jamiemw
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"Snow Jam" Stories - 2007/12/10 12:42
I am way out here in Pocatello, Idaho and I awoke to snow this morning. It has snowed on and off all weekend! Some of the biggest snow flakes I have ever seen in my entire life out here. It reminded me of the ice storms in Georgia. "Snow Jam 1991" !? and then I think it was "Snow Jam 1983?" Who remembers sitting in traffic for hours on end trying to get home? Parked cars on the side of the roads all over Pearidge. 
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Lishy
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Re:"Snow Jam" Stories - 2007/12/10 13:14
Hi Jamie,
I'm having a snow day here in Columbia, Missouri. More like an ice storm in Georgia. I have lights and power but the city I work in does not. So nice! 
**more cowbell** |
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jamiemw
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Re:"Snow Jam" Stories - 2007/12/10 13:33
 Hi Lisa,
So you are snug and warm working from home? One thing about living out here in the "Rockies" is that you don't get to use the excuse of Snow to stay home. You need a 4-wheel drive for sure, but, everyone goes to work regardless of the weather. We don't have the pine trees here that we had in Georgia so there is very rarely an issue with the power. It is beautiful isn't it?
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Byron
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Re: - 2007/12/10 15:20
jamiemw wrote:
I am way out here in Pocatello, Idaho and I awoke to snow this morning. It has snowed on and off all weekend! Some of the biggest snow flakes I have ever seen in my entire life out here. It reminded me of the ice storms in Georgia. "Snow Jam 1991" !? and then I think it was "Snow Jam 1983?" Who remembers sitting in traffic for hours on end trying to get home? Parked cars on the side of the roads all over Pearidge.
I remember the 83 jam. I was at my in laws house on Willivee waiting for my wife to come over after she got off work at Emory Clinic. She called and said there were cars stuck all over the road, so I walked up there so that we could walk back to Willivee together. It was funny.  N. Decatur looked like N.Y. City, there were so many people hoofing it. Cars were parked in all four lanes like time was standing still. 
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RandyJ
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Re: - 2007/12/10 15:42
Idaho. I miss the Rockies, always regreted the lack of interest in things that happened in my life that facilitated my leaving Montana after college in 1981. Really should have tried harder to figure out a way to stay there. Applied for a job at Idaho State many years ago, they were insightful enough to pass on my application.
I remeber an earlier ice storm in Atlanta than '91 or '83. Seems I was still in grade school or barely started at Shamrock - must have been early '70s. No power for over a week and Guy Sharp was the only local weatherman to predict it - he lived at the top of the hill right next to the teacher's lot at Shamrock - his son went to school there.
But if you want snow, hard to beat upstate New York, where the lake effect phenomenon rules. Here on the south shore of Oneida Lake we average 12-14 feet of snow a year (on the north shore they get more like 23 feet/year). We've had 30 inches so far this year, so we can kiss goodbye to seeing grass again until some time in March or April. No good skiing here, so snow serves no pupose like it did in Montana. And no snow days ever here abouts - unless a couple feet of snow fall over night. The only day I ever remember getting off in Montana was due to ash fall out from Mt. St. Helens eruption. We don't have any volcanos nearby here, so don't even have that to hope for - and I walk to work, so things would have to be pretty grim to use the commute as an excuse.
The lake I live on is 80 square miles in surface area, but still freezes over every year (except one in the last 150), with ice thick enough for crazy yankees to go out and fish on it. If you want to see it, there's a link to a web cam we run as part of a public education page on my profile page - lake generally freezes mid-late January, might be earlier this year the way things are going, but I only recall one year it froze before Christmas since arriving here. Right now you can see the snow and some limbs that came down last week the last time we got ice from the midwest. If you are bored and watching the weather channel and they yap about lake effect southeast of Lake Ontario, web cam should give you a chance to see what it is like - can be pretty impressive.
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jamiemw
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Re: Snow Jam's - 2007/12/10 16:05
It was crazy ! Barbie Fussell and I worked at the same office back then and they wouldn't let us leave until 3:00 that day. It took us over six hours to get to Barbie's apartment. I remember sitting at one traffic light for over an hour!!!!
Cars were parked everywhere and no one was paying attention to the traffic lights. A group of people ended up at Barbie's apartment and we all walked to the grocery store to buy the ingredients for Chili! Joe Culpepper insisted on pushing a grocery cart filled with groceries back to the apartment. The snowball fights along the way must have been entertaining to alot of people still in their vehicles!
We had a blast!!!!
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Marshall71
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Re: Snow Jam's - 2007/12/10 17:14
I do remember both of those but the first "Great Ice Storm" that hit us so hard was late 72 like December or Jan. of 73. The power was off 10 days over on North Valley Drive and Homewood CT. I was recovering from my broken back and foot from Greg Puckett's and my wild ride in his Z/28..see picture posted in file library. We were using camp stoves for cooking and if wanted to go anywhere it was on foot or crutches as was my case. The group from my street had fun playing poker and figuring out you can survive with out TV.
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jamiemw
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Re: "Snow Jam" - 2007/12/10 17:23
The Rockies are incredible. We took a trip this last May to the "Teton's" (probably our third or fourth),and the lakes were still frozen! It is incredible out here! I wouldn't have missed it for the world. More importantly than my own experience, I am glad that my children have had the experiences of seeing another part of our beautiful Country!
I am pretty sure that the ice storm in the 70's was responsible for the "Huge Goose-Egg" I received on my forehead while going to get the mail for my mom!
WAP!!!!!
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AndieM78
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Re:Snowjam - 2007/12/10 19:31
Randy,
Your post made me briefly miss upstate New York. I lived in Syracuse when I was a little girl, and I have fond memories of snowball fights with my cousins and sledding down the neighbor's hill up the road from my grandparents' farm. I have to say, though, that the nitty gritty aspects of living in the snow belt are not so appealing to me as an adult. When I was a kid, I was not the one who had to shovel 2 feet of snow from the driveway in order to get the car out. 
