Be Safe Everyone.

[Tom Geiger]

 

I live a bit east of Bill in Pennsylvania.  We probably have 18" so far, and we still have 24 hours of steady snow to come.  There are a few brave souls out there with snow blowers already. A town plow just tried to go up the hill and gave up.  Send for a bigger truck! We are inside for the duration. Have plenty of food and beer.  Our only concern is losing power, so we have the gas fireplace and oven on since they both have an electric ignition.  I also have my power station charged for power and to charge the cell phones if necessary.

And a shot from an upstairs window..   the creek is nearly covered over.  I'm not going out there!  I think I'll go work on a model. The only down side is I can't use my paint booth since I put the exhaust out the window.  

[Madd Trucker]

Iam   55 miles south of  Washington DC   at this  time  where I am  we have  20  inches of  snow   and under  travel restrictions     haven't  seena   car  or  plow  truck all  day  winds at   50  mph  and snow  drifting  snow  blower  works  but   the  snow   fills back in

[High octane]

Iam   55 miles south of  Washington DC   at this  time  where I am  we have  20  inches of  snow   and under  travel restrictions     haven't  seena   car  or  plow  truck all  day  winds at   50  mph  and snow  drifting  snow  blower  works  but   the  snow   fills back in

Wow, your storm sounds "brutal."

[Madd Trucker]

I will  wait  till tomorrow  to  clear my  drive  way   just head of a  partial  building  collapse in  Maryland   and  18  wheelers  jackknifed  all over   . Just  talked  to a friend ofo mine  with a tow   truck   o u  get  stupid and  go  out and  get stuck of  off the  road   it  will be  200  bucks

[Tom Geiger]

The photo I posted earlier of my deck is null and void!      The bench has all but disappeared at this point!

I will have to head out there with the snowblower and make a few passes just to get the depth out of the driveway and sidewalk.  I do have 250 feet of sidewalk.

[Ace-Garageguy]

It didn't start snowing here until about 8:30 last night, but this time everyone had the good sense to leave work very early. The streets were empty by rush hour, and even though the main roads never really got bad, it's smarter for people who can't drive in snow to just stay home.

By dawn, there wasn't a soul out, no traffic whatsoever, and the street in front of my house was a sheet of ice. The sun's been in and out for a couple of hours, and the ice has sublimated...not thawed, because the temp is still sub-freezing. The main roads are clear and dry.

The bugger of it, for me, is that I'm living in a house as I renovate it, my insulation is still incomplete, and I don't have the central heat operational again yet. The wind is gusting up to 30MPH, it's 27⁰ F outside, and I can't get it any warmer than 52⁰ F in the house with all the propane burners running.

I thought I'd finally get some model-bench time, but it's just too miserable friggin' cold.  

EDIT: Never mind. I was being a whiny baby. Just went outside to tie down a couple of tarps, and now it feels like balmy Bahama weather in here. Everything is relative. Think I'll put an electric space heater under the model bench and get to buildin'.   

Edited January 23, 2016 by Ace-Garageguy

[1930fordpickup]

Here is what it looks like this morning and we are only about halfway through the storm.

Here in Michigan we would just shovel out the center, pile it up for a wind break and start the fire.  You just have to pick up the empty bottles from the snow bank in the spring. 

 

[blunc]

I hope all peeps in the storm area survive okay.

this type of weather reminds me of why I would rather sweat than freeze, I'll take scorching summers over frostbite any day.

[Harry P.]

I was just watching the TV news. Unbelievable! One area of W. Virginia got 40 inches. FORTY INCHES in one day!!! And then they cut to a reporter who was standing in the street in mid-town Manhattan... not a car in sight. In mid-town freaking Manhattan! Then to a shot of LaGuardia... nobody there. DC has two feet of snow, and it's still snowing. People trapped on the interstate in Kentucky overnight with the National Guard going car to car, delivering food, water, and gas to keep the engines running and the heat on. Wow.

This "global warming" thing is a real monster...

 

[Ace-Garageguy]

I was just watching the TV news. Unbelievable! One area of W. Virginia got 40 inches. FORTY INCHES in one day!!! And then they cut to a reporter who was standing in the street in mid-town Manhattan... not a car in sight. In mid-town freaking Manhattan! Then to a shot of LaGuardia... nobody there. DC has two feet of snow, and it's still snowing. People trapped on the interstate in Kentucky overnight with the National Guard going car to car, delivering food, water, and gas to keep the engines running and the heat on. Wow.

