Last I knew, I lived in New England…and being in the northern hemisphere, we are in the winter season. Why does everybody treat snowfall like something rare and unusual? Isn’t it supposed to snow in the winter in New England? We get the mere inking that there might possibly be a couple of inches of this rare and unusual white powdery substance on the ground and every television weatherhominid seems to go into a panic at the 3 inches in 8 hours blizzard that we might possibly have.
OK, we got our 3 inches, in about 8 hours, and some asshat bounced his SUV into the electric pole on our street, and we have been without power for 6 hours, though it just got fixed and I can get into WoW and play again=)
I can remember when I was growing up in western new york [and bavaria] when 3 inches in an hour was the blizzard, and 3 inches in a day was fairly typical weather.
Meh, I cant even get enthused enough for a good pitting=(
Right next to these people are the ones who are still surprised, every year, at the way the people you describe behave.
It never changes, and never will. It will always snow in New England, people will always panic, the weathermen will always feed the frenzy, and there will always be a contingency to point out how it’s the same, year after year
Me, I’m just ready for Spring.
Don’t pick on the weatherman. That’s a tough job. He’s likely the only member of the news staff with a fancy degree, and yet the anchor always feels he has to do that stupid bit where he blames the weather man for the weather.
“Snow again? Thanks a lot,, Bob! Hahahahah.”
They never do that with a real news.
“Six hundred orphans burned alive while the nuns who were supposed to take care of them were hitting the smack? Thanks a lot, Bob!”
“I understand that there’s a shortage of food in the city this week, and unfortunately, everyone will have to survive on bread and ketchup until next Thursday. Thanks, Bob!”
I have to agree with the OP that weather wimps are becoming more numerous, and ratings-conscious weather drones who promote panic are feeding the trend.
Recently I overheard two grizzled old guys conversing about a recent storm. “Yep, it was coming down so hard you could barely see across the street.” Etc.
The blizzard these characters were talking about dropped a grand total of an inch and a half of snow.
A real nor’easter for the books.
Part of the solution is to get your weather info from the weather service online and avoid TV.
And hey, it’s meterological spring, not winter. Go sunbathe.
Unfortunately, weather is BIG stuff for TV ratings. Add to that the fact that no one kows how the heck to drive in it (just look at all the training they get - none), and it is a riot.
Philly was CRIPPLED by 3/4" of snow about two months ago, and yesterday, total accumulation was a ‘trace’, and the area was bogged down. Everyone was frazzled from their commute!
Stupidity is the only thing that can bog down a major metro area that has been dealing with weather just fine, until the 1990’s and constant news coverage and hammerheads who can’t drive took over the world.
It’s New England in March. What else is there to talk about?
Yesterday’s storm was actually pretty unusual. Went from rain to sleet to dry powdery snow in a couple of hours. We had lightning and thundersnow and 40+ mph winds. Even though we only got six inches of snow, I had a 2 1/2 foot drift outside my door this morning. So…not your run of the mill flurry, and it was pretty dangerous driving last night.
As another ameliorating factor, we did have a series of very mild winters for the longest time and we had sort of gotten used to it. So a winter like this one where it * never stops snowing * has sort of gotten on people’s last nerve.
Around here it seems like people tend to be fuckwitted about it in November, but they usually remember how to deal with snow by March. We got an inch on November 5 and people acted like total dipsticks, but we got a foot yesterday and it didn’t seem to go too badly.
On a tangentally related note to the Albany PD: I’m sure you know your business better than I do, but given that it’s about 10°F outside with wind gusts to 50 mph I’d have considered leaving the horses in the barn today.
:eek: Holy crap, that’s almost worth a separate pitting.
I am always proud of the amount of snow I am willing to drive through and not think anything of it, and at the reactions of other people. Yesterday we were getting horrible freezing rain, which sometimes can be worse than snow since it makes the roads icy. I had to go to the DMV (again), so I went. My coworkers thought I was crazy. Um, it’s just snow. If I really let it stop me from what I was doing, I’d be incapacitated.
I have a question about New England winters: Are there times during winter when there is no snow on the ground? The only cold place I’ve ever lived was Indiana from December of 1993 to March of 1994 and I never even saw my yard. I just assumed that once it started snowing in New England (October? November?) it stayed on the ground until “the big thaw” (April?)
Recently, winters with uninterrupted snow cover have been rare, at least in southern New England (upper Maine and the White Mountains are another climate entirely). Usually you’ll get some early snows in mid to late November that melt quickly, but actual white Christmases are somewhat rare. In late December, we’ll get some snows that stick for several weeks until a January or February thaw. Snow cover that lasts through March is very unusual.
But it’s an unpredictable thing. Some years we get * no * snow. (The late 90’s were very warm.) This year, the snow cover has been pretty constant since December. Curiously, we usually get our biggest snows in late winter, often in March when the weather turns wetter but there’s still some potent cold air lurking up north. A few years ago, an April 1st storm dumped something like 30" on New England.