I think it would be cool to spend some winter time out in the Rockies. We went to Yellowstone a few summers ago, and thought it would be so pretty in winter. I don't know if I could live there, though. Brrrr....
Oh, and that big ice storm was in January of 73, I believe. That was great fun! I still like ice storms and camping out in the family room. 
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GailHullingsCobleigh
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Re:Snowjam - 2007/12/10 20:00
I wanna be 10 and ride that cookie sheet again!
You guys have it made...it's been 75 and sunny here...it's a real bummer...
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GailHullingsCobleigh
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Re:Snowjam - 2007/12/10 20:47
Snow being a Christmas wish...this seems like the best place to tell ya'll...
I was shopping at BassPro at Discover Mills today, and was really disturbed (any time I'm in a mall, I'm disturbed) but today I was especially disturbed by the marketing angle they use at BassPro...dead animals.
They had this diarama with a couple of mooses in the snow...reminded me of Brian and his hatchet...but these moose weren't feeding anybody...and then...
They had this huge display with Santa's sleigh, pulled by these beautiful (whitetail deer) reindeer, right down to the one leaping into the sky in the front. (I didn't notice if the one in the front had a red nose...) what I did notice was that all those "reindeer" were dead. 
 This was commercialism at it's worse.
Also, our local "rag" had a really tacky photo on the cover of Santa up to his ankles in Lake Lanier, toy sack full of water dispenser bottles lying open, while he poured a bottle of water into the lake...how is anyone supposed to keep up the Santa myth for their kids with this sort of thing coming in the mail? I thought it was just a bit beyond poor taste, considering it's still not raining here...
 I'm dreaming of a white Christmas...
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jamiemw
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Re:Snowjam - 2007/12/10 21:01
Hi Gail,
I am a bit bewildered by what is going on over there on the East Coast. We talked with our parents last night and "MOM Delores" was a little irritated and sad that the temps there are in the 70's. She told me that she has lived in Atlanta most all of her life, and that she doesn't ever remember the forecast being so warm this time of year. It makes me feel a bit anxious.
But, on a more positive note, it has been snowing like the dickens here alllll day long. Will probably melt, and we will get blasted again! It's Idaho! They say, "If you don't like the weather, just wait five minutes!" Hee! Hee!
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GailHullingsCobleigh
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Re:Snowjam - 2007/12/10 21:24
I'm more than a little bewildered by what's going on with the weather here...
70s are nice and all that, but my bonsai maples are supposed to be asleep by Nov. 20, and when I trimmed last week, several of them were bleeding...
This is happening somewhat on a large scale, too. The trees had beautiful foliage this year. We got our first frost on Oct 30, right on time, but it never really rained. We got 2" of rain in November. It rained three times here, and I know my mom got less in DeKalb.
Some of the trees still have leaves. Last January, they were tapping Sugar maples in Canada and New England. Trees need the winter to sleep. They need the rain in the fall and winter to grow roots, and evergreens like Magnolias will push a bit during the fall, but we're not getting enough rain to water a pansy.
I spent 3-4 hours watering yesterday. We have put out almost 100 trees this fall to counteract the rape and scrape my neighbor executed in August. I can do this legally, because we have 2 wells, but the rest of the folks around here can't do any outside watering, and this includes commercial operations in some counties to the south, like Walton, where Home Depot has let their plants die on the shelf because they were forbidden to water.
While the temps have been low, there has been a lot of moisture retention. Now the temps are in the 70s, and I am having to water my bonsai, which should be surviving on general humidity at this time of the year. Our creek is running dry. Our pines are stressed and we have several new dead trees this year.
It's a really frightening situation. The urban landscape business is suffering dreadfully. Pike's Nursery has declared bankrupcy and is closing their Lawrenceville store. Because a home can't be sold before it is landscaped, this is affecting the building business, also.
We hiked around Lake Lanier a few weeks ago, and saw stumps of trees that had been chainsawed off when the lake was built. The water that is left in the lake is dead, and they are having to treat it with oxygen. We would possibly have been saved by a good hurricane season, but that chance is past.
Coves at Lanier are baked dry, and we have shots of a beached houseboat at the East Bank park that looks like it's been there for a couple of years. Real estate around the lake has dropped by half...(i.e., down to $500,000...) and the market may never recover, because the lake may never recover...
Glad there's no such thing as global warming, 'cause I'd hate to see all the trees die, and the world burn right on up...
Enjoy the snow.
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Juliedoe
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Re:Snowjam - 2007/12/10 21:54
We lived in Rome, New York and I remember a blizzard that struck the day after my husbands birthday, May 13th!
Boston is a sheet of ice tonight! Not fit to be out in it.
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jamiemw
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Re:Snowjam - 2007/12/10 21:54
Wow!!! I couldn't have been given more information if I watched a "Special Report"! It is strange to say the least, and when we first moved here to Pokie we heard about the drought this side of the United States had been dealing with. The snow pack is what feeds these lakes and rivers and without snow, the mid-west and western states suffer as well. There aren't alot of buildings here because Pokie is a relatively small city compared to surrounding cities, but, you can drive to Idaho Falls and there are thousand upon thousands of acres of farm land where different products are farmed and then sent all over for market. Without the snow pack the resevoirs run dry quickly during the planting and harvest season. We need the snow here the same way you need the rain there.
I am glad you are able to water. My folks said no one in their neighborhood is allowed to water. Some of their neighbors put in new yards (sod) only to watch it die!!! It is hard to imagine.
It is 13 degrees here right now. The snow has stopped for now.
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