View Full Version : Ice storm threatens chaos
Oklahona City-- Freezing rain hit Oklahoma on Friday at the start of what forecasters say could be a brutal ice storm.
Millions of people in the Texas Panhandle, Oklahoma and eastern Missouri are being warned that conditions will deteriorate Friday afternoon, and the storm could spread as far east as Ohio and New York over the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend.
"This is a one-in-maybe-15- to 25-year event," CNN severe weather expert Chad Myers said Friday of the forecast freezing rain, sleet and snow.
"The big story will be how many roads are shut down, airports are shut down and how many power lines are down because of the ice this weekend," Myers added.
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, up to St. Louis, Missouri, could see "devastating consequences," Myers warned Friday. "You won't be able to get in or out of St. Louis tomorrow."
In Oklahoma City, Interstate 40 likely will shut down, he said.
Drivers already have had trouble on the roads there, with a truck slipping and flipping over, Oklahoma City TV station KWTV reported. One person was killed in that accident, KWTV said.
The city's Will Rogers World Airport already was seeing cancellations by Friday morning. As of noon CT (1 p.m. ET), United, Continental, Northwest, American, Southwest and British Airways had reported cancellations, according to the airport's Web site.
Tulsa International Airport also reported more than a dozen cancellations by noon.
Warnings announced
Rain is expected to fall through cold air coming from Canada and develop into an ice storm, Myers said.
Significant ice accumulations were expected Saturday night and Sunday across the Texas Panhandle through southern Oklahoma, according to the National Weather Service.
Parts of central Oklahoma could see ice from a quarter inch to a half-inch thick Friday, the weather service warned, adding that bridges, overpasses and sidewalks could become especially hazardous.
Ice storm warnings already were in effect for western, central and far northeastern Oklahoma through Sunday evening. Much of the state would also fall under a winter storm watch Friday afternoon, meaning that sleet, ice and snow could affect travel. A freezing rain advisory and a flash-flood watch was also in effect in parts of the state.
The National Weather Service strongly discouraged travel during ice storm warnings, noting that downed power lines and fallen tree branches could pose dangers to drivers. In the event driving is necessary, people should keep an extra flashlight, food and water in the vehicle in case of emergency, the weather service advised.
Freezing rain was also forecast for southeast Kansas into central Missouri Friday and is expected to hit I-44 by late Friday afternoon, the National Weather Service said.
Ice up to three-quarters of an inch will be likely by Saturday morning, and some parts could see ice accumulations of an inch and a half by Sunday, all of which could mean widespread power outages, the weather service said.
Temperatures in the week ahead in parts of Oklahoma will have highs in the 20s and lows in the teens and possibly single digits, CNN meteorologist Sean Morris said earlier.
In addition to the central U.S., a cold snap also was predicted this weekend for California, where farmers were preparing to monitor the health of a nearly $1 billion citrus crop, The Associated Press reported.
LOS ANGELES, January 13, 2007 - A cold snap is prompting freeze warnings throughout California and could cause huge crop losses.
Southern California saw temperatures dip to freezing in some places last night. It was 7 degrees in Lancaster, while downtown L.A. had a low of 40.
The cold weather is expected to continue until Sunday morning.
California growers are trying to protect their oranges, lemons, peaches and other crops. About 70 percent of the citrus crop is still on the trees and Sunkist says cold could cause a billion dollars in damage.
Yesterday, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency and National Guard armories were opened to shelter the homeless or others who might be in danger of freezing.
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=local&id=4929652
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Thanks for the charts Caleb. Here it is wet and cold.
Storm leaves 330,000 without power
ST. LOUIS - Utility crews tried to restore electricity to about 330,000 Missouri households that were still without power following a storm blamed for 21 deaths across four states.
Waves of freezing rain, sleet and snow since Friday have caused at least 12 deaths in Oklahoma, six in Missouri, two in Texas and one in New York.
Crews hoped to take advantage of moderate weather expected for Monday — including a few lingering snow showers and flurries — to bring power back online before an expected drop in temperatures to below zero Monday night.
The storm system was expected to continue heading northeast, said National Weather Service meteorologist Joe Pedigo. While the Ohio region could see rain Monday afternoon, lower Michigan and parts of New England could see more than a foot of snow.
Most of the outages — a majority in southwest Missouri — were caused when freezing rain caused tree branches to break off and crash onto power lines, officials said.
