Difficult to Impossible Travel across Wide Swaths of the U.S.
Powerful storms that stretch from coast to coast will bring widespread areas of snow and blowing snow to low elevations in the West Coast and to the Great Lakes. Blizzard to near-blizzard conditions can be expected. Strong winds across the Southwest will keep fire weather threats critical in the South Plains. Thunderstorms, some severe, may produce localized flash flooding in the Midwest.[1]
[1] (bad capture by archive.is. NWS changes the content at that URL and archive.is shows an old one from last month.)
Unless you're way up in the corner, where we're getting 6-9 inches of snow plus some sleet on top. We'll be in the mid-20's and falling to near 0 Friday night.
My experience recently with the train going up the east coast during snow storms on my travel to US: you don't want to be stuck for hours in the middle of nowhere, imo.
I haven't watched the show yet, but I've read about the general premise of this show (and the book it was based on). It really makes no sense to me; am I missing something?
If the world turns into "snowball Earth", it seems like the last place you want to be is in a moving vehicle. I guess an airplane would be even worse, but I don't see why you'd want people in a never-stopping train. It feels like this whole story was just contrived.
In reality, in such a situation if you're some super-rich person, you'd want to set up some kind of underground city. Being underground, it'd be protected from the frigid weather outside, it'd be somewhat warm (caves stay at a constant temperature year-round), and you'd have space to do things like grow food using artificial lighting, and you wouldn't have to worry about mechanical breakdown suddenly exposing everyone to the weather and killing them.
I think the idea is that the train was pre-existing, and it has some kind of perpetual motion engine which keeps it going and which the occupants can siphon off heat for warmth and electricity.
Ok, but if you have a perpetual motion engine (or at least a nuclear reactor with basically unlimited fuel), wouldn't it make more sense to take it out of the train, put it into an underground building, and live there? There's plenty of pre-existing underground spaces in large cities, even with their own train systems. It wouldn't be that hard to abandon the above-ground stuff for the most part, and start expanding the below-ground stuff for people to live in.
Even modern-day trains don't cope well with heavy snowfall; the idea of the last vestiges of humanity living on a train traveling around the world endlessly, where they have to worry about being derailed by the weather at any time, doesn't seem to make sense.
I’m listening to the ice storm out my window in Ontario. It’s a nasty one!
It’s also wild that last week it was +14C and on Monday it was above freezing and 100% of the snow on my street was gone. February is typically incredibly cold and am used to there being a ridiculous amount of accumulated snow. But we got a reset.
That reset has one silver lining: spring flooding is likely to be unlikely.
To make it possible to use the key at the bottom reliably.
For example, off the coast of California, there are two shades of purple. I'm pretty confident the darker one means Gale Warning. But what is the lighter one? Is it the light purple for Small Craft Advisory? Or the other light purple for Brisk Wind Advisory? Or the other light purple for Hazardous Seas Warning?
Oh, you're right! In Chrome developer tools, they're all #D8BFD8.
I assumed they were subtle differences because elsewhere there are colors with subtle differences: Flood Warning is #00FF00, and Flood Advisory is #00FF7F.
To state the obvious, it should be usable without needing developer tools.
The beauty of LA is that all the seasons are within driving distance. There are mountain ranges all around, high land between and behind them, and peaks as high as 10,000 ft. All within the county line. Yeah, you get blizzard warnings sometimes.
I guess this headline is probably not hyperbole. The weekend before last I was backpacking with some friends in the sierras. We had six additional inches of snowfall, which wouldn't have been so bad but we also had wind gusts up to 45 MPH (according to weather reports, all we could estimate was "fucking intense"). But when not moving it was fine -- its easy to block the wind when you stop traveling and can shovel windbreaks.
Then last week end I was skiing in a T shirt, and some of the kids were skiing shirtless.
Now we're back to wild windstorms and precipitation this week.
Big thumbs up to NOAA's weather page. I've used it for years. The hour by hour weather report has the exact detail one needs before venturing out. I dont leave home without opening this bookmark.
