What safety precautions should residents take during snowmelt season?

[Astronuc]

We just had 5-6 inches (13 - 15 cm) of snow with about 1 inch of sleet, then a little freezing rain. It's supposed to turn back to sleet then snow some time during the night. Right now it's a light drizzle, and the backyard temperature is about 30°F (-1°C).

We are probably having a more normal winter, but not yet near a record accumulation of snow. We had a record snow fall several years ago, with an accumulation of over 5 ft.

Syracuse has had ~110 inches of snow so far this season, which is about the normal total for an entire season.

We're about halfway to looking like turbo's place.

 

[turbo]

The storm is coming through here, now. High temp today was 12 deg, and we've already gotten over 6" of snow with totals here in the foothills expected to run 10-18"

 

[turbo]

I shoveled a path from the front door to the area of the driveway where my wife parks. That was at 3:30. A little over 4 hours later, and you can't tell that I even touched it. It's coming down hard.

 

[Evo]

I am so glad that we are having a relatively dry winter. Very cold, but dry. Last year we had snow every other day.

Turbo, this is 2 years in a row that you are being hit, I feel for you.

 

[Cyrus]

I shoveled my drive way last night after coming home from work. I woke up today to find it literally one continuous sheet of ice. Actually, even the main road in my neighborhood was one big sheet of ice - literally. I had the fun of scraping the ice after come home from work today. It must have been a few hundred pounds of ice total that I moved.

 

[Evo]

<gah> Ice is the worst. Absolutely the worst.

 

[turbo]

I am so glad that we are having a relatively dry winter. Very cold, but dry. Last year we had snow every other day.

Turbo, this is 2 years in a row that you are being hit, I feel for you.

The snowmobile clubs and the restaurants, motels, etc, that get income from these heavy snows will benefit. I guess I can spend a few uncomfortable hours clearing this. We are losing mills, service industries, etc at a frightening rate, so the snow is a help for some. Watching local news interviews with snowmobile dealers is a bit odd. People don't have money to trade in and upgrade their sleds, so the local dealerships are trying to scale back on new inventory and concentrate on rebuilds and maintenance. Many local dealerships have gone under, because their franchise agreements require them to buy more sleds (in various value categories) than they can afford to stock.

 

[turbo]

<gah> Ice is the worst. Absolutely the worst.

We had ice so bad a number of years ago that we had power-crews and tree-crews from many states south of us and many provinces north of us, and still some people never got power back for over a month. I should be happy that this event will be all snow. After the last big ice-storm there was no power to the ophthalmic practice in which I was the network administrator, so I spent my days dragging little under powered generators around to the houses of the doctors who owned the practice, trying to keep their houses heated. It would be dead-still outside, and every gun-shot crack of another big branch or tree failing under the load of ice would make me think "crap! I'll be here again tomorrow and tomorrow".

 

[turbo]

We got over a foot of dry, but dense heavily-packed snow overnight. When I got up around in the early morning to feed the fire, I suited up and shoveled a path from our front door to my wife's car and entirely around her car so that she could scrape the snow off the car before heading to work.

The storm, which appeared to be over, still wasn't at that point because she had to do a little more shoveling to clean off her car around 5am. Still, that little Subaru Legacy sedan (with studded snow tires) blasted out through the driveway and the snow-bank and the road, dragging the under-chassis in the snow all the way. If there is anybody here that is in the market for a new car and you have to deal with snow and ice, GET A SUBARU and fit it with studded snows for the winter. Independent symmetrical traction-control and anti-lock-braking combined with skid control cannot be beat. 4WD vehicles with regular transmission/transfer case arrangements can't compete. I can't ski anymore due to bad knees, but when I'm looking for photographic subjects or other driving in the winter, I'm impressed by the number of Subarus that are on the roads around our larger ski resorts. 40 years ago, there were a lot of Volkswagens and Saabs on those roads. No more.

 

[Borek]

Was there an ice storm in Kentucky lately?

 

[Astronuc]

Was there an ice storm in Kentucky lately?

Yes - last week, there was an ice storm from Arkansas eastward through Tennessee and Kentucky. Kentucky had about 700,000 people without electricity service due to downed power lines.

Kentucky Hardest Hit By Deadly Ice Storm
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/02/02/national/main4769197.shtml
State Asks Obama To Speed Federal Aid As Hundreds Of Thousands Still Without Power; Nationwide Death Toll Now 55

Thaw comes slowly to storm-ravaged Kentucky
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090201/ap_on_re_us/winter_storm

We only had 2 cm of sleet/ice on top of 10 cm of snow. All structures and trees were covered in thin layer of ice.

 

[Borek]

Thanks.

 

[wolram]

Us Brits had a little dusting of snow, it bought road, rail transport to a stand still, schools closed and even Heathrow was closed for a while.

 

[turbo]

Us Brits had a little dusting of snow, it bought road, rail transport to a stand still, schools closed and even Heathrow was closed for a while.

London's mayor pointed out that you get snow-storms so infrequently, it makes little sense to buy and maintain the heavy equipment necessary to deal with it. He specifically mentioned plow trucks, but of course in a city, once you have plowed the snow into banks, you've got to bring in front-end loaders, etc to transport it somewhere to be dumped. Buying and maintaining such a fleet is a very expensive proposition.

 

[wolram]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iR7p1-FovglATaqWxYPlxqGkf6zw

LONDON (AFP) — The snow storms which paralysed Britain may have cost businesses already battling the credit crunch up to a billion pounds, experts said on Tuesday -- and more blizzards could be still on their way.

A billion pounds would buy a fair few.