Guardsmen went door-to-door checking on the health and safety of residents in the hardest hit parts of the state and helping to clear slick roads.
Amtrak canceled Sunday service between Kansas City and St. Louis due to fallen trees and other debris on railroad tracks.
In the St. Louis region, about 150,000 people remained without power Sunday afternoon, after a pattern of freezing and thaws.
About 122,000 customers lacked power in Oklahoma as of Sunday night, the state Department of Emergency Management said. A gymnasium roof collapsed in Del City, Okla., under the weight of ice and snow, but no one was inside or injured, authorities said.
In Texas, 415 flights were canceled Sunday at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.
In Nebraska, which has been pummeled by winter storms in the past month, the weekend storm dropped even more snow, making roads treacherous.
As the storm began to fade from the nation's midsection, parts of the East began to suffer.
In Albany, N.Y., a 22-year-old died after falling about 90 feet from a bridge to a road below after climbing a railing to avoid being hit by a sliding car. He had gotten out of his vehicle around 2 a.m. after a crash.
In Syracuse, N.Y., Interstate 81 was closed for about two hours after about 30 cars were involved in six accidents early Sunday. Several people were taken to hospitals.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070115/ap_on_re_us/winter_blast
Thansk for the pics. Here we had snow last night, and a cold air today.
More snow, wind blast Colorado
Winter storm kills at least 8 as Plains states reel; no relief until Wednesday
DENVER - The latest in a series of winter storms battered Colorado on Sunday, dumping several inches of snow and whipping up strong wind that created whiteout conditions on the state’s eastern plains.
Accidents caused by blowing snow and icy roads closed southbound Interstate 25 near Fort Collins for two hours Sunday morning. State Patrol Master Trooper Ron Watkins said no injuries were reported.
Wind up to 60 mph piled the snow into drifts as high as 3 feet in parts of the state, the National Weather Service said.
A blizzard warning was in effect for much of eastern and northeastern Colorado, and the State Patrol advised against unnecessary travel.
The stormy weather in Colorado followed closely on the heels of a storm that spread heavy snow across parts of the Plains on Saturday, limiting visibility and creating hazardous driving conditions.
That storm was blamed for at least eight traffic deaths: four in Nebraska, three in Kansas and one in Oklahoma.
The Plains storm spared much of Oklahoma from heavy snow, but utilities reported about 30,000 homes and business were still without power Sunday because of an ice storm one week earlier.
“We’re coming down to what we expect to be very near the end of the restoration process,” said Stan Whiteford, a spokesman for Public Service Company of Oklahoma, which reported about 4,000 customers still blacked out, mostly in the McAlester area. “We think we’re going to be pretty close to wrapping things up.”
Authorities in Oklahoma’s Pittsburg and McIntosh counties implemented a nighttime curfew following reports of break-ins and the theft of generators set up to power railroad crossing guards.
© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16728145/from/RS.1/
Rare snow storm surprises Arizona residents
More snow, wind also blast Colo.; conditions blamed for 11 weekend deaths
PHOENIX - Parts of northern Arizona received more than a foot of snow, and children as far south as Tucson got a rare chance to play in the whiteness as one of the strongest winter storms of the year moved through the state.
Sunday’s storm came amid a wave of winter storms that have brought snow, ice and strong winds to the Plains region, but also to the Southwest, including Arizona, Texas and New Mexico.
The harsh, frigid conditions were blamed for 11 traffic fatalities in the Plains over the weekend.
Although the heaviest snowfall in Arizona on Sunday was in the north, snow also fell in downtown Phoenix and Tucson, which received up to 1½ inches, according to the National Weather Service.
‘It’s too cold’
Glenn Jones, who lives on a small farm in Marana northwest of Tucson, said he was cold and wet and would be glad when it warms up again.
“I had chores to do today, animals to feed, to get ready for the week,” he said. “I don’t like to work in it. It’s too cold. That’s the reason I moved here — to get out of it.”
In Colorado, several inches of snow fell and strong winds created whiteout conditions on the state’s eastern plains.
Officials closed a long stretch of Interstate 70, from near Denver International Airport almost to the Kansas state line because of high winds, blowing snow, poor visibility and ice.
Snow and icy roads caused accidents that shut down southbound Interstate 25 near Fort Collins for two hours Sunday morning. State Patrol Master Trooper Ron Watkins said no injuries were reported.
