Severe Weather

[Thomkal]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

Who the hell decides to eff with someone nicknamed the Angel of Death?

SI

He apparently did not know about the nickname...or he most likely was a drunk college kid as Cantore was at College of Charleston

[Thomkal]

was reading some of that facebook link you posted even though I don't live anywhere near there-sounds like a ton of people were stranded still 7, 8 hours after they left their job, home, or school. But nice to see the good side of social media-all sorts of people offering their homes for the night and even in some cases to come get them or meet them in their stalled cars and walk them someplace safe.

[miked]

My friend's mom has been driving home from Midtown for 9 hours, she lives in Cumming. Insanity. My mom is just chillin in Decatur though.

[stevew]

Man, I'd love to have a towtruck down there right now. You could make bank. Although would you get stuck in traffic?

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by stevew

Man, I'd love to have a towtruck down there right now. You could make bank. Although would you get stuck in traffic?

Yeah, they ain't getting around very well. Pretty much no one is at this point.

Cherokee Co authorities have acknowledged that there are several hundred people stranded in their cars all over the county & that they simply can't get to them, so many accidents they literally don't even have a count. Every fire station in the county (21 of them) are open to anyone stranded needing shelter, 4 large facilities (like college auditoriums) have opened to take in as many as can get there.

When you see a veteran firefighter* close his statement this way, you know they're worried: Those that are seeing all this, saying a few prayers for those still out there would be greatly appreciated.

Temps expected to hit 15 degrees tonight.


And back in Fulton County, they've finally given up & taken students BACK to at least one high school to shelter in place. That it happens to include the teenage son (and his camera) of the #2 station's anchorman might make that a bigger story than usual.

edit to add: * my comment about the "veteran firefighter" came from knowing that spokesman for as long as I can remember. He's a 2nd generation public safety guy who grew up with it -- his dad was a long-serving chief -- when he sounds worried, I get worried.

[bob]

It took me from 1:30 until 7:30 to get from my office at Glenridge Connector to where Holcomb Bridge crosses Alpharetta Highway (west off exit 7 of 400). Ditched car in parking lot there, and walked 10+ miles to Woodstock. Got home around 10:20.... crazy.

(Normally a 35 - 45 minute drive pending what lights I catch).

[Wolfpack]

Snow's finally accumulating decently and still coming down at a decent clip. I think it'll be at the low end of the 3-6" range they were forecasting before it moves out in the pre-dawn. At any rate, looks like I'll get to test out my new work laptop's ability to work from home for at least a little bit tomorrow.

[JonInMiddleGA]

from wsb-tv/Atlanta

Gov. Deal says the National Guard is being called in to help stranded motorists.

Earlier we'd been told that state troopers were being dispatched to every school that was housing stranded students

Y'know, it's looking more & more like both the governor & the mayor of Atlanta Kasim Reed are going to feel some heat about this rather large snafu but ... where doesn't some responsibility lie with employers who didn't dismiss until the last minute, or even later? And with workers who simply didn't exercise common sense when they had the option (at least three of those that I know who got stuck were either paying no attention to the conditions or insisted on going to work even when they had a work at home option readily available)?

There wasn't anything in the forecast that caused this to be of more concern than any of the other half dozen "winter weather advisories" we get every year. Once things escalated then it seems like a lot of people dropped the ball, not sure that rests too heavily on a governor (not even when it's one I'm not wild about)

[stevew]

-14 where I just passed. Holy shit it's cold.

[stevew]

Anyone have studded snow tires? Might get some for next fall. Probably the easiest way to insure it will be a mild winter.

[stevew]

Anyone else seeing these weird things?

Snow rollers: Pennsylvania wind and snow create rare 'snow roller' display - CSMonitor.com

[Eaglesfan27]

We were supposed to get 1-2 inches... woke up to about 6 or 7 inches outside our house. Mary's school is closed but I still have to get to work since I'm working in an emergency room now.

