It seems much of the east coast is snowed in, and snowed in pretty good. It’s always so weird to me when our media centers get snowed in, the impression you get from tv is that the entire world is under two feet of snow, but when there are two feet of snow here, and sunny in NY and DC, no one seems to notice.
Another thing- is it just me, or is this a particularly windy winter? Here where I live, not much snow has fallen this year, but the wind has just been whipping. You know what I am talking about- you’re out walking the dogs or doing whatever, and one of those cold gusts comes along that just cuts through everything you are wearing.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
The mainstream media treat the weather just like they treat politics: if it ain’t happening in The Village, it ain’t happening.
The kind of wind you describe is regular, everyday, winter weather out in central or western Kansas or as we usta say in hippy Boulder, the godforsakeneasternplains of Colorado.
schrodinger's cat
John Cole@ top
Two words: Long Underwear, secret to happiness in winter. Digging out from under a foot of snow. All the snow is making the kittehs crazy.
Michael D.
The worst part about the weather? My friends from France are stuck in Frankfurt and won’t make it in tonight.
The best part about the weather? This means I have their (very good) Falcons-Saints tickets for tonight!
GO FALCONS!
(Happy dance…!)
maye
sunny in so cal.
RedKitten
Pretty windy and nasty here too. Our power was out for about 5 hours. Heat wasn’t an issue, as we have a wood stove, but water’s always something you have to watch. The fellow and I have no problem hibernating for the day, but my parents are here and they’re more go-go-go, so I think that by the time 2pm rolls around, they’ll be a little shack-wacky.
catclub
@Michael D.:
Unless they read this blog are are now even more pissed.
Michael D.
@catclub: Nope. I can guarantee they won’t be reading. Even if they did, they wouldn’t know enough English to understand my mixed emotions. :-)
My other mixed emotions are that these are extremely good tickets (about $250 each) and I could eaily get $800-1000+ for the pair if I wanted to sell them. (I’m going though.)
Maude
It’s been March type wind this fall and up til now.
Even with the long johns the wind cuts right through.
Poor Lily must wonder if she’s going to go up like Mary Poppins.
Today. NJ is in a state of emergency. The wind gusts are high and makes it hard to walk.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Michael D.:
Since they don’t know that much English, I wonder if they thought you were taking them to a soccer match?
JPL
@RedKitten: Have fun entertaining…lol
John, If NYC has a blizzard it affects millions of people, and if your community has a blizzard it affects a few thousand. Also, too, the media could not find your community on the map.
Michael D.
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: They know American football well. They know what they are missing. They’re coming to the US specifically to see a bunch of games. The thing is, we couldn’t go with them because we couldn’t afford the tickets.
water balloon
There’s a lot more people in the belt from DC to Boston than in West Virginia.
soonergrunt
Extremely mild winter here in OKC. Only a couple of light rains.
But you know that Global Warming/Global Climate Change isn’t happening. Our Senators said so.
Ed in NJ
Just spent the past 3 hours here in north/central NJ digging out the cars and making an area in the back yard for the dog.
In years past, I would just let the dog out and he’d trample his way to glory, but he’s now 13, a bit arthritic, and there is 2 feet plus of snow to contend with.
Back out to do the walkways in a bit.
Namekarb
Gosh, I thought it was just us West Coasters that got ignored. Anytime you watch the Weather Channel, check out how the weather-person blocks your view of the west coast weather while going into great detail about East Coast weather.
And forget about mudslides and houses slipping off into the Pacific Ocean. That is not near as important as Newark Airport shutting down for half of a day.
General Stuck
We’ve had fairly normal weather for the desert sw so far. No snow as of yet though. But sometimes we go a whole winter without a single flake that sticks to the ground. No complaints, it will get into the fifties today, perfectly normal. Though cold at night. I am battling still an epic mouse invasion, like no other before. Maybe I need a cat instead of neverending mouse traps.
LarsThorwald
I am in D.C. (working as a federal civil servant for you, yes you! Thanks for the wage freeze, fuckers!) and the wind is really up a notch here.
But weather has been fucked for two years here in winter.
SiubhanDuinne
Most of the Christmas Snow in Atlanta has gone now, but it’s still plenty cold. And yes, this does seem to have been a much windier fall-winter than usual.
joe from Lowell
We’ve gotten in the range of 14-16 inches of snow, but there was so much wind, there are patches where the lawn is bare, and there is very little snow the roofs.
