Deep South Winterwx Discussion 2015-2016

[ktulu909]

So hadn't someone mentioned we have another one of these potentially in early February?

[cycloneye]

Hundreds of accidents like these have occurred in the deep south because of the snow and ice.

[Janie2006]

Driving in the Mobile area is a complete nightmare right now. Many roads have been barricaded by police and elsewhere cars and trucks are sliding around an ice rink slamming into state trooper squad cars. Forget about travel. Most businesses and all schools are closed. Unless it's absolutely essential stay off the roads. It's not worth it.

[Janie2006]

At this time, Mobile Police are in the process of placing barricades at the following treacherous intersections and roadways. These areas will not be passable to any motorist under any circumstance.

- Schillinger Road between Cottage Hill and Three Notch Roads
- Museum Drive and Spring Hill Avenue, both at John D. New Road
- Ziegler Road at Forest Hill Drive
- Azalea Road at Cottage Hill, Michael Boulevard and Village Green Drive
- Spring Hill Avenue at Tuthill Lane
- Snow Road at Tanner Williams Road
- Shelby Street at Center Street
- University Boulevard at Airport Boulevard
- Cottage Hill Road between University Boulevard and Knollwood Drive
- Sollie Road between Oxford and Three Notch Road

The following are complete road closures which are not passable at this time:
- Hillcrest Road
- Cochrane Bridge
- Hope Bridge
- I-10 at 1-65 interchange
- Eastbound Wallace Tunnel
- Westbound Bankhead Tunnel

Gang, that's a whole lotta roadway.

[cycloneye]

Here is todays discussion of the deep south event and aftermath by Dr Jeff Masters.

A dangerous winter storm swept through the Deep South on Tuesday, dumping 1 - 4" of snow and 1/4" - 1/2" of ice on a region unused to dealing with severe winter weather. Travel chaos resulted in many cities, and at least nine people died in storm-related accidents. Officially, 2.6" of snow fell at the Atlanta Airport from Winter Storm Leon, and snow amounts across the city ranged from 1.5" - 3.5". But with temperatures in the low 20s, and only 40 snow plows and 30 sand trucks to handle the snow, Atlanta streets and highways quickly turned into parking lots during the afternoon snow, as schools, businesses, and government offices all closed nearly simultaneously, sending a huge number of vehicles onto the roads. Atlanta experienced its worst traffic day of all-time, and thousands of motorists were forced to abandon their vehicles, with many spending the night sheltering in stores, stalled cars, or strangers' homes. A Facebook group dubbed SnowedOutAtlanta, meant to connect stranded motorists with people willing to put them up for the night, had thousands of members by Tuesday night. Hundreds of children never made it home, and were forced to spend the night at their schools or at bus shelters. There were 940 confirmed traffic accidents in Atlanta, with more than 100 involving injuries, according to the Georgia public safety commissioner. It was Atlanta's worst driving day since the infamous Snow Jam of 1982, when 6" of snow also created traffic chaos, stranding thousands of motorists.

The Weather Channel's Paul Goodloe had this to say about his evening commute home Tuesday night:

"On my drive home tonight, I gave a ride to a school bus driver who was walking on a road that was littered with abandoned cars. He said his bus got stuck with kids on it not far from the school. They walked back. He told me there are several hundred kids spending the night at East Cobb Middle and several hundred high school kids spending the night at Wheeler High. He said several buses were involved in traffic accidents, usually with other people running into the buses. One bus was hit on all 4 sides."


Dangerous travel continues on Wednesday

After a morning low of 11° in Atlanta on Wednesday morning, the temperature will struggle to reach the freezing mark, resulting in little improvement in road conditions during the day. A Winter Storm Warning continues for Atlanta throughout this afternoon, even though skies are sunny, and no precipitation is expected. I don't think I've even seen a Winter Storm Warning issued with a forecast of clear skies, but if it helps keep people off the roads, it's a great idea:

"… Winter Storm Warning now in effect until 1 PM EST this afternoon...
* locations... northern Georgia.
* Hazard types... continued hazardous driving conditions due to snow and ice covered roads.
* Accumulations... no additional accumulations.
* Timing... now through this afternoon.
* Impacts... snow and ice covered roadways will make travel extremely treacherous. Numerous vehicle accidents have already been reported across northern Georgia. Stay off the roadways if possible."

Atlanta was warned well in advance of the winter storm, but local officials failed to plan properly for the storm. Advances in weather forecasting won't help much if people don't use the information to make the right decisions. J. Marshall Shepherd, a University of Georgia professor who serves as the current head of the American Meteorological Society, had these points to make in his blog post, "An Open Thank You to Meteorologists in Atlanta":

1. The public needs to clearly understand what Watch, Warning, and Advisory mean rather than what they “think” they mean. Also, they must understand that a Watch for a winter event has nuanced differences than tornado, hurricane, or other warnings.

2. Should we develop “warnings” that are more clearly meaningful to the public like a number or index? Research and scholarly discussion will be required, but increasingly, social science research is revealing that how people consume information is as critical as giving them the right information.