Spent 15 hours on the road today. Started on the Alabama coast at 7AM and got to Chicago at 10PM. It was between 75 and 80 degrees F until it started raining in southern Indiana around 5pm. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 degrees F by Indianapolis, 40 degrees by West Lafayette, and right at 32-33 in Chicago. Nasty rain from Indianapolis to Chicago, but at least it was wet and not frozen. From what I heard, there was sleet and frozen garbage in the Chicago area all the way until 8 or 9 pm.
Lots of people on the road, I don't think anyone was changing their plans based on the forecast. The strong northerly wind helped my car do 37mpg when normally I would expect 31-32 on that trip.
Portland was wild. Lightly snowing when I left to pickup my kids. 3 hours and troves of stuck cars (including my own) later, made it back home w/ help. Seems like half the city was stuck on the road.
58 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 122 ms ] threadDifficult to Impossible Travel across Wide Swaths of the U.S.
Powerful storms that stretch from coast to coast will bring widespread areas of snow and blowing snow to low elevations in the West Coast and to the Great Lakes. Blizzard to near-blizzard conditions can be expected. Strong winds across the Southwest will keep fire weather threats critical in the South Plains. Thunderstorms, some severe, may produce localized flash flooding in the Midwest.[1]
[1] (bad capture by archive.is. NWS changes the content at that URL and archive.is shows an old one from last month.)
Today was a high of 54°F/12°C
Unusual for late February, based on my 22 years living in the Mid-Atlantic.
Sucks if you’re rationing crackers with the unwashed masses where you might be lucky to have some kind of grab handle.
don't take up ocean sailing!
If the world turns into "snowball Earth", it seems like the last place you want to be is in a moving vehicle. I guess an airplane would be even worse, but I don't see why you'd want people in a never-stopping train. It feels like this whole story was just contrived.
In reality, in such a situation if you're some super-rich person, you'd want to set up some kind of underground city. Being underground, it'd be protected from the frigid weather outside, it'd be somewhat warm (caves stay at a constant temperature year-round), and you'd have space to do things like grow food using artificial lighting, and you wouldn't have to worry about mechanical breakdown suddenly exposing everyone to the weather and killing them.
but if you ignore that problem the show becomes enjoyable.
Even modern-day trains don't cope well with heavy snowfall; the idea of the last vestiges of humanity living on a train traveling around the world endlessly, where they have to worry about being derailed by the weather at any time, doesn't seem to make sense.
<https://www.sfchronicle.com/weather/article/photos-show-hist...>
It’s also wild that last week it was +14C and on Monday it was above freezing and 100% of the snow on my street was gone. February is typically incredibly cold and am used to there being a ridiculous amount of accumulated snow. But we got a reset.
That reset has one silver lining: spring flooding is likely to be unlikely.
What are the odds of a snow day tomorrow?
https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/school-bus-cancellations-in-effec...
The guys in Waterloo are saying it’s especially nasty. I have a feeling we’ll all be home tomorrow.
To make it possible to use the key at the bottom reliably.
For example, off the coast of California, there are two shades of purple. I'm pretty confident the darker one means Gale Warning. But what is the lighter one? Is it the light purple for Small Craft Advisory? Or the other light purple for Brisk Wind Advisory? Or the other light purple for Hazardous Seas Warning?
I assumed they were subtle differences because elsewhere there are colors with subtle differences: Flood Warning is #00FF00, and Flood Advisory is #00FF7F.
To state the obvious, it should be usable without needing developer tools.
Ain’t weather chaos fun?
Then last week end I was skiing in a T shirt, and some of the kids were skiing shirtless.
Now we're back to wild windstorms and precipitation this week.
https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=40.0891&lon=-8...
(needs to be set to your ZIP)
My tax dollars at work! I’m very pleased.
Many weather apps actually use data from the NOAA: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/11/25/weather-i...
I've got a set of scripts that scrape that to a text-friendly page, though NOAA also has an API I should probably look at to replace those.
Scripts FWIW: <https://pastebin.com/e82TkqEY>
Lots of people on the road, I don't think anyone was changing their plans based on the forecast. The strong northerly wind helped my car do 37mpg when normally I would expect 31-32 on that trip.