MMonides
DC got missed; we’re calling it The Snow-Hole. I will take credit for driving the storm away by making fierce faces out the window all weekend.
xjmueller
I’ve lived a few miles southeast of Harpers Ferry WV for past few years. Wind here has been blowing steady 20-25 mph for a couple of days. Gusting at higher rates. I lived in Chicago most of my life and it’s windier here than anything we had back home. Longjohns help, and as your mother would tell you – layers.
drkrick
Cosign on the wind over the last month – here in DC as well. Although at least some of the wind between DC and Pittsburgh is probably generated by the hockey game next Saturday, the weather might be a factor too.
New Yorker
I feel like a little kid hoping for a snow day. I’m scheduled to fly to Indiana for work this evening, but judging by how many flights are making their way out of LaGuardia so far today (i.e. none), I have my doubts I’ll be anywhere but home, firing up the Netflix this evening.
As for the winter, December seemed colder and drier (until yesterday) than normal in New York. December usually seems a lot of precipitation (rain or snow) and wild temperature fluctuations (50 degrees one day, 25 the next). January is usually the cold, dry month, and that’s what December had been like here for the first 25 days.
Maude
@Namekarb:
Have you ever seen the New York point of view, that the New Yorker had as a cover years ago?
It is wonderful.
Josie
@SiubhanDuinne: OT, but I have a touristy question about Atlanta. My son is coming to work on music for a week in midtown Atlanta in January. Is there a reasonably priced hotel in that area that is decent but not luxurious? I made reservations at the Courtyard Georgia Tech, but $159.00 per night seems high.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@xjmueller:
Ah, whereabouts? I went to HS over in Martinsburg but my mother’s side of the family goes back in Jefferson County until dirt was created. My grandparents lived in a company house by a rock quarry–funny how in the last 40 years, Jefferson County went from stereotypical squalid Appalachia to a DC exurb.
Dennis SGMM
It’s going to be 65 and sunny here in the San Gabriel foothills.
Side note: After our recent rain storm I did some digging for record rainfall in California. Turns out that there was an Ark Event that began in the Fall of 1861 and rain fell statewide for around forty days. The rain and the accompanying snow were responsible for the Great Flood of 1862. Among other things, the flooding destroyed one-fourth of the state’s taxable real estate. As a result, the state went bankrupt. State employees, including the governor and the legislature, weren’t paid for a year and a half.
Dog is My Copilot
I live in the Pacific Northwest and we have had a windy winter here. I’m originally from Minnesota and they have gotten quite a bit of snow back there this year. Must mean that global warming is a hoax…
CynDee
Look at the weather maps on AccuWeather, and see how the jet stream has this huge gap in it over the northeast (due to what is called the Greenland High).
This means that the Arctic blast shoots from Canada down into south Florida. We are in central Florida, and endured these icy gales and ultra-low temps all last March and April. The citrus was nearly a full month late in blooming.
This year, it started in November, went from highs of 95 one week to highs of 38 the next. Due to the humidity here, 40 feels like about 15.
Our 1925 house is perfect for Florida summers and “normal” winters when the days are in the 70s and the nights are in the 50s. This morning is typical now: 30mph icy wind that seldom quits, 31 outside and coming up through the floors and through the old window sashes like a banshee, and 49 inside the house.
Looks like this is going to keep up, so we need to shut off the northernmost rooms until we can do some serious weatherizing. Wasn’t a huge problem for the past 16 years. I was seldom this cold in my home the 35 years I lived in SD.
Climate change is real.
mikej droid
Mt snow tonight, lowlands tomorow. Of course I read the wx alert right after this morning’s thread where I bragged of our mild weather.
TaMara (BHF)
Down here on the front range, up against the mountains, in Colorado, it’s been a weirdly warm winter and dry. Fairly windy, too. But up in the mountains, record snow fall – 10 FEET in one storm last week. I’m still trying to figure out what you do with that much snow – basically a building-story of snow. Skiing has been great if you can get up there. Cycling, golfing, hiking down here.
mikej droid
Mt snow tonight, lowlands tomorow. Of course I read the wx alert right after this morning’s thread where I bragged of our mild weather.
Paul W.
I’m stuck in TX until Wednesday thanks to the blizzard hitting NYC… oh well, more time for Starcraft!
SadOldVet
Yes, but…
One of my friends (in Milwaukee) assured me that it is proof that ‘global warming’ does not exist…
Arclite
The colder, windier weather might have to do with global warming… So say scientists. Conservatives say global warming is just a myth. We report, you decide.
