Can we take a minute to discuss winter weather terms?

[hedgehog]

1. Unless you live within 30 miles of one of the Great Lakes, it's not a lake effect storm.

2. If you can see your hood ornament, it's not a white-out. Purists will insist it's not a whiteout if you can actually see anything past the windshield.

3. According to the US weather service, a blizzard must have sustained 35mph (56 km/h) winds which lead to blowing snow and cause visibilities of 500ft or less, lasting for at least 3 hours. Environment Canada adds a requirement of wind chill below -25C/-15F.

It doesn't matter how much snow you got last night, unless the wind was howling like a banshee, it wasn't a blizzard!



Geez, ever since Jim Cantore started showing up , everyone wants to pretend their winter weather is as ludicrous as ours is here in the Snow Belt!

[Swede]

1. It was -30C here this morning,windchills in the minus forties.

Not much snow,but dang it was chilly.

[hedgehog]

2. Uppe Midwest?

[Swede]

3. Saskatchewan.

It came fast,and it came hard.

[hedgehog]

4. Is there a special name for those storms in your area?

[Swede]

6. No,blizzard is it.

In 2007 we had a bad one. The freeway was like something from a Mad Max movie,so many abandoned cars. I just drove home doing no more that 25-30 mph,when it got to zero visibility I'd just coast,hoping the ditch or a stalled car wasn't in front of me.

[hedgehog]

7. True story: A friend was creeping home during a white out, following the

road more from memory than anything else. He managed to find his driveway and eased to a stop in front of his garage. That's when the car that had been following his tail lights hit him from behind.

[rurallib]

17. I will never forget going into a tunnel made of snow

- we'd had so much snow & drifting that the snow on the sides of the road was over car top -
anyway I entered this tunnel behind a small truck and came out following a car. I have no idea what happened. As far as I could tell those tail lights never left my sight.

[semillama]

22. Ha!

I've been in similar situations - driving home from college at night during heavy snowfalls, basically creeping along and seeing where the tracks in the snow are going and praying the guy who made them didn't end up in the ditch and was going as far as I was!

[hedgehog]

25. I think it's Garrison Keillor that has the story about opening the driver's door

and leaning out to follow the tire tracks in the snow only to realize as he drove carefully into the ditch that they were his own tire tracks.

[CreekDog]

36. That's how Lake Wobegon Days ends

I gave that book to my friend and after finishing it, he said, "that guy is really dark".

[tigereye]

27. oh, no!

[hedgehog]

9. I'm going to allow you to refer to a storm with a -40 windchill as a blizzard,

even if there is no snow!

But you people who woke up this morning with 6" of snow in your drive way who claim you had a "real blizzard last night"?

No, no you didn't.

What you had is properly termed "a snow fall", a "snow storm", or if you live in the snow belt, "a light dusting".

Snow storm





Blizzard



Blizzard

[rebel with a cause]

39. 6" of snow is nothing.

6" of ice is hell. Trees bent from the weight of the icy limbs, power lines broken from the ice build up, no heat in the houses and me laying on my back in the icy yard. Yeah, I will argue that 6" of ice is hell. :evilfrown: ;)

[Ptah]

5. Sounds like home on the prairie

[kimi]

8. Yep those are the correct weather terms

We moved to the DC area from northern Japan, and before that, Wyoming. Places where winter weather is common and not something to become hysterical about. In this area, the school district cancels school for 1/2 inch of snow on the ground. Once they cancelled for the threat of a winter storm. And of course not one flake fell. The kids were thrilled.

[semillama]

23. I used to get annoyed about people freaking out about anything less than 20 inches

but what changed my mind was an appreciation that communities that aren't in the snow belt just don't have the resources to deal with snowfalls over 3 inches, so everything gets screwed up.

[hedgehog]

26. It's not so much that they get freaked out over a little snow. You're right,

they generally live in communities that have no salt trucks or snow plows. What gets me is that it snows like clockwork every year and they behave as if it's never happened before, every year!


I live in a place that goes though a natural disaster every year with a major natural disaster every few years. No one notices because our buildings are built to withstand the disaster and we just automatically clean up the results overnight and go about our business!

You don't believe me?

OK, you try walking or driving through 2 feet of snow and then tell me that's not a natural disaster!

BTW - the other 9 or 10 months of the year, the weather here is really great!

[fizzgig]

10. the blizzard one always irritated the crap out of me

when i was at the newspaper, i usually got stuck writing the story when we'd get a big storm. as part of those stories, i'd have to reference the biggest storm in recent memory and, even though it was incorrect and contrary to ap style, they'd insist i refer to it as the blizzard of 2003 rather than the storm.

i argued with my editors every time about it, too

[Archae]

11. Back in the 1880's we had a snow hurricane.

One winter, the wind was hitting 90 mph and the snow was just plain thick.