This "global warming" thing is a real monster...

 

Some theories say global warming, putting more heat into the atmosphere, in turn creates more active weather systems...both hot weather systems and cold weather systems. More heat in the atmosphere, they posit, allows it to hold more moisture, and since there's more moisture in suspension, when it precipitates out, there's more of it. More rain, more snow in SOME areas, but a measurable increase in mean atmospheric temperature worldwide.

Just because it's real cold and snowy SOMEWHERE doesn't disprove OR prove the case for climate change (AKA global warming). And WEATHER and CLIMATE are two entirely different (but related) concepts.

Edited January 24, 2016 by Ace-Garageguy

[MrObsessive]

As of now according to our Harrisburg Intl Airport, we got 28.6 inches and it's still snowing! This is THE BIGGEST snowstorm we've ever had in this area since records were kept, and then we'll have blowing snow to deal with.  

My biggest gripe will be where to put all the snow since my car is literally BURIED in the back of my house. I had a neighbor who lives a couple houses from me have her car towed. As I mentioned before, the road I live on is a snow emergency route, and there's NO PARKING ON THE STREET while the emergency is in effect. Well, she insisted on leaving her car there knowing a storm was coming and sure enough, the tow truck came with the police there, and they scooped it up and took it away.

So while it's a pain to deal with all the snow at the back of the house where I park, better that than to deal with having your car to God knows where.

[Ace-Garageguy]

As I mentioned before, the road I live on is a snow emergency route, and there's NO PARKING ON THE STREET while the emergency is in effect. Well, she insisted on leaving her car there knowing a storm was coming and sure enough, the tow truck came with the police there, and they scooped it up and took it away.

So while it's a pain to deal with all the snow at the back of the house where I park, better that than to deal with having your car to God knows where.

Sucks her car got towed, but I would surmise the no-parking rule is there to ease the work of the plows that most likely keep the "snow emergency" route open for ambulances, firetrucks, police cars and the like...so the plow drivers can plow without having to watch out for parked cars and keep from plowing over them.

Seems to make sense to heed the rules in this case.

[Harry P.]

Some theories say global warming, putting more heat into the atmosphere, in turn creates more active weather systems...both hot weather systems and cold weather systems. More heat in the atmosphere, they posit, allows it to hold more moisture, and since there's more moisture in suspension, when it precipitates out, there's more of it. More rain, more snow in SOME areas, but a measurable increase in mean atmospheric temperature worldwide.

Just because it's real cold and snowy SOMEWHERE doesn't disprove OR prove the case for climate change (AKA global warming). And WEATHER and CLIMATE are two entirely different (but related) concepts.

Yes, the global warming crowd has now changed their tune... they aren't calling it "global warming" anymore, as they initially did.. now they've changed their tune and it's "climate change,' which conveniently includes all weather.. So they're right no matter what. Pretty clever.

Planet getting warmer? Climate Change.

Record snowfalls? Climate Change.

Windy? Climate Change.

Not enough wind? Climate Change.

Sheesh...

[Ace-Garageguy]

Yes, the global warming crowd has now changed their tune... they aren't calling it "global warming" anymore, as they initially did.. now they've changed their tune and it's "climate change,' which conveniently includes all weather.. So they're right no matter what. Pretty clever.

Planet getting warmer? Climate Change.

Record snowfalls? Climate Change.

Windy? Climate Change.

Not enough wind? Climate Change.

Sheesh...

Agreed.

And MY point, which I should have stated clearly, is that there's simply not enough data available yet, and the data that we have isn't well enough understood, to make any sweeping statements as to whether the weather really IS being influenced by a long-term rise in atmospheric temperature, and if so, what the cause is.

The question has been politicized and over-simplified to the point of absurdity.

[Tom Geiger]

so the plow drivers can plow without having to watch out for parked cars and keep from plowing over them.

Seems to make sense to heed the rules in this case.

