The Weather Outside Is Frightful
So, Queensland, which has been averaging one cyclone every 5 years, has two in a week, including what is one of the worst, if not the worst, storm to ever come ashore, Yasi.
Then there is the US Thunderblizzard that dumped more that 5 inches of snow on 22 states, more than ½ inch of ice on 7 states, and affected 100 million Americans. Now, Lady Min is semi-used to getting 20 inches of snow, but this isn’t over.
This is the evening forecast for Houston, Texas:
Snow…sleet and light freezing rain likely in the evening…then snow and sleet after midnight. Snow and sleet accumulation around 2 inches. Ice accumulation of less than one tenth of an inch. Lows in the mid 20s. North winds 10 to 15 mph. Chance of precipitation 70 percent in the evening increasing to 80 percent after midnight.
You think the Midwest looks bad, wait until you watch them winching SUVs out of the Ship Channel and bayous. The roads in Houston are not snow friendly. They get adventurous in the rain. Steve Bates really doesn’t need the aggravation, especially with Texas experiencing rolling electrical cuts.
If you are feeling active, OWL wouldn’t say no to some help digging out her car.
2 comments
Houstonians know how to drive in rain, because it’s common here. Snow is a different matter, and ice… ice must be the worst. No one here has equipment to drive in any kind of frozen precip, and certainly no one has the skills (including me). As it turned out, we did not get snow (see the quote in an addendum to my post today: apparently NWS gave up its weather balloons in our area back in the early Nineties, presumably “cutting government waste”) but we got plenty of ice and lots of traffic accidents this morning.
The real problem with Houston isn’t drivers, it’s the design of the roads. They don’t shed the water like the roads in the Northeast, and the turn radii on the on and off ramps are too tight for slick surface conditions. I don’t care if you have studded snow tires, you have to slow to a crawl to use some of the ramps on Houston’s roads. I know that because I have been through Houston with studded snow tires during the winter on my way to Florida from Northern California. I needed the winter tires for the start of the trip, and I needed them in Houston. I had chains in the car because I thought the California Highway Patrol might require them to let me through the mountains, but they wouldn’t have helped.
If you got the snow, even an inch, on top of that ice, there would be no way of moving without a tracked vehicle. That used to happen the first snowfall of the year in Rochester, NY, and is how I learned to leap over patrol cars to avoid being crushed.
Yes, I remember the massacre at the weather service and military, as Bush I went to austerity to try to coverage up the deficits he and Reagan created. It was a major factor in the election of Bill Clinton.