It hit all the way from Green Bay to Chicago.

[struggle4progress]

12. Quick guide to interpretting winter weather terms in Durham NC:

Chilly - 70F (put on a sweater)
Blizzard - some white stuff sticks to the lawn
Snow emergency - 3/8" (abandon your car in the road & walk home)

[Drunken Irishman]

13. I disagree with your first one.

I live fifteen or so miles from the Great Salt Lake. THAT does give us lake effect.

It is, after all, the sixth largest lake in America and the largest outside of the Great Lakes.

So, yeah!

[hedgehog]

20. I wondered about that when I wrote my definition. How often do you get

snow off the Great Salt Lake, and how much?

[Drunken Irishman]

32. It depends...

But I found this...

http://blogs.usatoday.com/weather/2006/02/great_salt_lake.html

According to the Utah Center for Climate and Water, there are 5 or 6 lake-effect snowstorms each year in Utah. Such snowstorms tend to develop when a cold northwest storm moves over the warmer waters of the Great Salt Lake. The warm, moist lake air then rises into the cold air above, causing dense clouds to form. The clouds then drop heavy snow downwind from the lake.

We got hit last night by a storm, but I don't think there was any lake-effect.

[Mudoria]

14. Snow is that stuff that falls every few years isn't it?

Been awhile since I've seen an inch of it on the ground...

[JNelson6563]

15. Here's one

"Pounding" Example: We are in for a real pounding over the next couple of days.

I'm in Traverse City (MI), we'll get 20 inches easy by Thursday afternoon here in the pinky of the mitten. W00T!!

Julie

[hedgehog]

35. In Western and Central New York, we call that a dump as in

Watertown got hit by a dump last night.....

[brendan120678]

16. Except Syracuse does get Lake Effect snow...

and they're about 40 miles from Oswego, which I believe is the closest point of a Great Lake to them.

Fulton is about halfway between the two, isn't it?

[hedgehog]

21. My mistake - I was thinking of Syracuse as 30 miles from Fulton,

and I should have been thinking of the 40 miles from Oswego.

OK - Lake effect: something that happens within 40 miles down wind of one of the Great Lakes or the Great Salt Lake.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

18. What is this thing you call "winter"?

Oh, and Jim Cantore will single handedly kick your winter weather's ass!

[hedgehog]

28. My dad is hooked on the weather channel. He really enjoyed the time Jim Cantorecantore

showed up for a weather event in Buffalo. Jim was standing there on camera, talking about the really vicious weather, and people were walking by in the background, mugging for the camera, local pizza joints and coffee shops were walking up to him to make an making on-camera delivery, etc

[rurallib]

19. Here are some pictures of the blizzard of 2007 in western Iowa

http://www.extremeinstability.com/07-3-1.htm

IIRC that was the last moisture they got until darn near September.

[hedgehog]

24. Nice shots of an actual blizzard. Notice that the snow is actually

traveling in a horizontal direction.

My husband pointed out that around here, we occasionally get whiteouts with no wind, that is the snow is actually falling at such a heavy rate that you can't see though it (whiteout) but with no wind it doesn't count as a blizzard.

Then you get the truly bizarre situation in which surface winds are whipping dry snow around so much you can't see a foot ahead, but you can look straight up and see a blue sky!

[Deep13]

29. What's a squall?

Is it anything like a shitstorm?

[hedgehog]

31. Ah yes, the famous snow squall. Let me give you an example:

I left the house for work one day and drove 5 miles west on clean pavement under a blue sky. I took a right turn and headed north. I saw a few flakes falling gently. 45 seconds/or half a mile later, I couldn't see the road. I tried looking up and following the utility poles. That worked for 1/4 mile until the utility line took a bend to the right and i carefully eased the car into the ditch. Two minutes later, nothing but clear blue skies!

I called AAA; I think about 10 different cars stopped to make sure I was OK in the 30 minutes I had to wait.

That's one thing we never get credit for. Everyone always talks about Southern hospitality, but people in the snow belts take care of each other when we're in trouble.

[hedgehog]

30. BTW

Whiteout




Near Whiteout





Not white out

[EndersDame]

33. It is considered Freezing in Texas if it is below 50F

I will take a scorching Texas summer over a midwestern/northern winter any day of the week!

[hedgehog]

34. I can always add a sweater or wrap another scarf over my face.....

I can only get so naked....

:yoiks:

[Mutley]

37. "Blizzard" is so much easier to say than "that really big snow storm we got that one time"

Just sayin'. :P

[hedgehog]

38. We found out last night that the Weather Bureau in Buffalo has been giving

names to snow storms for years! Why didn't they ever tell the rest of us!

http://www.erh.noaa.gov/er/buf/lakeffect/lake0102/b/stormbsum.html

http://www.erh.noaa.gov/buf/lakeffect/indexlk.html