In Oklahoma, where an ice storm disrupted power to as many as 125,000 homes and businesses more than a week ago, about 25,000 electrical customers remained without power late Sunday — mostly in the eastern part of the state.
Rush to restore power
Hundreds of utility linemen worked through the night in hopes of fully restoring power by Monday or Tuesday, authorities said.
Warmer temperatures in the state led to melting ice and snow that have turned roads into slushy rivers, yards into quagmires and streams into rushing torrents.
A pickup truck carrying radioactive materials used in pipeline scanning equipment was swept from a bridge and disappeared in a swollen creek in Pittsburg County, said Undersheriff Richard Sexton.
The truck’s two occupants escaped unharmed, but efforts to locate the truck and its radioactive cargo were suspended after dark.
“The radioactive materials are still in the truck, and that’s what we’re worried about,” Sexton said.
In Missouri, more than 45,000 people remained in the dark from the same storm.
Winter weather has also hit hard on the East Coast, bringing snow, sleet and freezing rain to Virginia, Washington, D.C., and Maryland and making roads treacherous. An accident on Interstate 81 in Virginia killed one person and injured five, authorities said.
© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16728145/
Snow kidding: Anchorage on path to set record
74 inches so far, and there's four more months of snowy weather
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - The snow is already piled so high that drivers cannot see around corners. Homeowners are getting worried their roofs can’t handle the load. And snow-removal crews are running up the overtime hours.
Even by Alaska’s prodigious, myth-making standards, this is a remarkably snowy winter on the Last Frontier.
In one of the strangest winters across America in many years, Alaska’s biggest city has gotten more snow — over 74 inches so far — than it normally receives in an entire winter (68 inches). And there are still four more months of snowy weather ahead.
Anchorage Daily News columnist Beth Bragg cried, “Uncle!”
“Winter wins. Snow wins. Now can we see the sun again?” she wrote in Friday’s column. “Twice already I’ve hired someone to shovel my roof. Both times I waited until water leaked into the house. Both times, I discovered something was amiss, not because water dripped off the ceiling, but because it seeped through the bedroom carpet.”
The robust snowfall comes after several years of wimpy, low-snow winters in proudly rugged Alaska, and so it is welcome news to some.
“I love the snow. Bring it on!” said Whitney Hitchcock, a 20-year-old University of Alaska student who likes to go ice skating at an outdoor rink downtown. “I can’t get enough.”
Record is 132.5 inches
The Anchorage snowfall record is 132.5 inches, set in the winter of 1955-56.
City snow-removal crews have had to cut channels through the streets, leaving narrower-than-usual roadways, hemmed in by walls of snow as high as cars.
Ronnie Arnett, who came to Alaska from Kentucky in 1999 because of the lure of the frontier, said she is fortunate she drives a big vehicle. Owning SUVs “should almost be a requirement in Alaska for safety reasons. It gives you the power to see over the humps,” she said.
To help open side streets, Anchorage police have begun towing cars and issuing tickets instead of just warning drivers. Police spokesman Lt. Paul Honeman said people have “become a little lulled in light snow years.”
The city’s 100 snow-removal workers will have to work 10-hour shifts six days a week for the next two months to clear the streets, said Alan Czajkowski, director of maintenance and operations. And to think, last year at this time, crews were patching potholes created by a warming trend that had water running down the streets.
Backlog of snow-removal jobs
Contractors are fielding a blizzard of calls from homeowners wanting their roofs cleared before the ice and snow cause damage and force water through the ceiling.
Brent Eaton, operations manager for Rain Proof Roofing, said the company has a three-week backlog of roof snow-removal jobs. But he said he is not worried about his own roof yet. The city code requires roofs to withstand 40 pounds a square foot, and the snowfall adds up to only half that.
Two young boys using wheelbarrow-shaped, deep-barreled shovels struggled to push about a foot of snow off the pitched roof of the one-story Russian Orthodox Museum, for fear snow and icicles would fall on passers-by in downtown Anchorage.
In a strange weather interlude attributed in part to a shift in the jet stream, the Rockies have been hit by a series of blizzards over the past few weeks, the Northeast is seeing one of the mildest, least-snowiest winters on record, and extreme cold wiped out citrus crops in central and Southern California.
© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16829638/
GorToma
01-28-2007, 11:19am
wow - what an ugly weather you have - hope it will beome spring soon
Spring is pretty soon now. But we have still left one full month of winter. So we can't help it:dunno:
Hope it will be spring soon too Richard.
Some places in the world won't stop snowing no matter how so far or so close is the spring. Even some days after spring starts it will be again the cold weather:nono: That's the pronostic about this year season.
Subzero chill turns East, Midwest into ice rink
Schools close, city streets are deserted as wind chills break 30 below
Schools were closed, icy interstate highways were shut down and major city streets were deserted moonscapes Monday as frigid arctic conditions blanketed the Midwest and the East Coast in deep snow and wind chills well below zero.
The streets of Chicago were mostly empty as only a few hardy pedestrians bundled up to ward off wind chills that reached 30 below zero. The official low Monday morning, 13 below, was the coldest recorded in the Windy City in more than a decade, NBC’s Kevin Tibbles reported.
“The fingers start getting cold, the feet start getting cold,” said Art Jimenez, who delivers the mail in Chicago. “Try to move as fast as you can.”
Chicago’s 311 service was being overwhelmed with calls, NBC affiliate WMAQ-TV reported, and schools in Belvedere and Rockford, Ill., were closed. Emergency room doctors reported a higher number of frostbite cases than usual and urged people to dress in layers if they ventured out.
“Our body keeps warm by creating a local area of warm air around it,” said Dr. Martin Lucenti of Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. “That’s why layers are so important. You’re warming the air next to your skin.”
Still, some Chicagoans tried to put on a brave face.
“You live in the Midwest. You live by the lake, you know, by the Michigan lake. I mean, it’s cold all the time,” said Jeremy Grossenbacher, a Chicago resident.
A nationwide chill
Almost a foot of snow fell on Buffalo, forcing officials to close a 38-mile stretch of the New York Thruway. A lake effect snow warning was extended until 6 p.m. Tuesday, with 2 to 6 more inches expected and wind chills dropping as low as 30 below, NBC affiliate WGRZ-TV reported.
Downstate, ice on the Hudson River forced New York Waterway officials to shut down ferry service from Haverstraw to Ossining. Little relief was expected for commuters as the high was not expected to top 18 degrees Monday, NBC affiliate WNBC-TV reported from New York City.
Roads were open in Grand Rapids, Mich., but they were largely impassable, and dozens of drivers spun out because plows could not stay ahead of the snow and ice. Highs were not expected to get out of the 20s for the rest of the week, and with another low-pressure system moving through the area, meteorologists forecast heavier snow showers Tuesday.
More than 600 schools were closed in the Cleveland area, where wind chills reached 20 below and a high of 8 was forecast. All Milwaukee schools closed after wind chills dropped near 40 below.
In Camden, N.J., officials issued a code blue alert Monday, warning residents to stay indoors.
“I’ve got about three jackets on, two pairs of pants, two socks and two pairs of boots,” said Harriet Dunlop, a newspaper vendor in Coatesville, Pa., where the low Monday morning dipped to 6 degrees.
The coldest spot was Embarrass, Minn., where the official temperature hit 42 below shortly after daybreak, NBC affiliate KARE-TV reported from Minneapolis, where students were stranded in the cold after their school buses could not reach them.
‘I love it!’
While the eastern half of the country was expected to remain frozen for several more days, farther west, people were looking forward to rapidly rising temperatures Tuesday, which could let them begin digging out from weeks of snow.
In Denver, where record snowfall that so far this season has already topped the annual average of 61.7 inches, with four months to go, Maggie Brodsky was as happy as a groundhog on Groundhog Day.
“I think it’s really pretty,” she told Anastasiya Bolton of NBC affiliate KUSA-TV. “I do! I love it!”
But Dean Nye of Denver was resigned as he struggled to dislodge his snowed-in car.
“It’s getting old. Who’s counting at this point? I’ve given up,” Nye said. “I’m just expecting this until May.”
Nye’s reaction was more typical of the claustrophobic effects of being locked indoors, said Mary Ann Watson, a clinical psychologist in Denver, who said millions could be suffering from seasonal affective disorder.
“Some of the signs of that are fatigue — you have less energy,” she said. “The tendency is to want to eat some of the worst things for you.”
Watson advised anyone climbing the walls inside to make an effort to get out and socialize.
“Getting some sort of exercise, finding some sort of light source” is key, she said, “and generally if you don’t have something inside, outside certainly is usually better.”
