OT- Storm of the Century Open Thread

Submitted by 2Blue4You on

What shall we call it?  It has to have a name if it is the storm of the centur... wait, we live in Michigan and should expect this stuff.  Personally, I love it and usually say bring it on, but March is approaching fast and that is my start to hope for Spring date.  It is pretty out there but if anyone has trees in their yard, there is probably considerable carnage.

I awoke to a significant amount of branches down all over, crushing various things (not the house thankfully) so my day is going to be spent shoveling and cutting wood.  Power is still on at this point and the roads seem to be fine.

Anyone else having a day off, a day of storm work/repair, or business as usual?  Should we turn it into a drinking thread, or do we wait until noon?

StephenRKass

February 27th, 2013 at 11:29 AM ^

Michigan never does snow days, but they did my freshmen year, in January of 1978. That was a surreal day. This was before cell phones, and before the Internet, so most students still went to class. The problem was that the roads really became inpassable, and professors couldn't get to campus. It was about as quiet as you will ever hear on the diag . . . the snow just muffles all the sound, and there is a kind of peaceful beauty.

Here's a link to an article on this:  http://www.michigandaily.com/content/2008-11-26/you-were-here-great-blizzard-1978

TTUwolverine

February 27th, 2013 at 9:26 AM ^

Did you get a lot of icing where you are?  Storm of the century seems a little dramatic for this one unless you live in Amarillo, where it was pretty nasty 2 days ago. 

ijohnb

February 27th, 2013 at 9:32 AM ^

as usual.  This is getting very old at this point though.  I have an internal measuring system for the appropriate number of annoying-ass-weather-days allowed per year and that number has been exceeded.  

As for drinking, you owe nobody an explanation for cracking one open whenever you want (except for your children, if you have any, then you owe them an explanation and you don't have a good one).  However, I can tell you that your drinking experience will have a better result if you do wait until after noon, some time aroun 2:00 PM being optimal with a 6:30 start time tonight.  Just keep busy until then, stay on this blog, watch Karate Kid 2, trim your toe nails.  That beer will still be there in a couple of hours.

Michigan Eaglet

February 27th, 2013 at 9:28 AM ^

Looked outside and a tree limb about 9 feet long fell on the sidewalk in front of my house. Besides that, not too much damage I can see right now. I've been a Michigander my whole life though, so this weather isn't even that bad at all.

mGrowOld

February 27th, 2013 at 9:28 AM ^

Well it's raining here in Cleveland.  Which would make it the "Storm of the morning of February 27th" given that it seems to rain or snow here every damn day of the year.

M-Wolverine

February 27th, 2013 at 9:29 AM ^

I'm not at work yet because it took 2 and a half hours to dig out. And start shaking bush and tree branches so if we get more they don't all crack. Had one bush blocking my walkway, and another dangling in the driveway. Might still carwash brush my car on the way out. Beyond broken branches I think one bush on the side of my house is uprooted. Luckily as neighbors we all worked together to dig out. And knock on wood even though DTE's map says I'm without power, so far, so good.

Soulfire21

February 27th, 2013 at 9:31 AM ^

Hardly storm of the century, perhaps storm of "between January and February of 2013".  We received a little bit under 3" of snow, and I'm at work.  It was a very ho-hum snowfall.  Now, had arctic air been in place at the onset of the storm (we got a ton of rain before the changeover to snow) then it definitely could have been one of the biggest storms Detroit has seen in a decade.  But the air wasn't cold enough, and it wasn't a big storm, at least here.

Darker Blue

February 27th, 2013 at 9:35 AM ^

This shows how much attention I pay to the world around me. I have no idea what storm you're talking about, I'm in northern Michigan, and while its snowing, its not storming.

TTUwolverine

February 27th, 2013 at 10:02 AM ^

It is so frustrating when every moderately impressive storm is dubbed a HUGE RECORD EVENT... when really it just flat-out isn't.  The weather channel naming winter storms doesnt help, either.  There is no reason to send the entire public into a panic for every winter storm of the season, because when it turns out that it really isn't as bad as the media says it is, people don't pay attention the next time around when it actually is a big deal.  For some reason, weather is a chic thing to talk about these days, and apparently draws ratings.  It's good in one sense that people are interested in and paying attention to weather, but this is an unfortunate side-effect.

/meteorologistrant

LSAClassOf2000

February 27th, 2013 at 9:37 AM ^

Here in southwestern Wayne county, it started yesterday afternoon as a hellish rain, then around 4 PM, it slowly turned to ice and sleet. By 5 PM, it was all snow - a heavy, slushy snow. We heard some limbs crack out in the woods too, which was a little disconcerting as there are overhead distribution lines out there. 

This morning, we had about 3-4 of slush sitting on the ground basically, so I spent an hour doing what could best be described as mining snow, as I literally had to pick at it with the shovel and haul it off a chunk at a time. It was that heavy. It is also slightly above freezing now here, so the slush in the street has created a beautiful stream which terminates at the drain near the intersection. The dead leaves and grass collecting along the sides give it a quasi-natural quality. 

I think there were about 15,000 out in Washtenaw County this morning too, so if you are out, definitely report it. The more we know about, the faster you generally get restored. 