3. The public must watch the evolving forecast not a snapshot they saw 2 or so days ago. The forecasts change.

4. A friend (not a meteorologist but an intelligent, attentive citizen) noted that a few media outlets, at times, showed 4 different model scenarios at times. She noted that this is confusing to the public. I agree. We, as meteorologists, use an array of model tools, diagnostics, or data. Does the public need to see “the sausage making” or the scenarios we weigh out? When these scenarios are shown on TV or a website, we, as professionals, know how to consume them, but the public may be confused or misinterpret the message.

5. Forecasting capacity in the 1-5 day window is quite good, but as we get to local-to-regional scales and 1-24 hour time frame (“the mesoscale”), the processes are not as well-represented in the models. We know where improvements are needed. Budget cuts, travel restrictions, and other policy decisions hinder research and development that lead to improvements for citizens.

6. We still have challenges in how weather information is consumed, interpreted, or viewed by policymakers and decision-makers. This is ultimately the root of the Atlanta mess from Tuesday, in my view. I don't believe "anyone" is necessarily to blame. The situation simply points out that we still have challenges in communicating across the science-decisionmaker-public "gap."

Freezing rain and snow end across the South

Though freezing rain and snow from Winter Storm Leon have ended across most of the South, temperatures well below freezing will continue to keep traffic paralyzed over a swath of the country from East Texas to Eastern North Carolina. Atlanta wasn't the only city with extreme traffic problems. Birmingham, Alabama looked much like Atlanta, with thousands of drivers stuck and hundreds of children unable to get home; Tuscaloosa, Alabama declared a state of emergency and ordered all non-emergency vehicles off the road; 124 miles of I-10 in the Florida Panhandle were closed on Wednesday morning due to ice. Fortunately, the freezing rain was not great enough to cause serious power outages, with ice accumulations generally under 1/4". Here are a few of the power outage numbers as of midnight on Tuesday:

NC: Two utilities reporting 2,528 without power
SC: Two utilities report 997 without electricity
GA: One utility reports 1,260 without power
TX: Three utilities report 914 without power
LA: Two utilities, 417 without power

Jeff Masters

[northjaxpro]

One moe round of precipitation will be moving in from the GOM across North Florida tonight as a upper level shortwave in the western GOM will move across late tonight an early Thursday. Regional radar shows another piece of energt in the southern bringing this next round of rain moving east-northeast. This next round of rain may bring the possibity of a mixed bag of precipitation late this afternoon into tonight along the I-10 corridor east to the Jax area, mainly sleet mining in with the rain. However, with the addition rain moving in overnight and temps hovering right at freezing, there is the possibility of wet roadways developing black ice as well as issues of icing on bridges and overpasses.

Temp currently at 36.6 degrees and it has been sitting at this mark the entire day. They will drop off afew degrees when the rain returns and should be at or near the freezing mark at sunset.

[tolakram]

Today is an example of some of the absolute worst weather forecasting I think I've ever seen. I don't understand how some of these "professionals" keep their jobs. And, I don't just mean in predicting future snowfalls. I'm speaking of not knowing what's going in in REAL TIME.

Here's a timeline of how it went down in Knoxville today.

11PM Monday - Go to bed. No mention of snow.
2AM Tuesday - Winter Weather Advisory (phone app).
7AM Tuesday - A dusting, at most, predicted on all channels.
10AM Tuesday - All hell breaks loose. Schools dismissed. Roads quickly turn to ice. Cars in ditches, etc...
1PM Tuesday - "Worst is over. Snow will end by 4PM".
4PM Tuesday - Snow still coming down quite hard. At least 3 inches.
8:30PM Tuesday - Snow still coming down DESPITE local real time forecast stating snow will end by 6PM.

We've got at least 4-5 inches where I live. It is still snowing.

Quick question. I understand a Winter Weather Advisory to mean light accumulations/very little worries per the roads. Is there not a point, during a (now) almost 12 hour snowfall, with the roads almost completely impassable, that a Winter Storm Warning should be issued? Just curious.

I was going through the Knoxville discussions http://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=NWS&issuedby=MRX&product=AFD&format=CI&version=13&glossary=1 and this seemed to catch them completely off guard. Hit the previous link to see the discussion 3 hours earlier with no mention of precip. Go to 3pm the day before and a forecaster is dismissing some of the models showing heavier precip amounts. Tough call, and this time the models were accurate while next time they will probably be wrong.

What was the coverage of the 4 - 5 inches? Was it a small swath? Winter weather forecasting is difficult. In the summer if showers are mentioned no one is concerned if one location got 1/4 inch of rain while another didn't get any. In the winter not only is the amount of precipitation critical but also the liquid ratios. Our last storm ended up being an almost unheard of 30:1 snow to water ratio here near the airport (CVG) which dumped 5.5 inches on us while we were only expecting 2 to 3.

