November snowpocalypse

Rush hour storms are always a mess.  Granted, this one was uncommonly bad, but they are always difficult.

tomcat said:
As I might have mentioned before, snow is a 4 letter word!

 Yep.  Comes right there between "diet" and "work".

soda said:
In other words: Blame Max.
Or Phil...
-s.

 Phil blamed the forecasters.  Stay classy.

yahooyahoo said:

soda said:
In other words: Blame Max.
Or Phil...
-s.

 Phil blamed the forecasters.  Stay classy.

 Sometimes the truth will never do.  

1.  Rush hour storms are always bad.  

2.  Forecasters can't win - I remember one storm where they closed the state and the storm was a complete fizzle as in no snow versus a couple of feet.

3.  If everybody drove Subarus, the drive home would have been slow, but orderly.

tjohn said:

  

2.  Forecasters can't win - I remember one storm where they closed the state and the storm was a complete fizzle as in no snow versus a couple of feet.

 I remember that storm that didn't happen. NJ 101.5 had a call-in with their meteorologist for people to complain. It made me so mad ... people were complaining because they had planned around not having to go to work the next day.

One thing I've learned by reading the very informed posts about weather here on MOL is that it's all a science of percentagesand probabilities even down to the last few hours (and then some). 

tjohn said:

....
2.  Forecasters can't win - I remember one storm where they closed the state and the storm was a complete fizzle as in no snow versus a couple of feet.
....

 And there was the hurricane that wasn't. That was about 35 years ago. Schools were closed to nothing but 30 m.p.h. winds. 

and people were pissed that it added a school day to spring vacation (formerly called Easter vacation) and they couldn't go to Disney World.

So the schools or gub'mint officials are blamed no matter which way they get it wrong.

mrincredible said:

tjohn said:

  

2.  Forecasters can't win - I remember one storm where they closed the state and the storm was a complete fizzle as in no snow versus a couple of feet.

 I remember that storm that didn't happen. NJ 101.5 had a call-in with their meteorologist for people to complain. It made me so mad ... people were complaining because they had planned around not having to go to work the next day.
One thing I've learned by reading the very informed posts about weather here on MOL is that it's all a science of percentagesand probabilities even down to the last few hours (and then some). 

 If I am thinking about the same storm, it went on to tear up eastern Long Island and dumped 2ft on Boston.  Sometimes, its not a question of "if" or "when" but "where".

That said, we are blessed here in MAPSO to have multiple meteorologists offering us detailed forecasts for our tiny little neck of the woods.  

lot of revisionist history going on. I was stuck on a train on Friday with a couple of blowhards going on and on about how terrible the governor is, how he should be in jail because his incompetence caused people's deaths on the road on Thursday. They were insisting that the forecasts had called for disastrous snow and Murphy ignored it. This thread is pretty good evidence that no one had any idea it would be that bad until it was already that bad. 

I was stuck on a train Friday with sparks coming out of the last car and a woman running shouting fire. I'll take the blowhards.

jfinnegan said:
I was stuck on a train Friday with sparks coming out of the last car and a woman running shouting fire. I'll take the blowhards.

 why should we endure either?

good point. Unfortunately I don't see either going away anytime soon. 

I see that Superintendent Ficarra said that the Thursday storm might become the new normal.  Puhleeze!  It was a inconveniently timed snowstorm which was a bit worse than expected (not an infrequent event) and early in the season, so people didn't take it so seriously.

max_weisenfeld said:

Only minor tweeks to the forecast this morning as there is good model consensus around yesterday's forecast.  Wintery mix starting out as mostly snow around midday changes over to rain over the course of the afternoon and evening.  Rain washes away the inch or so of snow on the grass and continues into Friday morning, perhaps ending a bit  earlier than originally thought.
Main concerns remain icing during the changeover.  North and west there are more significant probabilities of snow.
Winter Weather Advisory remains in effect from midday through 9 pm.