By MSNBC.com’s Alex Johnson with NBC’s Kevin Tibbles in Chicago and Anastasiya Bolton of KUSA-TV.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16995553/
100-inch snow dump likely in upstate New York
Nearly 60 inches so far and squalls likely through the weekend
OSWEGO, N.Y. - Four days of intense lake-spawned squalls have blanketed some regions in upstate New York with up to nearly five feet of snow — and more on the way — but forecasters said it still has a way to go to make history.
"We are shying away from calling this a record event," said Mike Pukajlo, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Buffalo, said Wednesday.
"There are several areas in that region that often get hammered during a winter. Seventy, eighty inches is uncommon for sure, but it's not highly unusual, especially over a several-day event like this," Pukajlo said.
Nearly 60 inches had fallen in areas along eastern Lake Ontario by mid-Wednesday, and weather forecasters said some areas could receive more than 100 inches before the system breaks up.
The snow was expected to shift south Thursday toward Syracuse, which has received only about two inches during the recent bout of storms.
The city of Oswego, one of the hardest hit communities, was digging out Wednesday during a brief reprieve as the lake-effect bands shifted to the south. The National Weather Service reported 46 inches of snow fell in Oswego, on the eastern end of Lake Ontario since late Sunday.
'Right through the weekend'
Nearby communities are also buried under a thick blanket of fresh snow — 57 inches in the town of Mexico and 54 in neighboring Parish.
Schools in Mexico, Fulton and Oswego were closed for a third straight day Wednesday. More than a dozen other school districts in the area delayed the start of classes.
Pukajlo said snow squalls "will keep going right through the weekend. But we expect to see the bands moving around a bit more, back and forth, so it's not going to keep pounding on just one area."
Lake effect snow forms when cold air passes over a relatively warmer body of water. When this week's arctic blast passed over the still unfrozen Great Lakes — including New York's Erie and Ontario — it created a recipe for monstrous snow totals. In the Great Lakes Region, cold air generally "spills" southward from the high latitudes of North America.
Retired snowplow drivers called up
On Wednesday, the cold front also blasted West Virginia, which called snowplow drivers out of retirement as snowstorms and Arctic cold blamed for at least 16 deaths hung over much of the Midwest and East.
As much as 9 inches of snow fell in West Virginia in the state’s first major storm of the season, prompting schools statewide to either close or open late for a second day in a row. Schools were also shut across of much of Ohio and parts of upstate New York, some for a third straight day.
In Ohio, snow and ice had not been removed from most residential streets in Columbus and Cincinnati, and nearly all schools in those areas were closed Wednesday. Most Cleveland schools were closed for a third straight day.
“We had a couple hundred passengers spend the night at the airport because all the hotel rooms in the area were taken, not just because of canceled flights but because highway travel was virtually impossible,” said Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport spokesman Ted Bushelman.
Since the weekend, the cold weather and slippery roads have contributed to at least five deaths in Ohio, four in Illinois, two in Kentucky, two in Michigan, and one each in Wisconsin, Maryland and Indiana, authorities said.
© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17042993/
Upstate N.Y. residents dig out from heavy snow
Sun breaks through as storms end; snow tops 120 inches in some towns
PARISH, N.Y. - With more than 8 feet of snow already coating the ground, it wasn’t good news for this winter-weary region when the blue sky turned gray Saturday, signaling another intense snow squall was about to dump some more.
“This is bad,” said 67-year-old Dave DeGrau, who has operated an auto repair shop on Main Street for 45 years. “We had a very easy winter until now. Last fall during hunting season it rained every time I went out. I kept saying ’I’m glad this isn’t snow.’ Now, it’s snow.”
Persistent bands of lake-effect snow squalls fed by moisture from Lake Ontario have been swinging up and down this part of central New York along the lake’s eastern shore since last Sunday.
The National Weather Service said Parish — about 25 miles northeast of Syracuse — reached a milestone early Saturday with 100 inches of snow during the past seven days. Late Saturday, the total had risen to 110 inches. Unofficial reports pegged totals at 123 inches in Orwell and 122 in Redfield, but those measurements include snow from another storm a couple of days before the current weather system. All three towns are in Oswego County.
Several more feet possible
A warning in effect until Monday morning said 2 to 4 more feet of snow was possible with wind gusting up to 24 mph.
