Wednesday/Thursday snow/ice storm thread (Feb 17 & 18)

[RegGuheert]

Unfortunately, some of the models are calling for more ice and/or snow in Texas.

Here in Northern VA we are expecting either snow or sleet.  Snow accumulation is supposed to be about 8 inches (they keep changing the number).

Right now it is cold, bright, and sunny, so this is a great solar day so far.  Time to go outside and make sure I can get the generator running.

Where are you and what are you expecting from this storm?

[Soror]

Midwest here and we just have snow today. Original forecasts called for freezing rain but that changed, thank goodness.  Forecast is showing more freezing rain and sleet on Sunday and Monday. 

[Sdel]

We have had rain since midnight and it’s expected to continue until mid afternoon. Temps to hold around 30 all day and down to upper teens tonight.  Repeat for Thursday, with temps just above freezing and no rain at the moment.

[Pawz4me]

Piedmont NC. Expecting a quarter to a half inch of ice, and maybe more. Our ground is absolutely, totally saturated already so it won't take much weight at all on trees to cause a lot of them to come down. We had a smaller ice event this past weekend, and a lot of people a few miles to the north of us were just getting their power back on yesterday and now they have to anticipate it happening again. I feel for them. I'm gathering flashlights, digging out the camping stove, making sure everything is charged, catching up on the laundry, all the other usual prepping stuff.

[RegGuheert]

4 minutes ago, Pawz4me said:

Piedmont NC. Expecting a quarter to a half inch of ice, and maybe more.

Yeah, I saw on one of the models last night (Canadian, maybe?) that parts of NC could get nearly 2" of ice!! I guess that's extremely unlikely since the models did not agree, but still it is pretty scary.

[mlktwins]

Northern VA too.  Expecting some snow, but am more worried about the ice.  We will be hunkered down tomorrow and Friday.  Our local weather guy (as in lives in my city) is saying 2-4 inches of snow.  The more snow, the less ice we will have.  And...vice versa.  We will see as the last few storms haven't been much of anything for us despite the weather forecast.

[ScoutTN]

Nashville, TN

We had freezing fog/black ice, then an inch of snow, then an inch or more of sleet/ice, then a few inches of powdery snow. More snow expected tonight. Temps warming up to mid 20s in the daytime today, but only 15 with the wind.

Might not seem like much to those farther north, but my city has no resources to clear residential streets and many parts of my city are steeply hilly with curvy roads that have no shoulder and drainage ditches in both sides. I live at the top of a hill, so we are stuck until it melts. One vehicle has gone down my street since Saturday evening, a roadside emergency truck - the guy lives 4 houses down - he got called into work and hasn’t been home since. The salt trucks cannot even get up some of the secondaries; they slide back down. The interstates are ok, at least from what I’ve seen on the news.

Thankfully, we have power. Many homes here have natural gas heat, so perhaps less of a strain on the grid that Texas. Also, gas heat is HOT, so the electric fans that move the air run less. 
 

[PinkTulip]

I live in the Rocky Mountains and woke up to 14” of snow overnight. One area about 30 minutes from me has had 4 feet of snow in the last 48 hours. But, we are used to this and have all the supplies and equipment to keep us going without problem. I really feel for all of you who are in areas where the weather you are having is not normal. Hang in there - better days are coming! 

[RegGuheert]

The snow started falling sometime after 2:00 AM this morning.  We are probably getting more than an inch per hour right now with a little sleet mixed in, but this is supposed to be the heaviest period.  Forecast is still for around 10 inches of snow or about half that if it turns to sleet soon.

Thankfully, we are not supposed to get freezing rain here, but there are still forecasts for over an inch of rain in southern Virginia.  From what I saw, it might come in two parts: once this morning and again later this evening.  Is anyone in southern Virginia dealing with that today?

[Carrie12345]

I thought I was supposed to be expecting snow by 4am in NEPA, but I guess it’s late. 4-8” of mixed precipitation predicted, to sit on top of the giant mounds currently encased in ice.

[RegGuheert]

14 minutes ago, Carrie12345 said:

I thought I was supposed to be expecting snow by 4am in NEPA, but I guess it’s late. 4-8” of mixed precipitation predicted, to sit on top of the giant mounds currently encased in ice.

Here is an entertaining video from Ryan Hall Y'all showing what the various weather models predict for today across the US.  (My apologies if you do not speak the language!)

[fairfarmhand]

19 hours ago, ScoutTN said:

Nashville, TN

We had freezing fog/black ice, then an inch of snow, then an inch or more of sleet/ice, then a few inches of powdery snow. More snow expected tonight. Temps warming up to mid 20s in the daytime today, but only 15 with the wind.