 I think it bears repeating that the forecast from the NWS that Max was quoting above was released around 6am on Thursday.  To blame all of the state and local officials for the disaster that occurred afterward is imho unfair. Are they supposed to ignore a forecast like this and declare a state of emergency and order all vehicles off the road?  

tjohn said:
I see that Superintendent Ficarra said that the Thursday storm might become the new normal.  Puhleeze!  It was a inconveniently timed snowstorm which was a bit worse than expected (not an infrequent event) and early in the season, so people didn't take it so seriously.

Ficarra is a blowhard.

tjohn said:
I see that Superintendent Ficarra said that the Thursday storm might become the new normal.  Puhleeze!  It was a inconveniently timed snowstorm which was a bit worse than expected (not an infrequent event) and early in the season, so people didn't take it so seriously.

 Well, he is right insofar as weird weather will be the new normal.  That's the "change" in climate change.

GoSlugs said:

tjohn said:
I see that Superintendent Ficarra said that the Thursday storm might become the new normal.  Puhleeze!  It was a inconveniently timed snowstorm which was a bit worse than expected (not an infrequent event) and early in the season, so people didn't take it so seriously.

 Well, he is right insofar as weird weather will be the new normal.  That's the "change" in climate change.

 Ya, but this one wasn’t all that weird. Just unexpected to an extent. That’s not climate change. 

WxNut2.0 said:

GoSlugs said:

tjohn said:
I see that Superintendent Ficarra said that the Thursday storm might become the new normal.  Puhleeze!  It was a inconveniently timed snowstorm which was a bit worse than expected (not an infrequent event) and early in the season, so people didn't take it so seriously.

 Well, he is right insofar as weird weather will be the new normal.  That's the "change" in climate change.

 Ya, but this one wasn’t all that weird. Just unexpected to an extent. That’s not climate change. 

 Most November snowfall in 136 years sounds kind of weird to me. Things that only happen every 136 years are sort of the definition of abnormal.

from Bob Roe: one added thought.  There are nearly twice as many cars on the road as there were twenty years ago.  So. more cars and same amount of roads adds up to a circulation problem whenever almost anything goes wrong.  

GoSlugs said:

WxNut2.0 said:

GoSlugs said:

tjohn said:
I see that Superintendent Ficarra said that the Thursday storm might become the new normal.  Puhleeze!  It was a inconveniently timed snowstorm which was a bit worse than expected (not an infrequent event) and early in the season, so people didn't take it so seriously.

 Well, he is right insofar as weird weather will be the new normal.  That's the "change" in climate change.

 Ya, but this one wasn’t all that weird. Just unexpected to an extent. That’s not climate change. 

 Most November snowfall in 136 years sounds kind of weird to me. Things that only happen every 136 years are sort of the definition of abnormal.

 We've had November snowfall a few times in the past several years. 

yahooyahoo said   
 We've had November snowfall a few times in the past several years. 

I think the operative word here is "most".

And we're following up the snow with possibly the coldest TG day on record.

yay

RobertRoe said:
from Bob Roe: one added thought.  There are nearly twice as many cars on the road as there were twenty years ago.  So. more cars and same amount of roads adds up to a circulation problem whenever almost anything goes wrong.  

Expanding mass transit options could reduce the amount of motor vehicle traffic on the roads.  Unfortunately, the buses and trains didn't do any better handling the snow in last week's storm than passenger cars did.  

Posters to this and other threads have blamed the accidents/standstill traffic/abandoned vehicles on timing of the storm, insufficient number of early closings, poor driving skills, tires that couldn't handle the road conditions, delay in salting the roads, unusual number of active construction sites that closed down several major roadways, selection of wrong weather predictions, etc.  Some of these factors can be reduced/eliminated going forward. Having identified much of what went wrong, what can each of us do to improve matters for the next time something like this occurs?

The answer is simple. If Murphy had spent Thursday at McDonald's instead of a high priced Rumson restaurant, .....

drummerboy said:
And we're following up the snow with possibly the coldest TG day on record.
yay

 This is more likely feature of climate change than the snow, as it’s being driven by an anomalously cold, large-scale airmass. The record snow was a product of a quasi-randomly located band of heavy snow. This band was very small-scale, and had it set up 30 miles away we wouldn’t have even thought about it.