“That’s all we need,” Mike Avery said as he took a brief break from loading dump trucks with snow to be hauled to a pile outside town. “It’s getting monotonous.”
The fluffy new snow was a magnet for snowmobilers, but stopping was out of the question.
“You can’t stop or you’re done,” said Dan Hojnacki, 23, of Syracuse, after he ground to a halt in a field. “I never got stuck until today, and I’ve been snowmobiling for 10 years.”
Residents of the nearby town of Mexico see 5- to 6-foot snowfalls every two or three years, but this time even hardened locals are amazed. The only sign of parked SUVs are their radio antennas or roof racks sticking up above the snow. Front doors are buried and footprints lead to second-story windows. Sidewalks that have been dug out look like miniature canyons.
Thoughts of early spring vanish
The state transportation department said 125 workers from elsewhere in the state had been sent in with snow equipment to help.
The region is located along the Tug Hill Plateau, the snowiest region this side of the Rocky Mountains. It’s a 50-mile wedge of land that rises 2,100 feet from the eastern shore of Lake Ontario. It usually gets about 300 inches — roughly 25 feet — of snow a year.
The hamlet of Hooker, near the boundaries of Jefferson, Lewis, and Oswego counties, holds the state’s one-year record with 466.9 inches, about 39 feet, in the winter of 1976-77.
Still, less than a month ago it seemed more like spring.
“Gosh, three weeks ago there was green on the ground. We got spoiled,” Parish Mayor Leon Heagle said. “This just came fast. This is not normal. God, we can’t catch a break. I feel like getting right in the car and driving south, but I’d probably get in trouble.”
The intense blast of snow hasn’t been blamed for any deaths in Oswego County. Elsewhere, however, more than a week of bitter cold and slippery roads have contributed to at least 20 deaths across the northeastern quarter of the nation — five in Ohio, four in Illinois, four in Indiana, two in Kentucky, two in Michigan, and one each in Wisconsin, and Maryland and elsewhere in New York, authorities said.
© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17063535/
More snow forecast for already buried N.Y.
Some towns upstate still digging out from record 100-inch accumulation
PARISH, N.Y. - Blue skies turned gray in the blink of an eye as another severe snowstorm brought snow to an area already inundated by more than 8 feet.
It wasn’t good news for this winter-weary region when the flakes began to fall again Saturday. A warning in effect until Monday morning said 2 to 4 more feet of snow was possible with wind gusting up to 24 mph.
“That’s all we need,” Mike Avery said as he took a brief break from loading dump trucks with snow to be hauled to a pile outside town. “It’s getting monotonous.”
Persistent bands of lake-effect snow squalls fed by moisture from Lake Ontario have been swinging up and down this part of central New York along the lake’s eastern shore since last Sunday.
The National Weather Service said Parish — about 25 miles northeast of Syracuse — reached a milestone early Saturday with 100 inches of snow during the past seven days. That was pushed to 110 inches by early Sunday with fresh snowfall.
Unofficial reports put snowfall totals at 123 inches in Orwell and 131 in Redfield, but the weather service said those numbers included snow from a storm a couple of days before the latest run. All three towns are in Oswego County.
Reinforcements brought in
The fluffy new snow was a magnet for snowmobilers, and stopping was out of the question.
“You can’t stop or you’re done,” said Dan Hojnacki, 23, of Syracuse, after he ground to a halt in a field. “I never got stuck until today, and I’ve been snowmobiling for 10 years.”
Residents of the nearby town of Mexico see 5- to 6-foot snowfalls every two or three years, but this time even hardened locals are amazed.
The only sign of parked SUVs are their radio antennas or roof racks sticking up above the snow. Front doors are buried and footprints lead to second-story windows. Sidewalks that have been dug out look like miniature canyons.
The state transportation department said 125 workers from elsewhere in the state had been sent in with snow equipment to help.
The region is located along the Tug Hill Plateau, the snowiest region this side of the Rocky Mountains. It’s a 50-mile wedge of land that rises 2,100 feet from the eastern shore of Lake Ontario. It usually gets about 300 inches — roughly 25 feet — of snow a year.
The hamlet of Hooker, near the boundaries of Jefferson, Lewis, and Oswego counties, holds the state’s one-year record with 466.9 inches, about 39 feet, in the winter of 1976-77.
Still, less than a month ago it seemed more like spring.