Might not seem like much to those farther north, but my city has no resources to clear residential streets and many parts of my city are steeply hilly with curvy roads that have no shoulder and drainage ditches in both sides. I live at the top of a hill, so we are stuck until it melts. One vehicle has gone down my street since Saturday evening, a roadside emergency truck - the guy lives 4 houses down - he got called into work and hasn’t been home since. The salt trucks cannot even get up some of the secondaries; they slide back down. The interstates are ok, at least from what I’ve seen on the news.

Thankfully, we have power. Many homes here have natural gas heat, so perhaps less of a strain on the grid that Texas. Also, gas heat is HOT, so the electric fans that move the air run less. 
 

Same here. I live less than an hour outside your city. Just in a different county.

We live on a farm road on the outskirts of our county. Because we’re so far out they don’t get to us with the salt trucks or scrapers. As in once in 20 years they’ve done our road. Our road is terrible and has been since Saturday. Dh went out to work yesterday. The main highway was still messy, so he got on the interstate which was ok with some slick spots. All schools are closed for the rest of the week, my dds college is closed/virtual. 
 

we got about 6 inches last night. 
 

utilities are fine for us and I haven’t heard of anyone in my circles having lost power.

[Pawz4me]

The freezing rain started here a few hours ago and is starting to build up on trees and power lines. We're as prepared as possible, so we'll just hunker down and see what happens.

[RegGuheert]

1 minute ago, Pawz4me said:

The freezing rain started here a few hours ago and is starting to build up on trees and power lines. We're as prepared as possible, so we'll just hunker down and see what happens.

Where are you?  (Nevermind:  I see you are in Piedmont, NC, from above.)

Prayers for safety in your area!  You have the worst forecast in the nation this go around as far as I can tell.

Edited February 18, 2021 by RegGuheert
Nevermind and prayers.

[Pawz4me]

2 minutes ago, RegGuheert said:

Where are you?

The piedmont of NC. About an hour south of the Virginia line.

[mlktwins]

3 minutes ago, Pawz4me said:

The freezing rain started here a few hours ago and is starting to build up on trees and power lines. We're as prepared as possible, so we'll just hunker down and see what happens.

Yeah, we skipped the snow and went straight to ice 😔.  

[RegGuheert]

Still snowing here with sleet mixed in.  I hope this trend continues because they are predicting another 24 hours of precipitation at various intensities.

ETA: We have about three inches right now.

Edited February 18, 2021 by RegGuheert
Snow depth added.

[mlktwins]

53 minutes ago, RegGuheert said:

Still snowing here with sleet mixed in.  I hope this trend continues because they are predicting another 24 hours of precipitation at various intensities.

ETA: We have about three inches right now.

I'm in Bristow.  We got a tiny bit of snow, I think, in the very early hours of the morning.  Mostly I've heard the clickity click of sleet since at least 2:22 am.  We are pretty much freezing rain all day now.  We're not going anywhere though and we don't usually lose power.  Praying that holds through this storm.

[RegGuheert]

11 minutes ago, mlktwins said:

I'm in Bristow.  We got a tiny bit of snow, I think, in the very early hours of the morning.  Mostly I've heard the clickity click of sleet since at least 2:22 am.  We are pretty much freezing rain all day now.  We're not going anywhere though and we don't usually lose power.  Praying that holds through this storm.

Mostly all tink-tinks here, too, now.   As such, it is no longer piling up and I expect the weight of the sleet to actually pack down the snow as the day goes on.

So: still about 3 inches on the ground.

[Starr]

So are you getting all the snow, then ice and then a fast thaw? 😩

[ScoutTN]

@fairfarmhand You got more than we did overnight. We got another 3-4” for a total of about 7. With at least two layers of sleet/ice in there, one directly on the road. 
 

Hoping the forecast for the weekend is right with warmer temps in the mid to high 40’s and rain. We must buy groceries Sat or Sunday. 

[KungFuPanda]

UGH.  I have SUCH a February attitude right now.  I'm in central MD.  We get ALL THE WEATHER.  Every bit of it.  It rains as much as Portland here, if not more.  We get hot humid summers and freezing cold winters.  It can be a swamp in the summer, but back when Snowmageddon happened, my county got the worst of it,  I swear my HOUSE got the worst of it.  It's a wet heat and a wet cold and usually I'm fine, but I detest winter and we're in the worst of it.  Right now, it's sleet/freezing rain - ing.  It sounds like a slushie machine exploded out there.  We spend a lot of winter hovering at the freeze-thaw point so we get more than our fair share of ice.  Snow is manageable once you dig out, but there's not much you can do with ice. It offends me that our weather forecast says "_____ inches of ice." At least yesterday was sunny and we had all that light.  I do appreciate the privilege of having working systems right now and I'm grateful for buried utility lines, but spring can't come soon enough.  I'm going to plant some seeds today and daydream about nicer days.

