Too cold

"Sherry " wrote
You should see us drive in ice and snow. Our Yankee friends would howl.
Or
people like me, who see the highway is completely dusted with snow, thinks
it's
an excuse to stay home.


It was like that when DH and I lived in No. VA (near DC) for five years.
Being from NY, we were totally enamored with the very little snow and cold
they got.... but the locals (though I don't think *anyone* was actually
*from* there) would freak if it snowed half an inch. Schools would close,
people would pull off the road.. it was hilarious to us Northerners. One
time there was a blizzard and people freaked out and cleaned out the grocery
stores, as if in this day and age you'd be stuck in your house for weeks!
The odd thing really about the blizzard was that it took about three weeks
before people's road were cleaned out of the snow.. whereas here it would
take 24 hours! They just didn't have the equipment on hand to take care of
it.

Stacey (who's happy to be back in NY, snow and all!)

"Karen Chuplis" wrote

That's the real problem a lot of times and why places that don't normally
get so cold have major problems with what to others would be "just
winter".
I'm amazed on another group where people are posting how they cannot get
their heaters to get the houses above what I would call light jacket
temperatures. The houses are just not built to contain heat!

That's true. It can be very much colder in the houses in winter in
mid-European countries, while here in the North, we expect to be able to
walk around in t-shirts inside, but then our houses are very well insulated,
and the heating systems are very good.

My sister and her family spent a couple of months in New Zealand last year,
during summer, i.e. winter in NZ. You should have heard them complain about
all the clothes they had to wear around the house, and the ice-cold water in
the shower, etc. ;o)

--
Marina, currently in (long-sleeved) t-shirt and barefoot, while the snow is
deep outside

On Sun, 18 Jan 2004 15:12:31 GMT, "Stacey"
wrote:

It was like that when DH and I lived in No. VA (near DC) for five years.

Oh, yeah, how well I remember!! Many years ago, I worked in
downtown DC and lived out a few miles on the way to Bethesda. I had
no car then and depended on bus travel. I recall most of all one
evening after work waiting an hour or so for a bus in one of these
"snow storms." Then it took 45 minutes to go two blocks!! I've
mercifully forgotten how many hours it took the rest of the way but I
know it was well after dark.

Now I live in north Alabama near the Tennessee border where snowfalls
are rare but when a few inches do come, it's major Snarlsville.
School closings, roads closed, car wrecks by the dozens, businesses
closed down, the works. But then, would you believe it? Schools were
actually closed when a big hurricane struck in the Gulf!!!! Nuts!!

Jeanne
Jeanne Hajos
spamguard u is i, and not is net)
===
"Anger improves nothing except the arch of a cat's back."
--- Coleman Cox
My SETI team:
http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/s...am_125874.html

Sherry wrote:

You should see us drive in ice and snow. Our Yankee friends would howl. Or
people like me, who see the highway is completely dusted with snow, thinks it's
an excuse to stay home.



I've become "too" acclimated to the south. Last Friday they released
school early because the dusting of snow that was predicted, became
almost a half inch and wasn't stopping. I was glad to go home, so that
I wouldn't have to drive in it and see how poorly the other half drove.
At least I get paid for that day, and we don't have to make it up.


Pam S.

Stacey, my bro lives in Springfield, Va. and what you said is *exactly* what
he's told me about the bad winter weather remedies in that area! He used to
live, long ago in 60's, in CO Springs (he was in AF academy), and when I
mentioned to him the lack of traffic problems and quick street cleaning with
those huge snow-shoveling trucks after deep snowfalls, he said he remembers
how efficient it all was, because Denver area has that going on *all
winter*, unlike where he lives now, where it can be just "rather cold" for
weeks and then all hell breaks loose (like now). He says they just don't
have the equipment to deal with it, as it would not be consistently needed.
His DW, BTW, comes from very near where you live....but she is from a tiny
town in the "Finger Lakes", where to do any power shopping, they would drive
up to Rochester.