[Ben E Lou]

We have power. About 1/4 inch of ice on trees outside. Looks like whatever snow we're going to get will be starting soon. About 8,000 with no power in our area, and all of the major bridges in the Charleston area are closed.

Some friends of ours are 34 weeks pregnant and experienced some complications last night. With the bridge closings, you can't get from our subdivision to the hospital of choice for most people in our area, so they had to go to an unfamiliar one with unfamiliar doctors.

The stories I've read from some of my friends in the Atlanta area are mind-boggling. It took one friend of ours 14 hours to get home. She walked the last five miles.

I don't know if this is accurate, but based on the stories of when businesses and schools shut 'er down yesterday in the A-T-L, this at least looks about right:

[JonInMiddleGA]

Among those stuck in the mess yesterday was Braves first baseman Freddie Freeman. He was rescued on a four-wheeler by a guy that looked kinda familiar

Spoiler

Yep, that's Chipper Jones ... who said Freeman hugged him all the way home

[Kodos]

Yeesh. Stay safe, everyone.

[digamma]

My sister got home in about 12 hours with a stop at the 10 hour mark to get the pregnant woman driving their carpool into an ambulance. Not joking. All are ok.

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by stevew

Anyone have studded snow tires? Might get some for next fall. Probably the easiest way to insure it will be a mild winter.

Bear in mind that studded snow tires tend to not be allowed in many localities, since they'll chew up the roads something fierce if exposed directly to asphalt.

A set of good regular snow tires is likely all one needs for winter, and then only if you're going to be driving on actual snow or ice on a regular basis (as opposed to salt-created slush, as it more common in most large, cold metropolitan areas).

To be honest, we only got snow tires in Chicago on one of our cars the last few years, and this was specifically because I wanted the car my wife used for the kids to have them, as an extra precaution. I found, in Chicago, that with the use of salt almost all the time I was driving in slush anyway (at worst) and a good set of all-seasons that were good in water (rain) were good enough.

In Maine, where I am now, it's a different story. Maine uses a lot less salt, preferring sand instead, so you're often driving on packed snow, loose snow, and/or ice. We have Dunlop Graspics on the Subaru Forester and Michelin Ice-X's on the Honda Fit. Makes a huge difference to both. The Honda does amazingly well for such a light car, and driving the Subaru in snow is as if you're on rails.

In fact, a few weeks ago I had to drive from Bethel to Portland (roughly 70 miles on country roads) at night, after a day of freezing rain (and it was still coming down). There was probably 1/4 to 1/2 inch of ice on the road. While it was challenging, the combination of the tires, the fact that it's a Subaru (AWD, wider track, low center of gravity) and, most importantly, the experience of having grown up driving on ice and snow, meant I made it without too much trouble, but it's definitely not something I'd recommend to anyone without the experience or proper gear (like, I'm guessing, most of the poor folks caught in the storm down south).


Anyway, stay safe folks, and stay off the roads!

[Warhammer]

Originally Posted by stevew

Anyone else seeing these weird things?

Snow rollers: Pennsylvania wind and snow create rare 'snow roller' display - CSMonitor.com

I saw some of these in Darke County Ohio on Monday. I was trying to figure out what the heck they were.

[DanGarion]

Well the 2nd leg of my flight was canceled this morning. ATL to JAX at 2:57, so I've been delayed to leave home for a couple hours and will be catching the ATL to JAX connector at 6:59 instead. So much for figuring out what I'm going to train the next day.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

We have power. About 1/4 inch of ice on trees outside. Looks like whatever snow we're going to get will be starting soon. About 8,000 with no power in our area, and all of the major bridges in the Charleston area are closed.

Some friends of ours are 34 weeks pregnant and experienced some complications last night. With the bridge closings, you can't get from our subdivision to the hospital of choice for most people in our area, so they had to go to an unfamiliar one with unfamiliar doctors.

