November snowpocalypse

My theory: Road equivalent of “slippery rail” that NJT cites. It’s all about the leaves combining with the snow.

Leaves with snow, and the unexpected severity.  People went to work, schools did not dismiss early, the DPW was not prepared.  Early season surprise storm...just a bad combination.

I don't think I've ever seen so much red traffic - locally - on google maps before.

And zoomed out a bit more - all highways are red as well.

GoSlugs said:
Will this really transition to rain later?  The temp has been dropping pretty steadily for the last few hours. 

Need to know this also. If it does not, the ice will be a disaster. Really would prefer not to have to shovel this mess.

Not sure if this was posted - Jitney cancelled in Maplewood.

jimmurphy said:
My theory: Road equivalent of “slippery rail” that NJT cites. It’s all about the leaves combining with the snow.

I don’t know- major highways have no leaves and they are really, really bad. NYC bridges, no leaves and some are so bad right now, they are shut down. I think this one was a huge weather forecasting screw up so roads weren’t properly treated and people didn’t plan to leave work/school early enough.

I have never heard of folks abandoning their cars in Maplewood before  - this is something 

Left Home Depot at 3:15, headed home (on South Pierson) = about 1 mile.  Took 1 hour and 25 minutes, due to Valley being closed for utility work between Vauxhall and Millburn Avenue.

On the way home I noticed, that Mercedes drivers do not have to clean their windows in a snow storm:

OK folks, there's a snowplow stuck in the snow on my street.

Ridgewood   by St Lawrence seems to be at a standstill and cars can’t seem to be able to get up St Lawrence.

galileo said:
Ridgewood   by St Lawrence seems to be at a standstill and cars can’t seem to be able to get up St Lawrence.

 I think they have diverted onto Kendall because there is a stationary jam at Kendall and Audley with people trying and failing to get to Walton. 

They've definitely downshifted the temp projections.  As of about an hour ago, they were projecting above freezing and rain right about now.  Now they say it aint getting above freezing till about 10.

It took my husband almost 4 hours to get home from Summit!   Traffic is terrible everywhere across our region.  What are our thoughts on school tomorrow? Is rain supposed to move in that will wash this away as was initially predicted?  I'm thinking given the impact of this storm we'd have at least a delayed opening.  

as of 4:30pm there were 441 crashes https://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2018/11/441_crashes_closed_bridges_turn_evening_rush_into_snowlocked_mush_as_seasons_first_storm_smacks_nj.html

h4daniel said:
It must be the snow itself, not the amount, that is causing all the problems - maybe it is an odd mixture that is making it so unbelievably slippery. I swear I could not get traction,  I kept on slipping, really crazy. This was around 2:20pm and not much on the ground. It really surprised me.

 Same. Went to get my daughter at CHS at 2:10. Slide down Jefferson in my Subaru. We live on a hill and I couldn't even properly park in my driveway. It's worse than I' could imagine and that was just when it started. 

GoSlugs said:
Its snowing a lot for November but, in the grand scheme of things, its not an unprecedented amount.  Does anyone know why there is so much trouble on the roads?  Is it the leaves or just too much traffic?
When I went to get my kid from school at 2:30 people were already going down hills sideways and there wasn't more than an inch on the roads.

I think it was a combination of things.  1) I think many DPWs thought we would get 1"-'3" and that would be washed away by the predicted heavy rainfall.  With that mindset they did not apply salt to the roadways.  The decision to not use salt was also based on the cost of salt (in a typical storm where you salt before and after, Maplewood would spend $15k-$25k on salt). Another reason they did not apply salt is the lack of salt spreaders available at this time of the year.

A side note about leaves -Piles of leaves in the roadway do not factor in to snow plowing operations at this time of year.  With the temperature on their side they would just plow up to the leaf line.  The width of the roads are already narrowed down by piles of leaves, so if it is done properly there should be no impact to the width of the road and will melt fairly quickly.

2)  Lack of salt spreaders- I can't speak for other towns but Maplewood only has 6 speaders when fully prepared for a storm.  With it being mid November I would venture to guess they only had 1 spreader mounted and ready to go. So imagine how long it takes for 1 vehicle to drive on every road in town.  Plus that truck would need to return to the DPW yard approximately 15 times to get reloaded.

