Yikes! Snow Squalls!

[3113]

Hello! Anyone buried? Can we help dig you out?

Snow squalls bury upstate New York

Since Sunday, the small towns of Parish and Mexico have recorded more than 6 feet of snow, and forecasters with the National Weather Service say it isn't over yet.

Another 2 feet or more of heavy lake effect snow was expected Thursday for the communities along eastern Lake Ontario, and more squalls are likely through the weekend.

"We're just trying to keep up. It's almost an unreal amount," said Mayor Randy Bateman of Oswego, where 70 inches of snow had fallen by Thursday morning. "We catch up when it stops, but then it just comes again, even heavier."

Whiteout conditions — the snow has been falling at a rate of 5 inches an hour at times — forced state police to temporarily close Interstate 81 between Central Square and Pulaski, a stretch of about 15 miles. Travel advisories against unnecessary travel were posted for Oswego and its neighboring counties. Mexico officials renewed a snow emergency declaration, and many government offices were closed.

Schools were closed for a fourth day in Oswego and Mexico.

In West Virginia, where as much as 9 inches of snow has fallen, some schools that had been closed were able to reopen on Thursday, but in most of the state, classes were still delayed, and in a few counties, canceled. Officials had to call snowplow drivers out of retirement Wednesday to clear the roads.

The weather also disrupted travelers, leaving some stranded overnight in airports in the Midwest after flights to the Northeast were disrupted.

Temperatures in the Northeast were inching back up to something closer to normal for this time of year, but the upper Midwest and northern Plains still awoke to subzero temperatures Thursday — minus-12 in Minneapolis and 3 below zero in Chicago.

The bitter cold and slippery roads have contributed to at least 19 deaths — five in Ohio, four in Illinois, four in Indiana, two in Kentucky, two in Michigan, and one each in Wisconsin, New York and Maryland, authorities said. Three of them died Tuesday when two SUVs crashed on a slick road in northern Indiana. An autopsy Wednesday determined that an elderly woman found in a New York City building had died of hypothermia.

In Oswego, a big concern was keeping the city's 800 fire hydrants clear, said Fire Chief Ed Geers.

"We're just trying to keep on top of digging out the hydrants. When you get 5 feet of snow in 24 hours, it's tough," Geers said.

P.S. What's a sqall?

 

[Vermilion]

Hello! Anyone buried? Can we help dig you out?


P.S. What's a sqall?

Wow - and I thought our 4 inches was impressive...
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[slyc_willie]

Hello! Anyone buried? Can we help dig you out?


P.S. What's a sqall?

An intense and swift-moving storm, I think. Usually a maritime term.

Or maybe I'm making that up. Sounds right, though.

 

[Tom Collins]

P.S. What's a sqall?

An intense and swift-moving storm, I think. Usually a maritime term.

Or maybe I'm making that up. Sounds right, though.

I thought it was that horrid sound a wet infant makes? You know, the one that makes you wnat to cut off your own ears?

Maybe that's why Van Gogh really did it, eh? His neighbors kid wouldn't shut up. Then he just got a spur of the moment idea to give it to that chic he had the hots for?

 

[Vermilion]

I thought it was that horrid sound a wet infant makes? You know, the one that makes you wnat to cut off your own ears?

Maybe that's why Van Gogh really did it, eh? His neighbors kid wouldn't shut up. Then he just got a spur of the moment idea to give it to that chic he had the hots for?

Think it fits both definitions.
Probably because a baby's cry is loud, wet and sudden
x
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[3113]

Okay, this is getting ridiculous!

Upstate N.Y. snow: 8 feet and counting
PARISH, N.Y. - Sunshine greeted residents of this snowbound village on Saturday, giving crews a chance to haul away some of the 8 feet of snow that has fallen during the past week.

"The sun's out, but it isn't going to last," Mike Avery said as he took a brief break from loading dump trucks with snow to be taken to a pile outside town.

The National Weather Service said the bands of lake-effect snow fed by moisture from Lake Ontario would continue weaving up and down the lake's eastern shore during the weekend, dropping 2 to 4 more feet of snow with wind of up to 25 mph.

"It's all we need," Avery said, his tractor dwarfed by the snowbank he was trying to dismantle. "It's getting monotonous."

Parish — about 25 miles northeast of Syracuse — reached a milestone early Saturday with 100 inches of snow over the past seven days, the National Weather Service said. Unofficial reports pegged totals at 123 inches in Orwell and 122 in Redfield, but the weather service said those numbers include snow from another storm a couple of days before the current weather system arrived last Sunday. All three towns are in Oswego County.

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, New York and Maryland, authorities said. No deaths were reported in Oswego County.

It's been an exhausting week in Oswego County.

"This is right up there with the best of them, almost as bad as the Blizzard of '66. But there ain't nothing good about this much snow," Ray DeLong grumbled as his snowblower clogged and stalled on Friday in nearby Mexico.

Mexico residents see 5- to 6-foot snowfalls every two or three years, but even hardened locals are amazed at the scenes before them now: parked SUVs noticeable only because their antennas or roof racks stand above the snow's surface; front doors buried, with footprints leading to second-story windows; 6-foot-thick slabs of snow that have slid off roofs, forming colossal arches as they stretch intact to the ground.

Sidewalks look like miniature canyons.

Mark Kelcinski's son spent two hours Friday with a shovel and snowblower in front of the family's graphics design shop, carving a path through the snowbank to the street. They have done the same thing each day for five days.

"That's all we do is shovel and snowblow all day long," said Kelcinski. "You go home and then come in and do the same thing again the next day."

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 and catches the snow-laden winter wind blowing off the lake. 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 record for snowfall in a year — 466.9 inches, about 39 feet, in the winter of 1976-77. It sits right next to the hamlet of Montague, which got 77 inches in a 24-hour period in January 1997.

Yo! Any Lit folk in these areas? Can we send you shovels? Snowplows? Tickets to Tahiti?

 

[rgraham666]

What's really weird is I'm just across the lake from there, and it's rather mild and partly sunny here.

And no snow forecast before Thursday.

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

Not worried in the least

http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l27/Jenny_Jackson/ScreenShot176.jpg

 

[3113]

To the Rescue!

Well, I'm worried! It's time to send out a search party for Lit folks in that part of the country, buried under the snow. I'm hitching up the sled dogs, getting on my parka, and scrolling the iPod on down to my Snow Patrol playlist.

Rob, get on your Mountie uniform!

Who's else is with us?

 

[rgraham666]

Well, I'm worried! It's time to send out a search party for Lit folks in that part of the country, buried under the snow. I'm hitching up the sled dogs, getting on my parka, and scrolling the iPod on down to my Snow Patrol playlist.

Rob, get on your Mountie uniform!

Who's else is with us?

Was never in the Mounties.

I've still got my JTF2 gear around here somewhere. Gimme a sec and I'll join you.

 

[kendo1]

.....

 

[3113]

I'll get my kilt.

Excellent! Always good to have a Highlander at our side! Don't forget your sword and blue make-up.

 

[SeaCat]

Now what is truly scary about all of this is how the people who live in those areas adapt.

For several years I lived in that territory, a little town named Verona New York in Upstate New York. There were many storms I remembered that dropped multiple feet of snow and most people up there didn't even really notice. They just pulled out their snow blowers and kept things cleared.

Cat