The stories I've read from some of my friends in the Atlanta area are mind-boggling. It took one friend of ours 14 hours to get home. She walked the last five miles.

I don't know if this is accurate, but based on the stories of when businesses and schools shut 'er down yesterday in the A-T-L, this at least looks about right:

If you think about that- look at how quickly things deteriorate: it's basically one hour from 12:14 to 1:15 where roads go from completely clear to utter chaos. While I see a lot of calls for heads to roll, how do you deal with something that hits that quickly and that ferociously when there was a chance it would be bad but also a significant chance that it wouldn't.

SI

[Ben E Lou]

I would imagine that in the short-term there will be over-erring on the side of extreme caution, schools and businesses closing at the hint of any possibility of snow in the forecast, mass over-preparation by the citizenry, etc. And then the first time the schools are closed "without cause" and businesses are open, forcing lots of people to take a day off to take care of the kiddos, the pendulum will start to swing back toward the other direction.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

If you think about that- look at how quickly things deteriorate: it's basically one hour from 12:14 to 1:15 where roads go from completely clear to utter chaos. While I see a lot of calls for heads to roll, how do you deal with something that hits that quickly and that ferociously when there was a chance it would be bad but also a significant chance that it wouldn't.

What that graphic doesn't show (for anyone unfamiliar with the geography of the Atlanta area) is that some of the most troubled places were outside of what's shown here. This map illustrates the complete chaos of the Atlanta interstate systems quite well ... it doesn't cover most of the counties where kids ended up trapped at school overnight because of piss poor planning/execution/decision making.

[JonInMiddleGA]

The fallout from this will probably get worse before it gets better. Multiple stories of students (middle-schoolers) in Cobb County simply being cut loose to find their own way home in the middle of things yesterday. For those where that might be commonplace you have to realize that these were areas with no sidewalks, accidents all over the place, kids that weren't dressed for 5-6 mile hikes, and apparently no parental approval & little notification that the students were even released.

If this doesn't result in some job losses I'll be really surprised. (Okay, actually I figured demotions on this one, there's a few superintendents I'd be surprised whether they're still employed beyond their current contracts)

[Blackadar]

Closed schools early in NC yesterday and again today. No problem getting the kids home, but now the Superintendent wants the kids to go on Saturday.

I'm not a believer in Saturday school, especially since I travel so I only see my kids on the weekend. Mine isn't going.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

The fallout from this will probably get worse before it gets better. Multiple stories of students (middle-schoolers) in Cobb County simply being cut loose to find their own way home in the middle of things yesterday. For those where that might be commonplace you have to realize that these were areas with no sidewalks, accidents all over the place, kids that weren't dressed for 5-6 mile hikes, and apparently no parental approval & little notification that the students were even released.

A buddy of mine from high school who was caught up in the Atlanta chaos described the whole scene as something you'd expect to see in a post-apocalyptic movie.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

A buddy of mine from high school who was caught up in the Atlanta chaos described the whole scene as something you'd expect to see in a post-apocalyptic movie.

The pics comparing yesterday's reality to The Walking Dead post-apocalypse scenes started pretty early, by last night I was seeing side-by-side shots somewhat frequently.

[Ben E Lou]

Looks like Atlanta-area snowfall totals were low overall:

Snowfall totals from Jan. 28 - CBS Atlanta News

Was it even sustained snow, or one or two big and unexpected squalls that hit at the worst possible time and did the typical Atlanta "turn-into-a-sheet-of-ice" thing?

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Was it even sustained snow, or one or two big and unexpected squalls that hit at the worst possible time?

Typically it was maybe 3 hours continuous snow, give or take. There was freezing rain ahead of it in some places, I think nearly everybody had freezing rain/sleet fall behind it.

Some of the places further east probably got more hours but less volume snow after that, but by then all hell had already broken loose.

[nilodor]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

Bear in mind that studded snow tires tend to not be allowed in many localities, since they'll chew up the roads something fierce if exposed directly to asphalt.