"Stacey" wrote in message
...
:
: "Sherry " wrote
: You should see us drive in ice and snow. Our Yankee friends would howl.
: Or
: people like me, who see the highway is completely dusted with snow,
thinks
: it's
: an excuse to stay home.
:
:
: It was like that when DH and I lived in No. VA (near DC) for five years.
: Being from NY, we were totally enamored with the very little snow and cold
: they got.... but the locals (though I don't think *anyone* was actually
: *from* there) would freak if it snowed half an inch. Schools would close,
: people would pull off the road.. it was hilarious to us Northerners. One
: time there was a blizzard and people freaked out and cleaned out the
grocery
: stores, as if in this day and age you'd be stuck in your house for weeks!
: The odd thing really about the blizzard was that it took about three weeks
: before people's road were cleaned out of the snow.. whereas here it would
: take 24 hours! They just didn't have the equipment on hand to take care of
: it.
:
: Stacey (who's happy to be back in NY, snow and all!)
:
:

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On 18 Jan 2004 14:30:20 GMT, itty (Sherry ) wrote:

That's the real problem a lot of times and why places that don't
normally get so cold have major problems with what to others would
be "just winter". I'm amazed on another group where people are
posting how they cannot get their heaters to get the houses above
what I would call light jacket temperatures. The houses are just
not built to contain heat!

Karen

You should see us drive in ice and snow. Our Yankee friends would
howl. Or people like me, who see the highway is completely dusted
with snow, thinks it's an excuse to stay home.

I live in Nashville, Tennessee, USA. We only get a few days of snow
each winter, but it tends to snarl up the traffic pretty badly. Part
of the problem is that our snowstorms usually start out as rain, turn
to freezing rain (i.e., the clouds are just above freezing, and the
ground is just below freezing, so the rain freezes into sheet ice as
it lands), and then eventually end up as snow. For some reason, the
temperatures after a snow storm tend to be only a few degrees below
freezing, as opposed to the more extreme cold at other points in the
winter, so some of the snow and ice melt each afternoon, only to
refreeze into black ice once the sun goes down. A lady from North
Dakota (adjoining the Canadian border, and getting much more snow
each year than Tennessee) once told me that she found driving
conditions more difficult in Nashville than she did back home in
North Dakota.

The worst driving conditions that I have seen here were about 20
years ago, when we had a seven-or-eight inch snowfall. The
temperatures were mild enough for a couple of days for the snow to
get slushy and rutted. Then, the temperature went to around 0
Fahrenheit (about -18 degrees Celsius) for several days, and the
slush froze hard. Then the temperature warmed up to just above
freezing. Bumpy, rutted ice with melt-water on top is the driving
surface from hell. You had to drive slowly and keep lots of distance
from other cars, as the car tended to lurch about as it went from one
rut to another rut, or slid sideways off a mound of ice. Walking on
this ice wasn't fun, either. I fell down several times after my feet
slid out from under me.

Seven or eight years ago, we had an ice storm that deposited a couple
of inches of sheet ice on everything. Unfortunately, I was attending
a club meeting about 20 miles from my house, and didn't know about
the ice storm until the meeting completed. It took me over two hours
to drive 18 miles, and the last couple of miles into my hilly
neighborhood proved impassible. I couldn't make it to any motels,
either. I ended up sleeping on the floor of a hospital waiting room,
along with 20 or so other people who were stranded and couldn't make
it home. I made it to work the next morning, wearing the previous
day's clothing and unshaven, and was finally able to make it home
that evening, since most of the ice had melted off that afternoon.

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--
John F. Eldredge --
PGP key available from http://pgp.mit.edu
"Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better
than not to think at all." -- Hypatia of Alexandria

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On Fri, 16 Jan 2004 00:41:57 GMT, "Kim Walters"
wrote:

7:30 PM (EST), it is -7 F

They are saying it is the coldest it has been in 50 years, and we
may set an all time record low (old record -47 F ) on top of Mount
Washington (NH-USA). It was over -100 with wind chill yesterday on
Mt. Washington. It actually felt warm at 2 F getting the newspaper
this morning.

National Public Radio (in the USA) had a news item a few days ago
about the weather station on top of Mount Washington. They mentioned
that this weather station once measured a wind speed of over 230
miles per hour, a world record for ground-level (if you can call the
top of a mountain over 6200 feet tall ground level). One of the
weathermen talked in the news segment about taking a bucket of water
outside and flinging the water up into the air. None of it reached
the ground; it froze into ice crystals in mid-air and blew away.