Yup!  My old town in NJ had the no parking rule so the plows could clear the streets properly. They never did tow cars though, so the law had no power.  My idiot next door neighbors would leave their cars at the curb, so the plow would swing out before that,  leaving the front of my house unplowed.  My cars were in the driveway, and now I had to dig twice the snow from the street to get them out.  Then I had to dig the snow from the street to the curb to be able to park my cars in the street afterwards

[Harry P.]

The Earth has been undergoing climate change continuously for billions of years.

At one point the Earth had a tropical climate, during which time dinosaurs evolved and ruled the planet for millions of years, all the way from the northernmost parts of what is now Canada down to the tip of South America. Then the Ice Age came, and the cold-blooded dinosaurs couldn't adapt, and were replaced by the rise of warm-blooded mammals. In the early middle ages, long before any coal-fired plants were releasing CO2, there was another "mini" ice age where the average temperatures dropped noticeably. And so on and so forth. How arrogant of us to believe that our activities on Earth these past, what, hundred years or so, are causing large-scale and sweeping climate change, when climate change has been the norm for billions of years... long before the first self-proclaimed Hollywood celeb or politician "expert" on climate change ever came along.

[MrObsessive]

Sucks her car got towed, but I would surmise the no-parking rule is there to ease the work of the plows that most likely keep the "snow emergency" route open for ambulances, firetrucks, police cars and the like...so the plow drivers can plow without having to watch out for parked cars and keep from plowing over them.

Seems to make sense to heed the rules in this case.

Well, in a sense there's a bit of Karma at play here. She's one of those kind of neighbors that HAS to be parked right in front of her door no matter what! I had enough of the butt of her car parked partially in the driveway of my place, so I called the police as technically she was illegally parked (the corners are painted yellow). This was the last resort as I had (a couple times) ASKED her to please move up about five feet or so I can get out easier and avoid an accident. 

They must have ticketed her as she no longer parked that way. I got soooo tired of having to swing way out into opposing traffic to avoid hitting the back of her car, so I simply called the police and let them take care of it. 

Now with this really big snow we've had, she's now faced with not just the towing fees, but also the fines and storage fees for wherever her car is. Too add to that, where in the world could she put it as EVERYTHING is snowed in, unless you had a space beforehand?

[Harry P.]

Bill... how are you enjoying that cat food? Still got enough on hand? 

[Ace-Garageguy]

The Earth has been undergoing climate change continuously for billions of years...climate change has been the norm for billions of years... long before the first self-proclaimed Hollywood celeb or politician "expert" on climate change ever came along.

Again, agreed. But science has been long trying to establish a cause-and-effect relationship that could explain this see-sawing of global mean temperatures.

The "nuclear winter" supposedly caused by a meteorite impact on the Yucatan Peninsula 66 million years back is widely thought to be the cause of the massive global cooling "ice age" and the extinction of the dinosaurs. Not proven, but the theory seems to hold up pretty well if looked at from a variety of perspectives...including the presence of a very fine layer of iridium all over the globe, consistent with a huge explosion of a meteorite at the right time in history. (Ref:   http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/asteroid-killed-dinosaurs/    )

The "mini ice age" you refer to above is thought to be the result or particulate matter, spewed from several volcanic eruptions, blocking sunlight.

From Wikipee...

"In a 2012 paper, Miller et al. link the Little Ice Age to an "unusual 50-year-long episode with four large sulfur-rich explosive eruptions, each with global sulfate loading >60 Tg" and notes that "large changes in solar irradiance are not required."^[6]

Throughout the Little Ice Age, the world experienced heightened volcanic activity.^[73] When a volcano erupts, its ash reaches high into the atmosphere and can spread to cover the whole earth. The ash cloud blocks out some of the incoming solar radiation, leading to worldwide cooling that can last up to two years after an eruption. Also emitted by eruptions is sulfur, in the form of sulfur dioxide gas. When it reaches the stratosphere, it turns into sulfuric acid particles, which reflect the sun's rays, further reducing the amount of radiation reaching Earth's surface.

A recent study found that an especially massive tropical volcanic eruption in 1258, possibly of Mount Rinjani, followed by three smaller eruptions in 1268, 1275, and 1284 did not allow the climate to recover. This may have caused the initial cooling, and the 1452–53 eruption of Kuwae in Vanuatu triggered a second pulse of cooling.^[6][14] The cold summers can be maintained by sea-ice/ocean feedbacks long after volcanic aerosols are removed."