ETA:  Apparently we're experiencing "graupel" right now because THAT is a real thing that exists.  😕

Second edit:  I've decided to make clotted cream because it's a good day to run the oven for 12 hours. 😁

Edited February 18, 2021 by KungFuPanda

[Pawz4me]

30 minutes ago, KungFuPanda said:

 

ETA:  Apparently we're experiencing "graupel" right now because THAT is a real thing that exists.  😕

I'd never heard of that until a few years ago, when one of the local weather forecasters talked about it. Since then we've had it a few times.

[TheReader]

Just got power back yesterday after a cumulative 50 hours w/o from Mon to Weds. Just got internet back this morning. 

A hard freeze and more sleet/rain/precipitation of some sort is predicted for tonight and tomorrow. So far we still have water and non-frozen pipes. I am hoping they stay not-frozen (we will continue the slow drip, open cabinets, etc.). 

We're restocked as best we can be at this point in time in case we lose power again, although Ercot now says if you have it back, it will stay back "unless there's another weather event or damage to the lines" -- I don't know if tonight's and tomorrow's hard freezes count as another weather event or not. We're hoping for the best, planning for the worst. 

Many around us do not have water though. We are exhausted but feeling fortunate underneath all of that. 

[KungFuPanda]

4 minutes ago, TheReader said:

Just got power back yesterday after a cumulative 50 hours w/o from Mon to Weds. Just got internet back this morning. 

A hard freeze and more sleet/rain/precipitation of some sort is predicted for tonight and tomorrow. So far we still have water and non-frozen pipes. I am hoping they stay not-frozen (we will continue the slow drip, open cabinets, etc.). 

We're restocked as best we can be at this point in time in case we lose power again, although Ercot now says if you have it back, it will stay back "unless there's another weather event or damage to the lines" -- I don't know if tonight's and tomorrow's hard freezes count as another weather event or not. We're hoping for the best, planning for the worst. 

Many around us do not have water though. We are exhausted but feeling fortunate underneath all of that. 

Welcome back to civilization!  I hope you can get and stay cozy.

[TheReader]

3 minutes ago, KungFuPanda said:

Welcome back to civilization!  I hope you can get and stay cozy.

thank you! We fared better than many as we once upon a time camped somewhere that was in the 30s-ish at night. I made my DH buy sleeping bags rated to 20F and fleece liners that added another 10-15 degrees of protection, for each of us, for that trip. So we slept in those, in our beds, with our regular blankets/quilts on top, and we were hot at night. It was lovely. 

Also we splurged on extra insulation instead of the gas fireplace when we built our house, so our indoor temps never got below 56* at the worst of it. Much better than many. We were fortunate.

[RegGuheert]

It stopped doing anything about an hour and a half ago.

I just went out and measured the accumulation on my driveway.  It is about 3.5 inches right now.

That last 0.5 inches is nearly all sleet.  I made the mistake of sending DS21 out to shovel at about 10AM and he did a little bit and then came in saying that it was sleeting really hard at that time.  The part of the driveway he shoveled is now like a solid sheet of sleet ice one-half inch thick!  Treacherous!

How is everyone else doing now?

[LinRTX]

Well I'm back. It has been crazy. Monday the power went out about 5 am (after a few hour rolls earlier), came back on at 2 pm for 5 hours. Went off for 18, then back for 1 hour (I almost cried at that point) and then was off for 32 hours. We made it out to my daughter's house 45 minutes north at the beginning of that 32 hour stretch. It was already down to 43 inside the house and we were running out of firewood. And since we are on well we had no water beyond the containers we had filled. Plenty of food, but of course nothing hot.

My daughter was on a boil water notice since the treatment plant was out, but the house was warm! My college age daughter in the next town over had no water because of extremely low pressure in the town. Finally everything is starting to get back to normal!

[Tree Frog]

South central Texas here. Snow started talking about 8:30 this morning and had continued falling. We have several inches. It's a beautiful wet snow, great for snowmen and snowball fights. Thankfully we have our power back, though we just received a notice again to turn our thermostat down to 65* and turn off major appliances. We have no water and I'm jealous of those posting that they're doing laundry. Or water is down due to a broken pump.

I'm concerned about my son who is planning to drive back to Huntsville, Alabama, tomorrow. I hope roads are cleared and he is able to find gas along the way. I would prefer he wait another day, but it's been hard for him to get his school work done with no power. 