“Gosh, three weeks ago there was green on the ground. We got spoiled,” Parish Mayor Leon Heagle said. “This just came fast. This is not normal. God, we can’t catch a break. I feel like getting right in the car and driving south, but I’d probably get in trouble.”
The intense blast of snow hasn’t been blamed for any deaths in Oswego County. Elsewhere, however, more than a week of bitter cold and slippery roads have contributed to at least 20 deaths across the northeastern quarter of the nation — five in Ohio, four in Illinois, four in Indiana, two in Kentucky, two in Michigan, and one each in Wisconsin, and Maryland and elsewhere in New York, authorities said.
© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17094120/from/RS.1
N.Y. town may set all-time state snow record
Redfield records unofficial total of 136 inches since storm began last week
REDFIELD, N.Y. - This village in upstate New York’s snowbelt gets a lot of snowfall during the winter, but last week’s total — more than 11 feet, unofficially — might be an all-time record.
Before it began to wind down Sunday, persistent streams of squalls fueled by moisture from Lake Ontario during the last week consistently dumped lake-effect snow in this western New York region.
All that’s left — apart from the massive dig out — is to claim the record for the most snowfall in a week. Redfield’s total of 136 inches would break the state record of ten feet, seven inches that fell in nearby Montague over seven days ending Jan. 1, 2002, said Steve McLaughlin, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Buffalo. A National Weather Service official will travel Monday to verify the amount.
“In all my life, I mean my entire life combined, I’ve never seen this much snow at once,” said Jim Bevridge, 47, of Timmonium, Md., who drove up Thursday for a long weekend of snowmobiling.
McLaughlin said the proper way to measure snow requires taking readings about every six hours. It’s very important with lake-effect snow.
“It can be light and fluffy. If you did hourly measurements, you might come up with 24 inches, when there’s really only 16 on the ground. It needs to be able to pack some,” he said.
The heavy snow is common along the Tug Hill Plateau, a 50-mile wedge that rises 2,100 feet from the lake’s eastern shore. It usually gets about 300 inches — roughly 25 feet — of snow a year.
The hamlet of Hooker holds the state’s one-year record with 466.9 inches, about 39 feet, in winter 1976-77. Redfield receives an annual average of 270 inches — more than 22 feet.
Unimpressed locals
The weeklong snows left behind surreal scenes.
One house appeared to be in a cocoon. The only signs of parked SUVs were their radio antennas or roof racks rising above the snow. Dug out sidewalks looked like miniature canyons.
Some of the more hardened locals, however, aren’t impressed.
“It’s snow. We get a lot of it. So what?” said Allan Babcock, a lifelong resident who owns a popular diner in this village of 650 people located about 38 miles northeast of Syracuse.
Roads were mostly cleared Sunday as workers turned their attention to removing the snow and trimming down 10- and 12-foot-high snowbanks.
The intense blast of snow hasn’t been blamed for any deaths in Oswego County. Elsewhere, however, more than a week of bitter cold and slippery roads have contributed to at least 25 deaths across the northeastern quarter of the nation — five in Ohio, four in Illinois, four in Indiana, two in Kentucky, seven in Michigan, and one each in Wisconsin, and Maryland and elsewhere in New York, authorities said.
© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17094120/
Snow closes roads in Colorado and Kansas
Storm causes 35-car pileup outside Denver, threatens Upper Midwest
DENVER - A large, fast-moving snowstorm closed sections of major highways in the Plains on Saturday and threatened to dump more than a foot of snow on the Upper Midwest.
Interstate 70, the major cross-country route, was closed in both directions Saturday from Denver to the Kansas line, according to the Colorado Department of Transportation.
Between the city and the beginning of the highway closure, about 35 cars collided in a pileup in whiteout conditions Saturday morning on an icy section of I-70. No major injuries were reported.
The weather service reported wind gusts of 68 mph in the area.
In western Kansas, the highway’s westbound lanes were closed from Goodland to the Colorado line, said Steve Swartz, a spokesman for the Kansas Department of Transportation. Kansas authorities also closed sections of other highways in the region. Goodland is about 170 miles east of Denver.
A stretch of about 125 miles of I-80 was closed in both directions in western Nebraska, from Ogallala to the Wyoming line. Wind gusting to 52 mph drove wet snow. “It’s nasty,” said Carol McKain of the Nebraska State Patrol.
Farther east, a 30-mile stretch of U.S. 275 was closed in Nebraska because of flooding.
