Tuesday, February 04, 2014

Hatches battened...

Then again, they haven't spent much time un-battened since New Year's Day.

Hoosieropolis is situated roughly halfway between the Great Lakes and the Ohio valley, and so when these storms come barreling out of the west it seems like the dividing line between 6"-10" of snow and 2"-6" of a nasty snow/ice mix is always within a few miles, one way or another, of I-70. Frankly, I'll take the greater amount of dry, powdery snow any day.

http://www.wthr.com/story/24603684/2014/01/31/latest-on-winter-storm-potential-with-initial-snowfall-forecast

The southern edge of that dark blue line just clips into northern Marion county, a few miles north of Broad Ripple, but that purple sleet and ice line passes only a couple counties to the south, which is way too close for comfort as far as I'm concerned. Six inches of powder doesn't bring trees down on power lines, but three inches of icy slush sure does.

Also, thanks to record amounts of climate change this year, local municipalities and even INDOT are running low on road salt, and some county school boards are already petitioning the state Department of Education for waivers for excessive snow days.
.

11 comments:

Kevin said...

It's going to be cold here in Tucson today - low of 32°, high of about 60°.

Move West, young woman! Move West!

ProudHillbilly said...

And there's at least 2 more storms forming over Pacific way that will stomp across us in the next 2 weeks. I guess it's Winter this year. I prefer the years we get spoiled.

Keith said...

Yes winter has finally started here in AZ. Up until recently we were running high 70s and even 80s but now we are supposed to get rain this Friday. To bad no one here seems to know how to drive in the rain.

Tam said...

As Shootin' Buddy is fond of saying, winter is just God killing bugs and germs.

Library-Gryffon said...

I wonder if CT would give waivers. The local district has scheduled about 7 make-up days at the end of the year for "if necessary", but I think we've already used all those up. We've had so many snow days here already that it's beginning to look like the kids will have school into July if it keeps up. We were out yesterday, and based on the weather forecasts right now, I'm betting on tomorrow being another day off for them.

Merl said...

The schools here would be better off if they would stop closing because it's cold outside. They never did that when my brother and I were in school less than ten years ago.

LCB said...

Here in SW Ohio we call I-70 the snowline or snowbelt for the same reason. South of the line typically gets 1-4 during the larger storms while north gets 4-10 inches.

But this storm looks like it's going to give the Dayton area a decent drubbing: 6-10 forecast last time I looked.

Steve C said...

You'd be a lot less fond of dry snow if you lived out in the open with a 30 mph wind. It turns 4 inches of snow into 5 ft drifts real quick.

Anonymous said...

Look on the bright side - the weather would be much, much worse were it not for global warming.

I'm feeling a little left out of things here in the Pacific NW. We haven't had any snow, it's not that cold and it hasn't even rained very much.

Probably due to the fact that I bought a new set of snow tires a couple of months ago. The way things are going they will stay new a long time.

Mr. O said...

Where's Algore when you need him?

RevGreg said...

I could repurpose your post for the conditions where I live in Pennsylvania right now. The icy/slush line was hovering just south of us most of the night but retreated in the past few hours leaving us with 6" inches of powdery snow and more on the way. I'm likely stuck here at work until further notice as I'm sure most of the people coming in this morning will be MIA.