[Pawz4me]

I think we've mostly dodged the bullet. Our temp nudged up above freezing a couple of hours ago and we've been downgraded from a winter storm warning to a winter weather advisory, with only another 1/10th of an inch of ice accumulation expected tonight. I've seen as many as 13,000 power outages on Duke Energy's map, but now it's down to 8,000. They brought in a lot of extra crews (from as far away as NY, Florida and Indiana), so they're getting things fixed quickly.

[lynn]

We've been getting some here in N Alabama.  Weird thing is we for 3 inches of snow and my son 45 min east got nothing but rain.  Schools been cancelled all week, just waiting for the call for tomorrow.  Suppose to go 20's tonight and tomorrow so all the melting slush from 36degrees today will freeze.  

[RegGuheert]

We didn't get any additional precipitation after about 11:30 AM.  But the temperature also did not get above 27F all day.

We don't know if anyone will be leaving here tomorrow for work, or not.  Is seems unlikely (which is pretty odd after only getting 3.5 inches).

[Bootsie]

I have heard about winter weather problems in Mexico.  I just talked to a student whose grandmother lives in Monterey Mexico and has been without power with below freezing temperatures there.

[YaelAldrich]

6 hours ago, Pawz4me said:

I think we've mostly dodged the bullet. Our temp nudged up above freezing a couple of hours ago and we've been downgraded from a winter storm warning to a winter weather advisory, with only another 1/10th of an inch of ice accumulation expected tonight. I've seen as many as 13,000 power outages on Duke Energy's map, but now it's down to 8,000. They brought in a lot of extra crews (from as far away as NY, Florida and Indiana), so they're getting things fixed quickly.

I called my parents and was happy to hear that it didn't get as bad as they thought.

My mom had to delay her second shot at Hanes Mall from today until next week though.

Those crews were staged all along I-40 from W-S to GSO and through to Burlington.  We saw them all on Sat night when we drove to my in-laws in CH.  So many trees were down.  I really prayed that more didn't come down from this storm.

[RegGuheert]

We had just a dusting of snow overnight.  The rest of the driveway is being cleared and MomsintheGarden and DD28 will be off to work within the next hour or so.

I guess it is time for me to get out there and rake the snow off the solar array.

[RegGuheert]

The driveway is clear, but the road is packed snow and ice.  I doubt the plows will be able to get that off today.  It's 29F now, but we should be above freezing for about 5 hours.  I suspect the driving conditions will be a LOT worse on the drive home than on the way to work today.

[YaelAldrich]

Here in Boston we want a refund for this lousy snowstorm we are getting! Schools got out early in my community yesterday because of it. There's maybe 3 inches if I'm being very generous. It's supposed to snow all day into Saturday morning. Plows keep coming through but the main road we live in is completely clear.

[Bootsie]

We just rose about the freezing mark in Fort Worth AND it is sunny!  At 34 degrees it is the warmest it has been in 10 days!  

[fairfarmhand]

Sunshine here! Still in the upper 20s but things are melting from the sun. 
 

tomorrow we get a roasty toasty 40 degrees!

[cjzimmer1]

Yesterday it got up into the 20s here which is a good 20-30 degrees warmer than we've been experiencing the last couple of weeks.  DS went out and shovel snow off the deck in a TSHIRT.  I tried to convince him to wear a coat but he said it was too warm for that.  We are in the north and a bit more used to cold but even I thought it was a bit extreme but he was sweating by the time he came in so clearly the cold wasn't bothering him. I hope the southerners are seeing a similar increase in temps even if they may still be unseasonably cold for them.

[RegGuheert]

7 hours ago, RegGuheert said:

I guess it is time for me to get out there and rake the snow off the solar array.

I am happy to say that the solar arrays are shedding pretty well on their own!  The garage is doing much better than the house.

(You can see Orange Cat Bad in the first picture of the garage.)

[Ausmumof3]

24 minutes ago, RegGuheert said:

I am happy to say that the solar arrays are shedding pretty well on their own!  The garage is doing much better than the house.

(You can see Orange Cat Bad in the first picture of the garage.)

You have a really pretty house.

[RegGuheert]

6 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

You have a really pretty house.

Thank you!

[Bootsie]

I just ventured out to the grocery store--zero eggs, zero bread, zero milk, zero toilet paper; I purchased the last bag of bread flour

[Lecka]

We had an ice storm in Oklahoma in October and it was so bad.  Ugh.  We could hear tree branches branching and falling for two days 😞. 
 

I hope you guys don’t get much ice and little or no damage!  
 

We are hoping for weather above freezing here tomorrow.  Last night a major pipe broke for our city water, but it is fixed now,  thank goodness.  The reservoirs were not damaged and did not run out of water before they could fix the pipe.