Odie Hugh Manatee
I’m trying to figure out how NOAA came up with the idea that it would snow and rain today when the low last night was 47 and the high is supposed to be around 52. The good news is that the snow isn’t expected to stay around!
We have been getting hammered with wind and rain this winter (south Oregon coast). Temps have been mostly in the low 40’s to the high 50’s, with a dip to as low as 31 one time. We are expecting more rain tonight (3-5 inches) and winds in the 30’s and gusts up to 50 MPH.
Sounds like fun!
Violet
My favorite “media weather event” was during a heatwave the northeast was experiencing (translation: it was hot in New York City) and the dumb woman they had “reporting” on it was located at a building site. She had the cameraman show a pile of asphalt and exclaimed that it was steaming (duh, it was freshly poured asphalt) and then had the cameraman point his camera up to the top of the under-construction building to show the workmen. Then she says, “If it’s 100 degrees down here, I can only imagine how hot it is up there because heat rises!” I about fell out of my chair laughing. Sure heat rises, but the wind will mitigate that, plus reflective heat and the freshly poured asphalt will make it much hotter on the ground. Idiot.
This is the same woman was later reported on a flood from a canoe while locals walked through the water behind her. The water was only calf-high or so. That was so ridiculous the clip made the late night comedy shows.
joeyess
You’re only six goddamn days into the thing.
Lighten up, Francis.
sixers
Leave the assless chaps at home while walking the dogs.
Svensker
We just rescheduled our flight out of NY/NJ for tomorrow, even tho the airline claim they were flying today. We dint believe ’em (and they didn’t charge us for rescheduling either — so we don’t think they believed themselves). Judging from the blowing snow on our hilltop, it will be a bit longer before life gets back to normal here.
Suffern ACE
From weather.com’s today in weather history fact
Quit your complaining. Your 40 mph gusts barely register as “wind.”
mikej droid
@sixers: all chaps are asslessby definition, aren’t they?
Allan
We went to see Black Swan yesterday. I think the director was traumatized by a bad mani/pedi experience.
Rosalita
Reside in CT. Enough said. Agreed on the wind part, seems like that has been prevalent here too this fall/winter.
Was frustrating trying to get basic information last night for our area, newsies pretty much focused on NYC.
D-Chance.
You mean, it’s snowing? In December? In the freaking Northeast?
This HAS to be a sign of
massive, global-warming induced, apocalyptic, catastrop… winter.Cathie from Canada
Here in Canada, the weather isn’t news unless it happens in Toronto.
Linda Featheringill
Northern Ohio is usually windy in the winter. The difference in temperature between Lake Erie and the surrounding air moves things around a good bit.
sparky
around NYC this storm is a bit different than usual because there was more snow than usual, falling on cold ground, so it accumulated right away, and was coupled with winds only seen in gales or tropical storms. thus pretty much everything–airports, Amtrak, roads–shut down.
32 inches where i am, with 5’+ drifts and 50mph gusts.
normal for the plains, but not central NJ/NYC.
IMO abnormal weather anywhere in the US gets a lot of coverage. think of floods in the Miss. valley, for example.
Punchy
It only matters if the airports shut down. If Chicago gets 65 feet of snow but somehow ORD stays open (I know, laughable for an airport that closes for 7 raindrops), nobody notices.
Where I live in KS, schools will close for a quarter-inch of snow. I’m not joking.
joeyess
I live in Kansas as well, and Punchy ain’t lyin’!
JPL
I’m reading The Warmth of Other Sunson my new Nook and staying inside nice and toasty warm. It was a good Christmas.
Suffern ACE
@joeyess: In Ohio they close for fog. No snow needed.
shep
Ever notice how the news, in general, seems to get sparse between Friday and Monday, almost as if it takes the weekend off?
ericblair
@sparky:
We’ve got lots of cable hours to fill. Reminds me of some statistics from the Weather Channel: most people sort of flip it on, see what’s going on weather-wise, and get on with their lives, unless they’re about to be hit by a hurricane or something. However, there’s a not-insignificant hardcore group of people who basically watch it All.Damn.Day.Every.Day. Guess it’s better than staring at the walls. Or watching Fox News.
tamied
Here in Pittsburgh we’ve had an abnormally cold December. However for Saturday’s Winter Classic we’re expecting rain and 45 degrees. Go figure.
Cheryl from Maryland
@MMonides: Thank you. Got anything for the wind?