Edit

Even if are hard up the tight old twit could buy from here.

http://www.mod-sales.com/

 

[Air]

London's mayor pointed out that you get snow-storms so infrequently, it makes little sense to buy and maintain the heavy equipment necessary to deal with it. He specifically mentioned plow trucks, but of course in a city, once you have plowed the snow into banks, you've got to bring in front-end loaders, etc to transport it somewhere to be dumped. Buying and maintaining such a fleet is a very expensive proposition.

'We had the right type of snow, just the wrong type of quantity.'

I quite enjoyed the fact that London came to a halt, was a surprise. Many seemed to be away from the pressure and enjoyed their day.

 

[mgb_phys]

London's mayor pointed out that you get snow-storms so infrequently, it makes little sense to buy and maintain the heavy equipment necessary to deal with it.

The streets are ok - the problem is normally the railways, especially the tube.
It's now such a complex mix of government, government owned companies, private companies, maintenance contractors and local authorities that you would have 6 different organizations responsible for clearing the snow around a train.

It was even funnier here, Vancouver airport got a couple of cm of snow. It turns out that Vancouver doesn't do snow removal and de-icing, it's upto the individual airlines to supply their own. Air Canada obviously decided it doesn't snow in Vancouver and didn't have any so was grounded for a couple of days. Hopefully there won't be any snow for the winter olympics next year.

 

[mgb_phys]

Even if are hard up the tight old twit could buy from here.
http://www.mod-sales.com/

A bit off topic, but why do the Army have Harley Davidsons?
http://www.mod-sales.com/direct/vehicle/home/19078/Harley_Davidson.htm

 

[wolram]

A bit off topic, but why do the Army have Harley Davidsons?
http://www.mod-sales.com/direct/vehicle/home/19078/Harley_Davidson.htm

They buy them for the metal content, in times of hardship they can be melted down.

 

[turbo]

Currently, it is below zero (F) and will probably go to 15 below or lower. The wood-stove is getting a work-out! It is a lot easier to maintain an interior temperature than to let it fall and then try to recover. Since I don't have a day-job, I make sure to stay on the job as long as possible every day, so when my wife gets up she is comfortable and can go through her exercise routine, get her caffeine fix, an still have a little quiet time before heading out to work.

 

[cristo]

The streets are ok - the problem is normally the railways, especially the tube.

The streets weren't ok; that's why every London bus was taken out of service. The problem was that so many different people are responsible for gritting the roads, and they don't talk to each other. Then, if the bus system doesn't work, tube drivers and people who work in tube stations don't get to work, so couple that with the fact that the ends of most of the lines are outside and you have a huge problem. Quite laughable really, but then what do you expect from a city without a snow plough.

I did have a wry laugh at the Scottish yesterday, though. On Monday, they were calling/emailing news programmes in an outrage when they heard most of the schools in the southeast area were closed due to "a little bit of snow." Come yesterday, though when the snow reached Scotland, they then proceeded to shut their schools!

 

[George Jones]

Snow day!

For the first time in my three years here in Saint John, my workplace has shutdown all day and the city buses have been pulled off the streets. By the time the snow finishes, the total accumulation from the storm could be as much as 40 centimetres (16 inches).

 

[Evo]

Snow day!

For the first time in my three years here in Saint John, my workplace has shutdown all day and the city buses have been pulled off the streets. By the time the snow finishes, the total accumulation from the storm could be as much as 40 centimetres (16 inches).

Good grief, I hope you and your wife do not need to go out in this!

 

[turbo]

We got about a foot and a half overnight and it's still coming down lightly. Here is the current view through the living room window.

And here is what you see through the kitchen window. If you get close to the window and look up, you can see the pine trees across the road.

As the snow and ice slide off the roof, a pretty large pile accumulates in front of the house. It's pretty dark in here because of that.

 

[Evo]

Ahahaha.

Uhm, I mean, that's dreadful!

 

[turbo]

I underestimated. We got 2 feet, more in places where the snow could sift in. I just got done digging everything out. Here is the view under the front eaves where the bird feeders are. We won't see anything out the front windows for at least a month or two. I snapped a shear-pin while snow-blowing and had to replace that, then my wife (who had parked her car at a neighbor's whose place was already plowed out went to pick it up and found that she had left her parking lights on all day - battery was dead and needed to be boosted, and I've got it on a charger right now. What a day! BTW, it has been snowing really hard for about an hour now. I surrender!

 

[George Jones]

Good grief, I hope you and your wife do not need to go out in this!

No one had to go out today.

The last couple of months, work has been hectic. I went in for a few hours yesterday to prepare for today, which, because of the storm, meant that I was really preparing somewhat for tomorrow and Wednesday, so I've had a nice break today.

I spent the day playing with my two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, reading a novel, eating freshly made pakoras, and drinking Earl Grey tea.

 

[Borek]

This not a thread for me, I need thread "It's melting". Earlier today I had two feet icicles near my front door, but they are gone now - Sun was operating too strong. I am putting wood for fireplace on the outside, close to garden balcony window - yesterday every piece was covered with a centimeter of ice, as wood lies in the place where water drops from the roof. Rain gutter is either frozen somewhere, or it is at a wrong angle. Two years ago it was fixed, and I don't remember problems last year.

 

[heldervelez]

Someone said: Global Warming evidence !

 

[turbo]

Someone said: Global Warming evidence !

It is evidence (at least circumstantial) of warming. We never get these huge snowfalls unless warm air-masses move in and collide with cold air over the interior. Over the last couple of years, this pattern has established, and it is happening with regularity. Our summers have not gotten warmer (thank God!) but our winters for the last couple of years have been punctuated regularly by incursions of warm, moist air, resulting in blizzards and record snowfall. During our winters, snowfall is negatively correlated to coldness. If we could stay very cold, dominated by Arctic air-masses, our snowfall would be nominal. Climate-change newbies do not know this, nor do they have an appreciation for the context in which this weather might be construed (long-term) as climate.