Stone Soup by Jan Eliot for January 12, 2011

Val doesn’t listen to the news….

And just where is Grandma in this whole string of events???

What? I’m in a blizzard and drove to work. Wimps.

heh, you people think you have blizzards! Up here in Iceland we - haven’t had any snow at all… (well, southern Iceland anyway) :D

I just got the word at 0600 EST - work site closed - blizzard to last through tonight - staying in my jammies - wish I was back in Iceland! Blue Lagoon, here I come!! Followed by Reykjavik Pizza - heaven!

I think this is a rerun. She tries to go in w/the jerk coworker and the hummer ends up upside down. Then it was Phil to the rescue. Or maybe it’s not.

^ hey spoilers

It’s perfect for today on Long Island. I just got up and there is at least a foot. Drifts are 2 to 3 feet high and there is lots of wind. No one is going anywhere for quite a while.

@ghostkeeper – Your lame story could apply to any city in the South. Blah blah blah, it’s soo incredibly old and worn-out that Northerners come here in the winter and mock how the South handles snow. What you don’t think about is that the South gets snow once a year, so it’s not practical to spend tax money on a lot of snowplows and sand trucks. Personally, I’d rather they spend money on schools and fighting crime, but that’s just me. Also, the hilarious part of your story is that you neglected is that the overwhelming majority of Atlanta’s population is from other parts of the country, especially the North, yet they’re the first ones to forget how to drive in the snow. I’m sure you could have gotten in your car and driven to the airport, right? That’s what the jack-knifed tractor-trailers also thought on Monday when we got snow… Oh, but don’t let logic get in the way of a good story and a big ego-boost. See you in March when we’re outside in shorts and you’re still digging out from the latest snow…

Hey lightenup - try reading your user name and LIGHTEN UP!

chasches: Lightenup has a point. It’s made perhaps a bit forcefully, but I understand why: it’s difficult to stay calm when you hear the same taunts over and over.

Lightenup: nice come-back at the end! If it’s any consolation, people here in Darkest Saskatchewan forget how to drive every time it snows. Since we don’t get snow days, we get a LOT of major and minor collisions on stormy days.

And in Victoria BC, half an inch of snow shuts the city down too. They don’t have snow clearing equipment, they do have hills, and as the snow turns to ice, nobody can drive anywhere.

I shall response with light heart to your suggestion, Lightenup: If it’s early March, send *me* a postcard of you mowing your lawn, and I’ll send you one of me reading a book by the fireplace - unless the snow has melted enough for me to send you one of me cycling. :)

As someone living in Atlanta, I’m siding with lightenup on this. We live in a city where’s it UNUSUAL to have snow/ice storms, so no- we’re not particularly adept at getting around in it (which is why I’m staying home). Feel free NOT to visit, if you’re so concerned about our competence (or what you perceive as a lack thereof). Also, don’t know where in Atlanta that Canadian was (or when they were here), but our latest “snowpocalypse” dropped 6-10” in the metro area- most of it in less than 12 hours. Yes, we were warned in advance, but that’s a lot of snow in such a short time in a state that’s this far south.

oh, yeah, y’all, I’m in Miami (Fl not OH)…one Christmas we drove to relatives in Jax & there was a rare sleet storm. Jax is full of bridges & travel was impossible. We ate at the Waffle House (Gas stoves, no fresh food to speak of) next to the hotel for 3 days running. My 10-yr old car had no antifreeze, just water in the radiator (Miami provincial)- fortunately it popped a freeze plug from the cast iron engine & was okay (when I could find a mechanic after the thaw and holiday). Good times!

Where I live we didn’t get not the amount the east cost received. Weather reports from news was not sure how much snow we would receive. Some workers have no choice but to report in to the job. I work pt for afternoon and had to go in. Temp’s here are 3° big major town here has closed school two days in row due to fridgid temps. New supertendent. Use to be in big city schools here didn’t close. Back in 1972 was the biggest snowfall to hit. Val you should have listen to news. I am surprise they have power but I guess no ice storm. I had my hubby take my car before storm hit to see about tires I was not ready for this but had no choice. Set me back two months.

@lightenup; unfortunately you are right about northern drivers. Here in Montreal we get LOTS of snow each winter (altho less each year, due to global warming - but it is much more beautiful than the rain that replaces it), but each summer everyone does seem to forget how to drive in winter (not me, heh..heh ♂◙○◘♀♪☼↕‼¶§▬↨↓ well, I was trying to put in a smiley face but somehow I missed it.

@kab buch, where do you get those hearts?).

Snowstorms are not so bad. If there’s too much snow, you won’t be able to get out of the driveway, let alone onto the highway, until it has been cleared. So you are out of danger.

But the worst kind of winter driving, as far as I am concerned, is in freezing rain (or sleet storm, or ice storm), where the precip. (nice meteorological word) falls as rain but freezes on touching anything solid. Not safe at all until the roads have been spread with salt/ sand/ (what do they call those grey bits that they use more and more nowadays? grit? pebbles? gravel? what’s the word for the grey powder you get when wood has burned down in a fireplace? ashes?).

In a snowstorm, the driver who doesn’t know how to drive often gets stuck, so probably doesn’t do any harm to you, but in freezing rain, they’re likely to hit you because they’re going too fast for the road and they don’t understand how the brakes work in that situation.

