More Mid-atlantic snow

^Way to steal my picture ;).

I took that on 495 Monday AM....

I drove Civics w/ Blizzaks for decades and finally have a Toyota Tacoma SR5 Pre-Runner 2WD V6 with a fresh set of Michelin LTX AT/2s, which are medium-gnarly. Goes over anything, stops and turns on anything but ice.

But you get the terrified Prius driver (and the DC metro area is lousy with them) creeping at literally sub-10mph up the center of a 40mph 2 lane clear road, and it all goes to sh1t.

Where's all this "unexpected acceleration" I read about? I thought it might help fix the problem.

motomoron wrote: Where's all this "unexpected acceleration" I read about? I thought it might help fix the problem.

Once you put one of these vehicles in the hands of the typical American driver, it automatically goes from "unintended acceleration" to "unintentional retardation".

hmmm.. snow last night, turned to rain and slush.. and now the temps are dropping and it is snowing again. In about an hour these roads are going to be impassable due to icing

Well, I was out earlier today with the snowblower for 2 hours just to knock the snow down to a level my snowblower can handle, at least now I don't have to go out until it stops now. FWIW to those not in the area, now they are talking about drifts 6 feet deep....... I just hope the power stays on. It's finally started to blow out to sea, not soon enough for me. I have four foot drifts in my backyard.

Chris Rummel

Between the last storm and this one, we have had 5' of snow so far. I just looked at the national weather site and it said we were getting 6-8" today. By actual measurement I count 24" and still coming down at a rate of 3" an hour.At this rate it looks like another foot or more before it stops. This is just outside of Gettysburg, Pa. The snow alongside my driveways is now so high the snow blower is barely able to clear it and the snow is collapsing back into the driveway. Global warming anyone?

we just got power back.. not sure of the snow and ice took down a line or a car did.. but I heard the snap crack groan of the power going at the transformer before everything shut off.

I hope it stays on

I ended up working a half day at work and left early. I nearly got stuck coming into my own development since the plow trucks were plowing the streets but not the main entrance. Arizona is looking very tempting after all the white stuff these last two weeks!

oh noes it snowing!!!!1111

you guys are funny - we are always the ones getting pounded and we just plow it all out of the way and keep going. doesnt make national news when cleveland or buffalo gets 2 feet of snow.

i'm glad to see the big snow somewhere other than my yard. i only have a foot on the ground which is rather pleasant for this time of year.

yes pat... but how would you deal with the lake suddenly flooding and filling your town and house with water? Each area has it's little nuances.. around here, the ocean likes to come inland to visit

I went out on a bacon run today with the GTI. It took me about 5 hours to get all the snow moved to be able to open the garage and get the car out to the street. There was from 2 inches to 1 foot of snow on all the roads. I did drive right past several big 4x4 trucks stuck in the snow. I also saw a S2000 driving around. There is about 45" of snow on the ground here.

patgizz wrote: oh noes it snowing!!!!1111 you guys are funny - we are always the ones getting pounded and we just plow it all out of the way and keep going. doesnt make national news when cleveland or buffalo gets 2 feet of snow.

He he, you said "getting pounded"

patgizz wrote: oh noes it snowing!!!!1111 you guys are funny - we are always the ones getting pounded and we just plow it all out of the way and keep going. doesnt make national news when cleveland or buffalo gets 2 feet of snow.

That is one of the things I hate about southern PA. If it snow 1 foot everything shuts down and people go crazy. I have never been to Buffalo between November and March and not seen snow. I was also in Buffalo during the blizzard of 2001 (8 feet) and since that a few feet hasn't seemed so bad.

The issue isnt' hwo much snow, but the infrastructure to deal with it. Something like what we're getting happens once a decade, so we aren't set up to deal with it. Buffalo gets it ever year, for long periods, so they have an infrastructure to deal with removing it. Take away the plows in Buffalo and see how well people get around in their cars.

Also, in Buffalo, it's colder, and cold, packed snow is stickier and has more traction. Make it warmer so that it's slushy on ice and it's real slippery, making it more dangerous to drive on and walk on.

I remember when I was a kid, a friend of my dad's came down to our house in Seattle from Alaska and was there when we had a typical NW snowfall. He was laughing at all the problems people had getting around in a couple inches of snow, and commenting on how bad the drivers were and how his area dealt with a LOT of snow for much of the year. He went out and promplty crashed his car into a tree. Came back and was exclaiming about how slick the snow was there...

SpeedTheory wrote: ^Way to steal my picture ;). I took that on 495 Monday AM....

I thought it was a great picture!!!