A set of good regular snow tires is likely all one needs for winter, and then only if you're going to be driving on actual snow or ice on a regular basis (as opposed to salt-created slush, as it more common in most large, cold metropolitan areas).

To be honest, we only got snow tires in Chicago on one of our cars the last few years, and this was specifically because I wanted the car my wife used for the kids to have them, as an extra precaution. I found, in Chicago, that with the use of salt almost all the time I was driving in slush anyway (at worst) and a good set of all-seasons that were good in water (rain) were good enough.

In Maine, where I am now, it's a different story. Maine uses a lot less salt, preferring sand instead, so you're often driving on packed snow, loose snow, and/or ice. We have Dunlop Graspics on the Subaru Forester and Michelin Ice-X's on the Honda Fit. Makes a huge difference to both. The Honda does amazingly well for such a light car, and driving the Subaru in snow is as if you're on rails.

In fact, a few weeks ago I had to drive from Bethel to Portland (roughly 70 miles on country roads) at night, after a day of freezing rain (and it was still coming down). There was probably 1/4 to 1/2 inch of ice on the road. While it was challenging, the combination of the tires, the fact that it's a Subaru (AWD, wider track, low center of gravity) and, most importantly, the experience of having grown up driving on ice and snow, meant I made it without too much trouble, but it's definitely not something I'd recommend to anyone without the experience or proper gear (like, I'm guessing, most of the poor folks caught in the storm down south).


Anyway, stay safe folks, and stay off the roads!

Well said. Even here it's pretty rare to run across people with studded tires. A lot of people still run all seasons. Studded tires have improved a lot in recent years so they don't tear up the roads. That being said winter tires are the way to go. The michelin x-ice are fantastic.

[bob]

I think it was the perfect storm of panic + poor planning + sheet of ice. Amazing. And the group of us walking to Woodstock multiple times described it as a scene from the Freezing Dead....

[Ben E Lou]

I guess I'm starting to wonder--especially given that graphic of the roads become gridlocked SO quickly--if there's even more blame on the forecasting/adjusting the forecast side of things. For those not as familiar with Georgia/Atlanta geopolitics, the counties are--compared to pretty much everywhere else in the country--extremely small. (I think Georgia has the 2nd-most counties of any state in the country and it's near the middle of the pack in square miles.) Point being, it's not like we're talking about "the Atlanta school system" or "the Atlanta city government" made decisions that impacted all of these people at one time. This looks like a case where a bunch of business and 10-15 city and county school systems all made the same decision at roughly the same time. To me--and I realize I'm guessing here--that would seem to point to them getting their information from the same source. I'm picturing the NWS in Peachtree City continually saying "no..this is gonna go away..don't worry...this is gonna go away..don't worry" and the respective school systems all listening to them until it was too late.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

I guess I'm starting to wonder--especially given that graphic of the roads become gridlocked SO quickly--if there's even more blame on the forecasting/adjusting the forecast side of things. For those not as familiar with Georgia/Atlanta geopolitics, the counties are--compared to pretty much everywhere else in the country--extremely small. (I think Georgia has the 2nd-most counties of any state in the country and it's near the middle of the pack in square miles.) Point being, it's not like we're talking about "the Atlanta school system" or "the Atlanta city government" made decisions that impacted all of these people at one time. This looks like a case where a bunch of business and 10-15 city and county school systems all made the same decision at roughly the same time. To me--and I realize I'm guessing here--that would seem to point to them getting their information from the same source. I'm picturing the NWS in Peachtree City continually saying "no..this is gonna go away..don't worry...this is gonna go away..don't worry" and the respective school systems all listening to them until it was too late.

Hmm, I dunno. I mean, let's really break down where things were the worst.