3)  Lack of snow plows ready to go. I don't know how many plows went out but my street (a main road) was plowed at approximately 3:30 and nothing since.  The street which intersects with mine has not been touched yet.  Had enough plows been ready, every street would have seen a truck by now.

The lack of trucks being prepared is largely due to it still being leaf season.  Maplewood does not have trucks specifically dedicated to just salting, or just plowing.  The same trucks that spread salt and plow are the same trucks that haul the leaves away.  So in order to pick the leaves up they have to keep the spreaders off.  Typically I would have 1 spreader on a truck by November first and if a storm like this was predicted I would have at least one more mounted.

4)  Traffic.  The traffic everyone is talking about being at a stand still is the same traffic the plows and spreaders have to drive in.  They can't plow a street if they can't get to it.

Rivoli said:
OK folks, there's a snowplow stuck in the snow on my street.

 For some reason this snow is super slippery.  Out here in Hunterdon Co they brined the major roadways last night in preparation.  Route 12 was brined, I know because I was on 12 before it started snowing and you could see the solution on the roadway.  Yet about 3 hours ago someone reported that a salt truck went off of 12 and into a ditch.  If snow plows are getting stuck, and salt trucks are sliding off the road, something ain't right.

I've driven in deeper snows that weren't anywhere near as slippery as what is out there now.

Luckily for us, we had an early dismissal so the kids got home before the sh*t hit the fan.  A friend in the Montclair area posted about how apparently the school bus got stuck in major traffic, and was then diverted to roads too steep and slippery for the bus to go up, and the driver finally made the decision to take the kids to the bus depot so they could feed them and at least let them use the restrooms while they figure out how the hell they'll get them home.  As of an hour ago her two teens still hadn't made it home, though the bus driver and their supervisor were keeping parents updated.

ETA:  She just updated, her kids are still not home.  They got out of school five hours and 20 minutes ago.

I think it’s so slippery because the roads weren’t pre-salted and then they were slow to plow and treat the roads after it started because it came down so fast. So, great towns saved $25k but I’d imagine it cost way more than that in accidents, traffic issues, shut down of services, etc

What can we expect for the commute tomorrow morning? Will rain wash everything away tonight, or will there be icing overnight?. Wondering if I should reschedule tomorrow morning's meetings. Any advice?

Roads still look pretty red locally - has anything improved or are there a lot of abandoned cars?

what’s the latest on the rain? Don’t see any yet 

I was just out clearing the front steps. Seems like freezing rain now. The top of the snow is crunchy now.

conandrob240 said:
I think it’s so slippery because the roads weren’t pre-salted and then they were slow to plow and treat the roads after it started because it came down so fast. So, great towns saved $25k but I’d imagine it cost way more than that in accidents, traffic issues, shut down of services, etc

 They brined Rt 12 in Hunterdon, and I saw two snow plows on the same stretch. It was still slippery as hell

I don’t know if the brine solution is better or worse than salt. Maybe Eric Burbank knows that answer.  

It better rain. I convinced my husband it would be all washed away overnight by morning and he’s going to be plenty pissed if he has to shovel at 7am!

conandrob240 said:
It better rain. I convinced my husband it would be all washed away overnight by morning and he’s going to be plenty pissed if he has to shovel at 7am!

 Rain or not, its not going to be washed away overnight. It's going to barely get above freezing, if at all. 

We are getting dry slotted, so I expect very little rain the rest of the night.  It is also still colder than forecast, and will probably stay colder than forecast.

Thanks to Max and WxNut. We are fortunate to have such knowledgeable guides to the weather!

max_weisenfeld said:
We are getting dry slotted, so I expect very little rain the rest of the night.  It is also still colder than forecast, and will probably stay colder than forecast.

 Agreed; although I wouldn’t totally be surprised by a quick wrap-around precip blast. 

WxNut2.0 said:

conandrob240 said:
It better rain. I convinced my husband it would be all washed away overnight by morning and he’s going to be plenty pissed if he has to shovel at 7am!

 Rain or not, its not going to be washed away overnight. It's going to barely get above freezing, if at all. 

 Ugh. What happened to heavy rain all night? I thought it was changing over to all rain and getting warmer?