Chris_V wrote: .... Buffalo gets it ever year, for long periods, so they have an infrastructure to deal with removing it. Take away the plows in Buffalo and see how well people get around in their cars. Also, in Buffalo, it's colder, and cold, packed snow is stickier and has more traction. Make it warmer so that it's slushy on ice and it's real slippery, making it more dangerous to drive on and walk on...

You can have all the infrastructure you want, but it doesn't do any good when the plows can't get down the streets because of the parked cars(a lot of the city houses don't have driveways). When the city drives around dumping salt on the roads, it has the same effect-makes everything slushy, slippery, and icy. The salt truck, for some reason, is almost always immediately followed by the plow truck, negating the effect of the salt. The plows are set at a height above the pavement, so the "plowed" roads are really just really hard packed snow-which is way more slippery than ice! Put the blame where it belongs...... on the idiots that drive like it's still 80 out and they can stop on a dime and give you nine cents change. Buffalo(and Cleveland) drivers aren't born knowing how to drive in the snow and ice, it's a learned skill. People around the Mason-Dixon(and below) would do well to get to a big empty parking lot and learn a little bit about car control. Quit bitching about the snow and enjoy it! It's a great opportunity to learn what to do if things go wrong on the road.

minimac wrote: People around the Mason-Dixon(and below) would do well to get to a big empty parking lot and learn a little bit about car control.

I went to a big parking lot after a light snow once to try to learn to drive in the snow (I had just gotten my license). I was then promptly told to leave even though i was at the far back away from any cars. I told the guy that I was just trying to learn to drive in the snow. He looked at me and said "I know your kind. You get your Honda and come down here to drift." I was driving a GTI.

I do agree that Buffalo is a lot better prepared to deal with the snow and they are more used to it happening. I just think there are several thing that could be done much better down here to cope with the snow. I also never got why people don’t learn to drive in the snow. We get at least 1 storm a year that brings heavy snow, but when it happens the next year everybody is surprised. I personally enjoy driving in the snow more then on dry roads.

minimac wrote:

Chris_V wrote: .... Buffalo gets it ever year, for long periods, so they have an infrastructure to deal with removing it. Take away the plows in Buffalo and see how well people get around in their cars. Also, in Buffalo, it's colder, and cold, packed snow is stickier and has more traction. Make it warmer so that it's slushy on ice and it's real slippery, making it more dangerous to drive on and walk on...

You can have all the infrastructure you want, but it doesn't do any good when the plows can't get down the streets because of the parked cars(a lot of the city houses don't have driveways). When the city drives around dumping salt on the roads, it has the same effect-makes everything slushy, slippery, and icy. The salt truck, for some reason, is almost always immediately followed by the plow truck, negating the effect of the salt. The plows are set at a height above the pavement, so the "plowed" roads are really just really hard packed snow-which is way more slippery than ice! Put the blame where it belongs...... on the idiots that drive like it's still 80 out and they can stop on a dime and give you nine cents change. Buffalo(and Cleveland) drivers aren't born knowing how to drive in the snow and ice, it's a learned skill. People around the Mason-Dixon(and below) would do well to get to a big empty parking lot and learn a little bit about car control. Quit bitching about the snow and enjoy it! It's a great opportunity to learn what to do if things go wrong on the road.

First off, I have yet to bitch about the snow. I've been out having fun in it!

But the fact is, we don't have the plows to deal with removing it from the streets or the parking lots, which is why we have been shut down and places like Buffalo don't shut down. We don't have that many idiots driving fast becasue most of them can't get out of their driveways or get down their streets.

And while driving in snow is a learned skill, if you drive in it for 3 months out of every year, you CAN learn it vastly better than if you drive in it for 1-2 days every couple years. I played in unplowed parking lots in it wih the Rangie, but you're not going to do that in a typical family sedan with all seasons (no reason to oput snow tires on a car that sees 1-2 days of snow per year on average. Snow tires wear out real fast on bare/wet pavement which is what it's liek here 99.99% of the time in the winter)

The city of Frederick, Md usually does a good job with snow removal. Main streets are "snow emergency" routes with no parking allowed in snow storms. The side streets are a little more complicated with the cars parked on them.

With one of our usual 5" snows they plow the traveled lanes on the main routes during the snow and then come back after it quits to do the parking lanes. This results in a pile about 3' high along the curb. Which usually melts in a couple days.

This time we got 29" so by the time the snow stopped they had a pile about 5' high filling the whole parking lane. They were beginning to get that cleared up when we got another 23" of snow. So now all they can do is use front-end loaders to put it in dump trucks and haul it away.

The side streets have one lane open but they still have about 3" of ice on them so it is a little tricky driving. The wife and I managed to get the end of our driveway open but we now have a plie a little over 6" high on each side of it.

keep your shovels close.. more next week