School systems that had major issues look to be Cherokee (where the snow was heavy by 10-1030 but they waited another couple hours to start moving kids), Cobb, Bartow, Gordon (less severe), with scattered issues in Fulton & Atlanta City. Other than that the problems seemed to have been more isolated - like one bus here or there - and subject to some bad luck. Ben will understand that right off but for the rest, that's four counties to the northwest of Atlanta by 30-90 minutes plus two that are more central / "Inside The Perimeter".

Aside from those systems, pretty much everyone else seemed to read & react relatively okay. Pickens, Gilmer, Fannin (east/northeast of those badly troubled four) all pretty much got kids home. Gwinnett (huge system to the northeast) for example, did not dismiss early at all & yet had no problems I've seen mentioned. Point being, they were able to read the data accurately & make a good decision.

As for the employers, yeah, there were some bad calls there it appears. For example last night I watched updates until 1am as a friend's dad FINALLY made it home from Lockheed (in Cobb) to Pickens County ... only took the van pool about 13 hours to make a 60-90 minute trip. Standard travel times for 1 hour trips seemed to be about 6-7 hours for everybody using the major interstates (75, 85, 285 ... or even major highway like 400). The NE side of the perimeter seemed to react especially poorly yesterday, tons of Roswell/Alpharetta travelers going nowhere fast.

Did the DOT respond appropriately? Still too early to say for sure IMO, although the reports of completely stand stills on the south end perimeter (285) without anyone seeing a single helpful vehicle of any kind for 3-4 hours could suggest some allocation of resources problems (that area was projected to get hammered pretty good all along). Certainly an inauspicious start for the procedures that were just revised after a similar snow/ice jam two years ago. I believe we'll hear a lot more about pre-treating programs in the weeks & months to come, those were supposed to be ramped up considerably but it's still uncertain whether they were poorly planned/executed or if they simply failed miserably.

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

The fallout from this will probably get worse before it gets better. Multiple stories of students (middle-schoolers) in Cobb County simply being cut loose to find their own way home in the middle of things yesterday. For those where that might be commonplace you have to realize that these were areas with no sidewalks, accidents all over the place, kids that weren't dressed for 5-6 mile hikes, and apparently no parental approval & little notification that the students were even released.

That's insane.

[JonInMiddleGA]

By the same token however, and with all of that stuff above said ... plain ol' stupidity can't be ruled out as a primary contributor.

You look at my FB wall this morning, the area around where I grew up, all the officials are being very blunt: if it's not absolutely essential travel, STAY OFF THE ROADS. There's still hundreds of abandoned/stuck/wrecked cars on the roads in Pickens/Gilmer/Cherokee counties (exurban to the north of Atlanta), road crews are having problems navigating that to even work on the roads and temps remain below 30, not expected to break 32 all day.

And yet my FB wall is filled with stuff like this
"so can anybody tell me how the roads are from hill city to jasper?"
"We just made it without any problems" & "Wasn't to bad last night, just drive slow!"

Far too many people seem to think that their travel is essential, while everyone else's isn't. The notion that just because you don't wreck doesn't mean that you aren't in the fucking way is largely foreign to some folks.

[DaddyTorgo]

Score...ummm...my post was stealth-deleted by a mod?

Or the board ate it. Take your pick.

[stevew]

Originally Posted by nilodor

Well said. Even here it's pretty rare to run across people with studded tires. A lot of people still run all seasons. Studded tires have improved a lot in recent years so they don't tear up the roads. That being said winter tires are the way to go. The michelin x-ice are fantastic.

I have to be out pretty much no matter how bad it gets, for now anyways. I think they're legal like nov-mar. I'm just curious if they're like zomg better than normal snow tires or not. I go all up in northern Pennsylbama

Dunno if anyone else is noticing but these PA roads are going to probably be garbage this summer. Worse than normal. Plows hacking them all to hell. And then everything is all wavy and shit from freezing and unfreezing. Seems worse than normal even.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Hmm, I dunno. I mean, let's really break down where things were the worst.