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--
John F. Eldredge --
PGP key available from http://pgp.mit.edu
"Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better
than not to think at all." -- Hypatia of Alexandria

On Sat, 24 Jan 2004 20:39:39 -0600, John F. Eldredge
wrote:

I live in Nashville, Tennessee, USA. We only get a few days of snow
each winter, but it tends to snarl up the traffic pretty badly. Part
of the problem is that our snowstorms usually start out as rain, turn
to freezing rain (i.e., the clouds are just above freezing, and the
ground is just below freezing, so the rain freezes into sheet ice as
it lands), and then eventually end up as snow. For some reason, the
temperatures after a snow storm tend to be only a few degrees below
freezing, as opposed to the more extreme cold at other points in the
winter, so some of the snow and ice melt each afternoon, only to
refreeze into black ice once the sun goes down. A lady from North
Dakota (adjoining the Canadian border, and getting much more snow
each year than Tennessee) once told me that she found driving
conditions more difficult in Nashville than she did back home in
North Dakota.

I agree with the lady from North Dakota. I learned to drive in
southern Indiana where the weather is quite similar to that of
Nashville - not much snow but frequent bouts of freezing rain. Now I
live in the Chicago area, where we usually get more snow than ice.
I'll take driving in several inches of snow to a light coating of ice
any day!


The worst driving conditions that I have seen here were about 20
years ago, when we had a seven-or-eight inch snowfall. The
temperatures were mild enough for a couple of days for the snow to
get slushy and rutted. Then, the temperature went to around 0
Fahrenheit (about -18 degrees Celsius) for several days, and the
slush froze hard. Then the temperature warmed up to just above
freezing. Bumpy, rutted ice with melt-water on top is the driving
surface from hell. You had to drive slowly and keep lots of distance
from other cars, as the car tended to lurch about as it went from one
rut to another rut, or slid sideways off a mound of ice. Walking on
this ice wasn't fun, either. I fell down several times after my feet
slid out from under me.

The worst part about driving in this mess for me is when your wheels
get stuck in a rut and you end up going in directions you don't want
to go - usually to bad places at that.



Seven or eight years ago, we had an ice storm that deposited a couple
of inches of sheet ice on everything. Unfortunately, I was attending
a club meeting about 20 miles from my house, and didn't know about
the ice storm until the meeting completed. It took me over two hours
to drive 18 miles, and the last couple of miles into my hilly
neighborhood proved impassible. I couldn't make it to any motels,
either. I ended up sleeping on the floor of a hospital waiting room,
along with 20 or so other people who were stranded and couldn't make
it home. I made it to work the next morning, wearing the previous
day's clothing and unshaven, and was finally able to make it home
that evening, since most of the ice had melted off that afternoon.

When I lived in southern New Jersey at the time (the winter weather
tends to be moderate there because of the ocean) we had something like
16 consecutive ice storms one February. Although me and my rear-wheel
drive car got through it without mishap, I got so tired if it taking
4x longer than usual to get anywhere that I ended up buying a
front-wheel drive that March (and was surprised at just how much
difference it really did make)

Of course, the bozos in their 4-wheel drive pickup trucks didn't help.
Yes, they were able to cruise around faster than I was, but too many
of them were going at normal speeds (for them) and not paying
attention to the conditions. I guess they forgot that even if you do
get going you still have to be able to stop...




Jeanne Hedge, as directed by Natasha

http://www.jhedge.com

"John F. Eldredge" wrote:

The worst driving conditions that I have seen here were about 20
years ago, when we had a seven-or-eight inch snowfall. The
temperatures were mild enough for a couple of days for the snow to
get slushy and rutted. Then, the temperature went to around 0
Fahrenheit (about -18 degrees Celsius) for several days, and the
slush froze hard. Then the temperature warmed up to just above
freezing. Bumpy, rutted ice with melt-water on top is the driving
surface from hell. You had to drive slowly and keep lots of distance
from other cars, as the car tended to lurch about as it went from one
rut to another rut, or slid sideways off a mound of ice. Walking on
this ice wasn't fun, either. I fell down several times after my feet
slid out from under me.




I remember that. We were stationed at Ft Campbell (FTCKY) Kentucky at
the time and living in a rat trap mobil house (the floor rolled, or at
least was so uneven that we had a game where we'd drop a marble on the
floor and bet on where it'd roll.) and got 15 inches of snow on the
ground. For some reason, everyone sent their kids over to our trailer
whenever they got tired of them. I think we made about 8 dozen donuts
that storm. I got to eat 2 of them. The kids got the rest.

Rob was out in the field when the storm started. The unit thought it
would be a typical snow and gone in a day or two and took three days
before they called them in from the field and sent them home. He walked
into the house to find that we had a bunch of people over playing a
mammoth rummy game. He dumped his gear, warmed up a bit, and was dealt
in. He went back to work two days later, when post was opened back up.

Pam S.