . Sorry for your hardships up North right now, but the farmers say snow is very beneficial, something about nitrogen. alr2903

 

[mattl]

Benn a pretty ho-hum winter here in mid Michigan. 2 or 3 inches of snow, a few cold days at 0 or so, but mostly in the mid to upper 20's. Talk of a few inches of snow from the big storm south of us, but nothing major.

I have not even used the snow blower once this season. last year I had gone through a couple of tanks of gas by now...

 

[tomturbomatic]

When Ruth was at WSB-TV along with her morning partner John something, it was an NBC station and the slogan was "White Columns on Peachtree." Something happened in the 70s or 80s and now it's ABC, I think.

I think the weathermen have to either wear suits or be sitting down when they talk about bad weather so that viewers won't see their physical arousal. The weather is just like the news: too damn much air time so they have to find things to put on the air. The Weather Channel used to be a place where you could go for weather on the 8s. Now half the time they have some tired a** rerun of weather porn about storms from years ago and they started showing "weather related" movies on Friday nights to keep up viewer ratings. One of the reasons I did not go to basic cable several years ago was that it did not include the Weather Channel. There is little to nothing on cable non-news programming to appeal to a 50+ white man and I can get better weather on demand from my computer. At the first hint of a rise in cable rates, and maybe even without it, I am dropping back to basic cable. TV is mostly LOUD commercials anyway.

I read that new BLU RAY disc players can be purchased that have the capability for Internet connections so that you can browse and download movies from the major video vendors.

 

[frigilux]

And on the second day...

OK, it's Thursday morning and we've had at least 10" of snow, most of which is now blowing in the 30-35 mph winds. Wind chill is near -40. I woke up this morning and noticed my furnace seemed to be cycling on and off about every 90 seconds, so I got bundled up and went around to the south side of my house to check on the exhaust/intake pipes and check on the gas meter.

Fortunately, the heavy, wet snow we had during the Christmas blizzard has hardened a bit, so I was able to get to the side of the house. The meter was covered again, so I was reaching down about 3 feet to try to clear the snow away from it.

Trying to get a bit closer to it, I stepped onto a soft spot in the snow and one leg sank past my waist! I was tipped over at an angle, and couldn't get traction to move or heave myself out of the bank. Kind of freaked me out for a minute, actually! Decided this looked good enough for now, and will check again tonight after (hopefully) the wind subsides.

Photo: Yes, you are looking down at least 3 feet at my gas meter. There is a large lilac bush just to the left of the photo, and the only sign it's there is a couple of little branches sticking a few inches out of the top of the snow.

Everything in this area is shut down for the day. Again. Un-freakin-believable.

 

[danemodsandy]

Tom:

"When Ruth was at WSB-TV along with her morning partner John something, it was an NBC station and the slogan was "White Columns on Peachtree." Something happened in the 70s or 80s and now it's ABC, I think."

Ruth, God bless her, was phased out in the mid-1970s, after having been with the station ever since it went on the air in '48. I forget who her immediate replacement was, but it was not long before a new face first seen on the early morning news - Monica Kaufman - really took Ruth's place in Atlantans' hearts.

Ruth died of a heart attack somewhere along '78 or so. Her son, Kennon Kent, who used to be a WSB floor director (if memory serves), is still in the Atlanta area, though I think he's retired.

The name John doesn't ring a bell in connection with Ruth, but then I was usually in school when Today in Georgia was on. I do remember her stints on the six o'clock news with Ray Moore and Hal Suit, and got to meet her several times. She was one of the most charming women I've ever met.

Remember the little news breaks between daytime shows that were called NeWSBriefs? The network swap between WSB and WXIA took place in '80.

Here's an Atlanta TV face you haven't seen in a while - Orville the Dragon, Officer Don's cohort on The Popeye Club *. One of the big moments of my kiddie years was meeting Orville's owner, puppeteer Terry Kelly. Terry actually let me operate Orville. He told me that Orville had come from Czechoslovakia, that he was a commercial toy puppet sold over there. I felt very privileged to be given such "inside" information!

* For non-Atlantans: The Popeye Club was Atlanta's big kiddie show, hugely popular with a waiting list of something over a year to be part of the studio audience. I'm sure everyone from every good-sized city has similar memories of an equally popular show in their area.

 

[whirlcool]

Keeping heavy snow off of your roof is important. When we lived in Chicago, you would see garage roofs that looked like they were turned inside out. They simply collapsed over the weight of the heavy snow.
Once after a particularly heavy snow I went into a grocery store to find that they had installed heavy wood timbers all over the store from the floor to the roof. I guess to try to prevent a collapse.