School systems that had major issues look to be Cherokee (where the snow was heavy by 10-1030 but they waited another couple hours to start moving kids), Cobb, Bartow, Gordon (less severe), with scattered issues in Fulton & Atlanta City. Other than that the problems seemed to have been more isolated - like one bus here or there - and subject to some bad luck. Ben will understand that right off but for the rest, that's four counties to the northwest of Atlanta by 30-90 minutes plus two that are more central / "Inside The Perimeter".

Aside from those systems, pretty much everyone else seemed to read & react relatively okay. Pickens, Gilmer, Fannin (east/northeast of those badly troubled four) all pretty much got kids home. Gwinnett (huge system to the northeast) for example, did not dismiss early at all & yet had no problems I've seen mentioned. Point being, they were able to read the data accurately & make a good decision.

As for the employers, yeah, there were some bad calls there it appears. For example last night I watched updates until 1am as a friend's dad FINALLY made it home from Lockheed (in Cobb) to Pickens County ... only took the van pool about 13 hours to make a 60-90 minute trip. Standard travel times for 1 hour trips seemed to be about 6-7 hours for everybody using the major interstates (75, 85, 285 ... or even major highway like 400). The NE side of the perimeter seemed to react especially poorly yesterday, tons of Roswell/Alpharetta travelers going nowhere fast.

Did the DOT respond appropriately? Still too early to say for sure IMO, although the reports of completely stand stills on the south end perimeter (285) without anyone seeing a single helpful vehicle of any kind for 3-4 hours could suggest some allocation of resources problems (that area was projected to get hammered pretty good all along). Certainly an inauspicious start for the procedures that were just revised after a similar snow/ice jam two years ago. I believe we'll hear a lot more about pre-treating programs in the weeks & months to come, those were supposed to be ramped up considerably but it's still uncertain whether they were poorly planned/executed or if they simply failed miserably.

Gotcha.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Looks like Atlanta-area snowfall totals were low overall:

Snowfall totals from Jan. 28 - CBS Atlanta News

Was it even sustained snow, or one or two big and unexpected squalls that hit at the worst possible time and did the typical Atlanta "turn-into-a-sheet-of-ice" thing?

I can say those are not very accurate. They are showing "trace" in Newton, and we had far more than trace amounts (closer to 2 to 2.5 inches).

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

By the same token however, and with all of that stuff above said ... plain ol' stupidity can't be ruled out as a primary contributor.

You look at my FB wall this morning, the area around where I grew up, all the officials are being very blunt: if it's not absolutely essential travel, STAY OFF THE ROADS. There's still hundreds of abandoned/stuck/wrecked cars on the roads in Pickens/Gilmer/Cherokee counties (exurban to the north of Atlanta), road crews are having problems navigating that to even work on the roads and temps remain below 30, not expected to break 32 all day.

And yet my FB wall is filled with stuff like this
"so can anybody tell me how the roads are from hill city to jasper?"
"We just made it without any problems" & "Wasn't to bad last night, just drive slow!"

Far too many people seem to think that their travel is essential, while everyone else's isn't. The notion that just because you don't wreck doesn't mean that you aren't in the fucking way is largely foreign to some folks.

Heh. Can't argue with that.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Typically it was maybe 3 hours continuous snow, give or take. There was freezing rain ahead of it in some places, I think nearly everybody had freezing rain/sleet fall behind it.

Some of the places further east probably got more hours but less volume snow after that, but by then all hell had already broken loose.

The snow was 6-8 hours continuous here, and that was the norm almost everywhere in the metro area. Once it started (about 12 or a little before), it didn't stop till 6 to 8pm (still was going here till 9:30). The flakes were only big and heavy at the beginning, but it was a constant stream without break.

Comparatively, I was right in the heart of the area that was predicted to be were the worse was supposed to hit (Griffin and Butts county) yesterday morning till about 1pm. Sleet started about 10am, and was constant, but when I left Spalding there was still nothing sticking. It was probably an hour after that before it was accumulating down there, because by 3pm they had closed bridges in that area.