[tolakram]

Atlanta, on the other hand, has no excuse what so ever. They were all over this situation almost 48 hours in advance of the storm.

http://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=NWS&issuedby=FFC&product=AFD&format=CI&version=26&glossary=1

A winter Storm watch was issues Sunday afternoon, and upgraded to a warning on Monday afternoon. What a mess.

Links are time sensitive as more discussions issues.

[Brent]

1pm the day after in Alabama, crazy:

[WeatherGuesser]

Finger pointing in full bloom:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2 ... h/5010845/

The arctic blast that's crippled much of the deep South has caused at least 12 deaths, created havoc for millions, prompting six states to declare emergencies and top elected officials in Georgia to criticize the National Weather Service for not providing better forecast of a storm system that's paralyzed the Atlanta metropolitan area.

Marshall Shepherd, a meteorologist with the University of Georgia and current president of the American Meteorological Society, said neither meteorologists in general, nor the specific forecast for the Atlanta area, were to blame.

Today Show meteorologist Al Roker said the traffic nightmare in Atlanta was caused by "poor planning on the mayor and governor's part."

[Brent]

My street in the middle of the afternoon:



Temps are headed for the teens tonight

[timmeister]

Since the City of Hattiesburg has no Snow Plows, they are using Front End Loaders to clear the ice from overpasses. Here are a couple clearing the ice off of the I-59 overpass at Hwy 98.

[Janie2006]

I'm quite familiar with that particular interchange in Hattiesburg, good to see the city on top of things.

Meanwhile, current homestead obs reveal a temperature of 31*F and partial sunshine. There is some melting taking place, but it's just too slow. Tonight we go back below 20*F, so what's melted creates clear ice, or "black ice", which is even more dangerous. I think we'll be out of the woods by tomorrow afternoon. Mobile Mayor Stimpson has released a statement indicating that the city will be shut down through tomorrow:

"The safety of our citizens and our employees remains our foremost concern. Today we made the decision to keep city government closed for Thursday, due to the continued effects of the winter storm. Our plan is to resume normal operations on Friday morning. Stay safe!"

Smart move. The temperature isn't warm enough and we're not getting enough melting to clear the roads.

[Janie2006]

And one other thing.....there's a lot people can say about the mets in Birmingham and Atlanta, and they are saying them. James Spann has addressed the issue from his point of view on the ABC 33/40 weather blog. I'm not going to get involved in it other than to say that mets are not perfect. They bust forecasts, they make mistakes. They're human. They didn't do it on purpose and in a lot of cases they acted on the best information available at the time. There are more than enough mistakes to go around here.

And in the deep, deep South storms like this are a true rarity. Everything has to be perfect for it to happen. These folks don't have salt trucks and equipment like that....why should they? To use once every 35 years? How can you justify the expense? It's not surprising that ice has shut so much of the region down. They aren't used to it, they don't have the equipment, and they're doing the best they can with what they've got. Right? Right.

[One Eye]

Totally agree Janie2006! James Spann is not just a typical weatherman with a broadcast degree. He's a meteorolgist that has a lot of credentials and his weather blogs and videos are addicting for weather enthusiast like us.

[Ntxw]

Good morning deep south folks. I have some good news for those of you looking to thaw out and tired of ice. -PNA, a stout one, has returned thus will the southeast ridge. Storms will now likely travel to your west then hook up north. Still could be a rainy set up for the upper south but the closer you are to Florida the more influence the ridge will similar to the pattern that was in December. Much needed reprieve for the next few weeks.

[Janie2006]

^^ Yep, today should be the day. 27*F right now and looking for a high of 46*F under full sunshine, which should do a nice job of clearing the roads. And the high temperatures just get better and better as time goes along.

Still, final score: Winter Storm by TKO.

[northjaxpro]

Good morning deep south folks. I have some good news for those of you looking to thaw out and tired of ice. -PNA, a stout one, has returned thus will the southeast ridge. Storms will now likely travel to your west then hook up north. Still could be a rainy set up for the upper south but the closer you are to Florida the more influence the ridge will similar to the pattern that was in December. Much needed reprieve for the next few weeks.

Yeah, I must say we deserve to have the SE ridge return after a very cold January here across North Florida. It has been an interesting meteorological (Dec-Feb) winter this season. -PNA was in full force back in December, a big reason for having one of the warmest Decembers ever on record across the Florida prninsula. Then, the PNA went strongly positive and it's been very goodvery good all month long, at least across the northern peninsula.

So, the SE ridge does look to return and if the pattern is not broken, it will likely hang around for much of the month of February.

[SeGaBob]

I ended up with some ice and a dusting of snow out of the system... ice is melting now.

[Jag95]

We needed a cold winter and we've had it. Bring on the ridge. I was outside enjoying the warm sun a while ago and was surprised to see that the temperature was still 38 degrees. As for all the finger pointing up north (Birmingham and Atlanta), I think the NWS did a good job with this one. Maybe they were off a little on the northern fringe, but I think I remember them forecasting 1-2 inches for Atlanta with a 3-5 inch band just south of there.