The other day they prophesied 40 inches of snow. That’s a lot of snow - over 3 feet! Still, I knew we could handle it, just be shut down for a few days; but.. it never came.

It has just occurred to me that it might have been 40 cm that they said. We are supposed to be a metric country, after all.

Let’s see: 2 inches = 5 cm, so 40 cm of snow = 16 inches. Still a lot, but we expect big storms like that say 3 times a year. But as I mentioned above, we don’t seem to get them as much!!

RinaFarina said: “… they don’t understand how the brakes work ….”

Brakes stop the wheels from turning. Ideally, that stops the vehicle. But in less than ideal circumstances, they may not.

(What do I win?)

Average global temperature, both atmospheric and oceanic, are still rising. Anomolous local weather (including snow where there oughtn’t to be snow, not just no snow where there ought to be) is unsurprising. Do you suppose, richgrise, that the six-foot drifts outside your window mean that the icecaps have stopped shrinking?

I love snow days like this… :D

Here in Klamath Falls, there’s snow on the ground, but the road are always clear. Ice is regularly salted, car tires always have chains and/or rubber crampons.

Even so, when the weather is bad, I like to spend days inside with something to read and a hot drink.

@annamargaret1866; If I remember correctly, what you are supposed to do on ice is pump the brakes.

Normally what you do want is for the wheels to stop turning. But if the car has decided to ignore your orders, usually it’s because the wheels are not turning. They’re sliding.

You get: prizes! prizes!! prizes!!!

do let me know how that turns out…

Here in Montreal we used to have a skid school, that taught (no prizes for guessing) how to deal with skids. (I don’t know if they’re still around.)

Their training area was a very large circle covered in smoothe, smoothe ice (the extra e is there for emphasis –somehow it makes the word look smoother.) At the edge of the circle was a border of several inches of pebbles, so that if you ended up at the border you would be stopped.

The lesson began with several students in the back seat of a car that was being driven by the instructor. He proceeded to get into a skid (deliberately) (several times), and then to show how to get out of it.

There was also a bit of theory. The rest of the day was for the students to practise.

Just from reading about it I got dizzy! If not for that I would have taken the course. But I get dizzy very easily, and when that happens I don’t think too well.

Does anyone else know of any such schools in their area? I would be interested to find out.

Sheesh, what’s to argue about? Down south they’re afraid of snow, up here in the north we’re afraid of alligators – it all evens out.

-Cougar :{)

^ Agreed, CougarA, and here out west we’re not too fond of the hurricanes in the east or the tornadoes in the mid-west; and the east & mid-west are terrified of our earthquakes!

Go figure!

Rina, I’m out here in Calgary…pumping your brakes is old school (as the young’uns say). With ABS pumping causes more problems. You steer into the skid (foot lightly braking) and that should keep you sorta in control.

I think Alberta Motor Association offers skid training within their winter package.

It seems that pretty much everywhere there are a lot of people who haven’t a clue how to drive in snow or with slippery roads.

Calgary believes that chinooks are a good snow removal plan…which means it is hard to get around residential areas or non-main routes/bus routes.

In my area of Calgary we weren’t hit hard with the storm. The wind kept blowing the little snow we were getting onto our sidewalk so we kept shoveling,

Canada’s stats are in for last year, it was the hottest summer in a long time. Too bad Alberta didn’t get any of that heat. Even SOME of it would’ve been nice. While everywhere else was sweltering (including the States here), Albertans & I hear Sask. didn’t have the heat. So much for global warming. I’ll believe that when I live in a warm climate north of Utah.

There are several different types of road-surface-treatments -

Salt, sand, grit…

and several different types of salt, depending on the expected lowest temperature this winter…

White salt - basically the same stuff you sprinkle on your fries - sodium chloride;; good down to about +20deg.F Blue salt - I think that’s potassium chloride; about the same as sodium chloride, but not as harmful to plants Green salt -ClearLane® enhanced deicer a pre-wet sodium chloride made from a patented liquid magnesium chloride formula and mixing process. Combined with pre-wetting and deicing agents, including a PNS approved corrosion inhibitor, a coloring agent, and a leaching inhibitor, ClearLane® enhanced deicer is a superior deicer for effective winter road maintenance that’s anti-corrosive, better for the environment and an alternative to road salt. (From Cargill) Red Salt - this one I know; it’s magnesium chloride, and it’s effective down to about -30 Fahrenheit.

Some highway departments are using brine - which is salt water with a high concentration of (whichever) salt. Sprayed like paving oil (seal-coating), it spreads better and doesn’t wind up in the storm drains as badly as rock salts do when the precipitation gets variable; such that it’s also effective for ice, sleet, and freezing rain events. It’s also less expensive to obtain and use, so it’s possible - and more affordable - to treat the entire roadway, instead of just bridges, curves, and intersections.

http://www.cargill.com/products/salt/winter/clearlane/index.jsp

Cargill is one of the largest, if not THE largest, supplier of de-icing and anti-icing products…

http://www.cargill.com/products/salt/winter/index.jsp

joshnus, be very welcome back :D

Fer Lefer, well it’s not 10°C here, more like 3°C but above freezing though. Sunny, too, yesterday at least.

lightenup haha, we in the Reykjavík area get the same quips from ppl up north, endlessly. Suppose it’s like that everywhere.

segulla’s right about ABS, no pumping needed. Air bubble tires ftw too!