Eatonton (that was supposed be ground zero) didn't even get snow till after dark. The weather predictions on this was just way, way off.

[stevew]

I don't get the thing where people have zero food in their house and freak out before the storms. Like why wouldn't you have some boxed goods around or maybe some frozen protein. Probably gets dicey if you only eat fresh veggies I guess. Maybe people actually go through life only eating at restaurants and can't cook?

[miked]

JiMGA gets it right, stupidity always wins. That and many people here just aren't used to driving in this weather and have no idea what to do. Also, when I lived in Boston, they were salting streets before the snow hits in anticipation. Everyone here knew it was going to snow for days, it started lightly (near me) around 11:30 or so. By 1pm it was coming down pretty hard and too late. All the snow trucks were stuck because they didn't send them out early. I mean, Emory didn't announce until 12:30 that they were closing at 1 or so, by then the roads were getting pretty bad. Just seems like every time this happens, everyone is completely unprepared and never thinks it will be that bad.

[miked]

And it snowed nonstop at my house from noon until around 8 or 9pm (though the hardest was from 1-4) and we got nearly 3.5".

[nilodor]

Originally Posted by stevew

I have to be out pretty much no matter how bad it gets, for now anyways. I think they're legal like nov-mar. I'm just curious if they're like zomg better than normal snow tires or not. I go all up in northern Pennsylbama

Dunno if anyone else is noticing but these PA roads are going to probably be garbage this summer. Worse than normal. Plows hacking them all to hell. And then everything is all wavy and shit from freezing and unfreezing. Seems worse than normal even.

They are better, but I would say the jump from all seasons to winter tires is bigger than the jump from winter to studded. I think it would only be worth it if you were driving in areas that tend to ice over a lot or have lots of hard packed snow. If you're going to encounter a lot of warm days or bare roads it's probably not worth it. Also studded tires on pavement are loud, it's kinda like having bees chasing after you.

The best winter tires right now are the Michelin x-ice xi3. If you're going to go studded look for the nokian hakkapeliita (sp?) 7.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by stevew

Maybe people actually go through life only eating at restaurants and can't cook?

Not entirely far-fetched.

But I think at least as much of it is more in the sense of "nothing in the house that doesn't require cooking" ... in case the power goes off.

That's more the thought process here

[molson]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

A buddy of mine from high school who was caught up in the Atlanta chaos described the whole scene as something you'd expect to see in a post-apocalyptic movie.

This is Montgomery, Alabama. Note the car that burst into flames for some reason.

http://imgur.com/a/woBtl

[Alan T]

Now on to the next phase of this snowpocolypse....

the blame game!

Top weather guy to those who talk of ‘unexpected’ Snowjam: ‘Wrong, wrong, and wrong!’ | Political Insider blog

[GrantDawg]

Entertaining television on CNN. Ashleigh Banfield was trapped in the traffic, and she is pissed. She interviewed mayor, and I thought it was going to come to blows.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

Entertaining television on CNN. Ashleigh Banfield was trapped in the traffic, and she is pissed. She interviewed mayor, and I thought it was going to come to blows.

My wife mentioned Kasim basically losing it (which is something he makes it a very high priority to never do in public).

That said, he's right about how the interstates running through downtown ATL are not his to maintain.

[Thomkal]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

Entertaining television on CNN. Ashleigh Banfield was trapped in the traffic, and she is pissed. She interviewed mayor, and I thought it was going to come to blows.

Aww too bad I missed that-Carol Costello interviewed him earlier, she too was trapped in traffic, and was pretty incredulous at his responses to her questions-that the people of Atlanta should not be mad at him. And kept emphazing that there were no deaths in Atlanta from it like that didn't mean there were no people in danger of injury or dying at all during it. Never said the word sorry or apologize in his comments. Ya know if there are still people trapped in cars 12 hours+ after it happens the least he could have done was show sympathy and let the citizens know that help was coming.