 

The apparent atmospheric warming trend over the last hundred years or so was being investigated by scientists..."long before the first self-proclaimed Hollywood celeb or politician "expert" on climate change ever came along" who were simply trying to UNDERSTAND WHY it was doing what it seemed to be doing.

Science is supposed to work by trying to understand, by looking at all the available evidence, and trying to piece together a rational explanation, hopefully one that can be proven experimentally.

When one UN-PROVEN OPINION or another is politicized and exploited, nobody wins. This is the case with climate change, global warming, whatever you want to label it.

Though there appear to be GOOD REASONS for the climate changes of the past, the real cause of this current apparent fluctuation is still a matter of conjecture and theory...not fact.

Edited January 24, 2016 by Ace-Garageguy

[MrObsessive]

Bill... how are you enjoying that cat food? Still got enough on hand? 

My CATS seemed to like what I got them. As for me, I enjoyed some leftover pizza I've had in the freezer for awhile, some ice cream, and a brownie. Besides being snowed in, today's a "cheat day" for me.  

Tomorrow it's back to normal food wise-----well almost! With all the shoveling I have to do (and probably re-shoveling due to drifting), I may stray a bit and have something "decadent". 

[Harry P.]

Though there appear to be GOOD REASONS for the climate changes of the past, the real cause of this current apparent fluctuation is still a matter of conjecture and theory...not fact.

Exactly.  Conjecture and theory.

So why all the hand-wringing over "man-made climate change" when in fact we have no idea if it's "man made" or just the continuation of ages-old, natural climate change that has been going on forever, whether man was around or not?

[Ace-Garageguy]

Exactly.  Conjecture and theory.

So why all the hand-wringing over "man-made climate change" when in fact we have no idea if it's "man made" or just the continuation of ages-old, natural climate change that has been going on forever, whether man was around or not?

Well, the thing is that there's no apparent obvious reason, no apparent cause-and-effect relationship that SEEMS to be a likely cause for the apparent atmospheric warming, other than the apparent impact of ever-rising and measurable levels of CO₂ in Earth's atmosphere since the dawn of the industrial revolution.

It's as simple as that. It's the only obviously apparent reason. That's not to say it IS the reason.

And as we know, hysteria makes media copy, fodder for political agendas, and opportunities for research-grant funding.

It really has nothing to do with finding the TRUTH...except to the scientists who are primarily concerned with truth.

[Harry P.]

My CATS seemed to like what I got them. As for me, I enjoyed some leftover pizza I've had in the freezer for awhile, some ice cream, and a brownie. Besides being snowed in, today's a "cheat day" for me.  

Tomorrow it's back to normal food wise-----well almost! With all the shoveling I have to do (and probably re-shoveling due to drifting), I may stray a bit and have something "decadent". 

After shoveling all that snow you got, you deserve to treat yourself!

[Nacho Z]

I was just watching the TV news. Unbelievable! One area of W. Virginia got 40 inches. FORTY INCHES in one day!!! And then they cut to a reporter who was standing in the street in mid-town Manhattan... not a car in sight. In mid-town freaking Manhattan! Then to a shot of LaGuardia... nobody there. DC has two feet of snow, and it's still snowing. People trapped on the interstate in Kentucky overnight with the National Guard going car to car, delivering food, water, and gas to keep the engines running and the heat on. Wow.

This "global warming" thing is a real monster...

The local news reported 22 inches here in Fairmont.  Normally having a two stall driveway is a good thing, but not when you have to shovel it...

[Ace-Garageguy]

So when the "Badlands" of the Dakotas and the rest of the mid west were underwater it must have been either global warming, the norm or climate change.  Unfortunately The "experts" are changing the data to support their theories.This is IMHO no doubt to keep the money flowing to them because grants and studies are the only way they would get paid for their work.  

If we had data for thousands of years that was taken from the same data points with the same environment the majority of the general public would be able to make informed decisions.  As it is now this is an impossibility and any minute change to a forecast modeling program will create wide variations when looked at over a span of decades or centuries.

 

While I agree entirely with the rest of your position, i have to disagree adamantly with the part highlighted in red.

The "majority of the general public" have no clue as to how one makes an informed decision, and most of them lack the general knowledge to be considered remotely "informed" anyway.