LSAClassOf2000

February 27th, 2013 at 10:21 AM ^

In terms of where I live, it's more in the area of the Romulus / Huron Township line (my office is in Belleville, so basically in the same area), which is an area of mostly marshes and the odd subdivision, and all with incredibly poor drainage, so this sort of weather is the LAST thing we need.

LSAClassOf2000

February 27th, 2013 at 11:51 AM ^

My backyard faces a wooded, marshy area (big shock in this part of the county, right?) and right now, my firepit, which is a good 20 feet from the border fence out there, is sitting in about two inches of water. The current coast is farther along, about 10 feet from the kids' play structure. It's not terribly windy or anything, so I might get the kayak out when I get home and relax out there.

samdrussBLUE

February 27th, 2013 at 9:42 AM ^

I stepped in a fairly large slush puddle this morning at State and South U and that pissed me off.  Business as usual otherwise.

Bryan

February 27th, 2013 at 9:51 AM ^

One took out the phone lines. A very large limb was blocking my road that was fortunately moved aside by the plow. Not as bad as the ice storm about 12 years ago, but lots of work to do in the yard when the snow melts

True Blue Grit

February 27th, 2013 at 9:56 AM ^

we easily have 9" of snow in the yard.  We got buried.  Most of SW Michigan didn't get nearly that much I guess.  Don't know why we got "lucky".  It looks really beautiful though.  

chatster

February 27th, 2013 at 11:03 AM ^

Is it worse than last century’s "White Hurricane?"
Or the "Great Appalachian Storm’s" snow and rain?
How about the "Great Blizzard; Eighteen Eighty-Eight?"
(Was that the first time that a blizzard was "great?")
Or the "Super Bowl Blizzard" of ‘75
When 100,000 animals didn’t survive?
Or D. C.’s "Snowmageddon of Two Thousand Ten?
Or some others that hit us (just can’t recall when)?
What about all those storms that’ve been kind of rough,
Though they haven’t been covered with any white stuff?
'Cause Katrina was terrible and Sandy was worse;
Andrew, Ike, Ivan and Wilma were cursed.
Centuries come and centuries go;
And not every "Century’s Storm" needs some snow. 
 
Safe travel, wherever you might be in this storm's path.  Hey, maybe you should "take a long holiday; let your children play."
 
 
 
 

SAvoodoo

February 27th, 2013 at 11:06 AM ^

In st Clair shores we got a couple inches, lots of slush though. I shoveled last night about 9 and we only got a dusting after that. Roads are crap cause scs doesn't plow, but major highways were fine this am. Not really a storm where I am IMHO

MGoManBall

February 27th, 2013 at 11:26 AM ^

If the temperature here would have stayed around 32-31 degrees it would have been nasty. There was around a tenth of an inch of ice stuck to the trees and power lines after about an hour of raining. After that the temperature rose to 36 and it's been raining since.

M-Wolverine

February 27th, 2013 at 11:45 AM ^

We must have 5-8" in spots.  And it's a heavy wet mess with slush and ice under the snow. Everyone I've talked to has trees broken, things in their driveway, and a lot of clean up. The main streets aren't too bad, and it's certainly not record breaking....but it's the worst snow storm of the last couple of years at least, which have been pretty light. Not sure if it's the worst winter storm since I lived at my house, but it's probably top 3. The everything covered in rain then freezing to ice than weighed down by heavy snow has done more damage than any I remember. Worse if we actually get any more real accumulation before the next thaw.

LSAClassOf2000

February 27th, 2013 at 12:08 PM ^

I have the outage screen up at my desk - of the 44,000 or so system-wide, about 80% of that actually is either in or near Ann Arbor. Looking at the circuit listing, it's largely the southern and southeastern part of the city, as well as in the northwestern stretch out along I-94 going towards Dexter. Scattered outages everywhere in between, but those are the two biggest clusters right now. We've got 25 evaluation teams and just about every spare line crew in the territory either there now or on their way. No other part of our system was hit that badly.

M-Wolverine

February 27th, 2013 at 2:20 PM ^

Your map had a big red spot right where my house is, that turned into a big yellow spot, but for a change we might have been the one half of a street NOT to lose it...yet. (though right now the map looks clear, other than for some pink freckles around my place).

AA.com is updating their story to say Ann Arbor got at least 5 inches, and North Campus recorded 7.4 inches.  But then reports in Saline were 6.8, and Dexter 3.6, so the system seemed really hit or miss.

http://annarbor.com/news/winter-storm-closes-ann-arbor-area-schools-kno…

 

Mich4Life

February 27th, 2013 at 12:06 PM ^

I have the luxury of a 5 minute bus ride to the UMHS each morning, and all my coworkers commute.  Thanks co-technician, lab manager, primary investigator, husbandry staff, and clerical staff for giving me all of your work today while you sit at home by the fire with a cup of coco and a book/sarcasm/i hate you all.

gopoohgo

February 27th, 2013 at 12:45 PM ^

Snowmaggedon in DC back in 2010 would be in the running for storm of the century.  We got around 24" inches of snow, followed by an additional 15"-16" the next weekend.

Couple that with the fact that there is little to no snow-clearing infrastructure out here...it was nuts.  Schools were shut down for like 2 weeks because neighborhoods couldn't get  cleared.  I missed 4 days of work.

I had the snow piled up around 6-7 feet from digging out the driveway.