There was no power in parts of North Platte, Neb., where “the snow is so wet it’s sticking to power poles and power lines,” said Bill Taylor of the National Weather Service office in North Platte.
In addition to the snow on the western Plains, the vast storm system was spreading rain and thunderstorms across parts of Arkansas, Oklahoma and Missouri, with locally heavy snow across Iowa and southern Minnesota.
The weather service posted blizzard warnings for parts of Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, eastern Iowa and southern Wisconsin. Winter storm warnings were posted over eastern South Dakota, the rest of Iowa, much of Minnesota and northern Wisconsin.
Heavy snow accompanied by wind up to 35 mph were forecast in Wisconsin, where one traffic death had been blamed on the storm’s initial blast during the night.
Up to 16 inches of snow was possible by late Sunday in Minnesota, which would be the biggest snowfall so far in an unusually dry winter for that state, the weather service said.
Officials advised against unnecessary travel in southwestern Minnesota, where roads already were slippery from heavy sleet and freezing rain that fell during the night.
© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14133568/
Fierce snowstorm kills 7 across Plains
Storm causes 35-car pileup in Colo.; winds turn Ark. neighborhood to rubble
DENVER - A large, fast-moving snowstorm that closed sections of major highways on the Plains on Saturday was blamed for seven traffic deaths, while strong winds in Arkansas cut a 5-mile-long swath of damage, destroying buildings and leaving several people injured.
The storms in the Plains knocked out power to more than 145,000 customers and dumped more than a foot of snow on the Upper Midwest. The seven deaths all occurred on slippery Wisconsin roads.
Meanwhile, some residents in the southeastern Arkansas city of Dumas were unaccounted for after winds, and possibly a series of tornadoes, blew through and police were making a door-to-door search, authorities said. Emergency crews summoned ambulances from a neighboring county.
A Fred’s Dollar Store just south of Dumas was left in a tangle of twisted metal and crumbled concrete blocks, and an overturned tractor-trailer rested in its parking lot. A power substation was destroyed and electricity was out in the area.
Forecasters said the damage could have been done by a tornado or by straight-line winds that could have exceeded 70 mph. Several people were injured, some seriously, authorities said.
Road closures across Plains
In Colorado, Interstate 70, a major cross-country route, was closed for about 400 miles in both directions from just east of Denver to Salina, Kan., because of blowing snow and slippery pavement, Colorado and Kansas highway officials said.
Between Denver and the beginning of the highway closure, about 35 cars collided in a pileup in whiteout conditions on an icy section of I-70. No major injuries were reported.
The weather service reported wind gusts of 68 mph in the Denver area. In Kansas, winds whipped about 3 inches of snowfall into 7-foot drifts.
A number of other highways also were closed in the two states, Wyoming and Nebraska. But many roads reopened later Saturday, including most of Interstate 80 in Nebraska, of which more than 270 miles had been closed.
135,000 without power
Power was knocked out to 135,000 customers in Iowa, where freezing rain coated trees, power lines and utility lines with ice. Outages were also reported in Oklahoma and Nebraska.
“The snow is so wet it’s sticking to power poles and power lines,” said Bill Taylor of the National Weather Service office in North Platte, Neb. About 8 inches of snow had fallen in the north-central town of Ainsworth.
The weather service posted blizzard and winter storm warnings for parts of Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota, northern Illinois and Wisconsin.
Between 15 inches to 18 inches of snow had fallen between Winona, Minn., and La Crosse, Wis., by Saturday evening, the National Weather Service reported.
Winds reaching 60 mph helped fuel dozens of grass fires across Texas, destroying three homes near Midland and forcing evacuations at Fort Hood, authorities said. No injuries were reported.
Airlines canceled 230 arrivals and departures at Chicago’s O’Hare International and 40 at Midway in anticipation of snow, sleet and freezing rain, said Wendy Abrams, Chicago’s aviation department spokeswoman. United Airlines planned to cancel all flights at O’Hare after 7 p.m., spokeswoman Robin Urbanski said.
© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14133568/
SevenUp!
02-25-2007, 7:43pm
Got this picture in an e-mail last week....yeah, it's a whole lot of snow!! :eek:
This is at Oswego, New York.
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a208/SevenGup/Postable%20Pics/Oswego3.jpg
Wow! Amazing pic:D:up Thanks for sharing.
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