PurpleGirl
@Namekarb: I disagree; the mudslides and house being swept away by rain and mud do get covered. In fact I saw something about the current rain on a NYC local news show over the past few days.
burnspbesq
@TaMara (BHF):
Yeah, but as I recall from when I lived in the Denver area, if you don’t like the weather now, stick around for 10 minutes, because it’s sure to change.
The last time we visited my sister in Littleton at this time of year, we were there for three days, and the high temps on those three days were 60, 40, and 20.
PurpleGirl
@Svensker: Yeah, that was a wise move. I live in one of the special weather landing paths for LaGuardia and I ain’t heard a plane for quite some time. Nothing’s landing and nothing’s taking off.
joeyess
You’ve got to be kidding.
joeyess
Ok, so I typed “you’ve got to be f@#$ing kidding me” and look what I came up with. A magical link to an email address!!
joeyess
I have no idea who that is, but it is coded in link form on this blog and automatically opens a new message form in my email when I click on it. Weird.
nope
No one is used to this much snow on the east coast (anymore).
It’s not news in Chicago or St Paul.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
It’s weird that even southern California, itself an enormous media center, gets short shrift. Consider that New York and LA have just had big weather events and both were the top stories on national news. New York’s was an inconvenience. LA’s destroyed thousands of peoples lives. I can’t imagine what the reaction would be if what happened to California happened to New York. In addition to 24/7 coverage there would probably be widespread calls to invade whatever foreign power was responsible and the President would send drones to shoot missiles into the storm clouds.
DFH no.6
No, I have no idea what you are talking about. Here in the Valley of the Sun a “cold gust” is what you get when you open the beer cooler at the Circle K (especially nice on, say, an August afternoon).
Actually, I grew up in Cleveland, city of (pre-busing, so I walked to school every day, most of which I recall occurring during winter or a winter-like season) so I know exactly what you are talking about, and after 30 years and counting here in the hellhole that is Phoenix, AZ I ain’t missing that shit one bit.
MMonides
@Cheryl from Maryland: I’m making faces at the wind even as we speak. It seems “non-plussed” to “seriously annoyed” with me.
chopper
ugh. brooklyn is totes snowed in. the main streets are littered with cars, trucks and buses. if it weren’t for all the people out it would look like a post-apocalyptic film.
still hoping my flight tomorrow out of LGA goes down without too many delays, and had to figure out a new boarder for the mutt cause there’s no way in hell i could dig out the car and get all the way out to red hook. she was pissed as hell at having to walk the 12 blocks to the new boarder.
shit, i need a drink.
Zuzu's Petals
My sister is spending the winter on Cape Cod Bay. She and her visiting adult kids were evacuated at 2am last night … 70 mph winds, with waves coming over the sea wall, down the side yard and into the back driveway. Whew!
They made it out just before the roads closed. To a motel with little heat and no lights, but at least they had warm beds.
asiangrrlMN
@schrodinger’s cat: Second this. I have a set of thermals, and it’s wonderful.
No new snow here. Drat.
LarsThorwald
All this moisture coming up out of the south will probably push on east of us.
At high altitudes it will crystallize and give us what we call snow. Probably will be some accumulation, but here in Punxsutawney our high will be about 30 today, teens tonight.
Chance of precipitation about 20 percent today and tomorrow.
Did you want to talk about the weather or were you just making chitchat?
Jamey
Yes, John, windier. Definitely!
Was just commenting the other day to the missus about this–I bike to work in NYC from NNJ, and the wind along my route (up the west side from the 40s, via 11th Ave and Riverside Drive; across the GWB) has been brutal this fall/winter.
Jim, Once
Just talked to my husband, who’s transporting our granddaughter from Virginia to the Midwest. He was east of Charleston WV, and mightily pissed that he had to drive through yet another storm – one with lots and lots of wind. Our relatives from the southeast say they dread driving that part of the trip – claim it’s always scary windy.
Comrade Mary
@Cathie from Canada: Toronto weather is news if we can all point and laugh (hi, Mayor Mel!), but to be fair, the CBC is full of news about the current woes in the Maritimes, and the (Québec) ice storm of a few years back and last year’s Prairies floods got some cycles, too.
Meanwhile, this Toronto summer seemed a lot windier than last summer. Pedestrians wouldn’t notice it, but I found that even when it was mild, there was a often a strong wind that played hell with my cycling speed.
JGabriel
John Cole @ Top:
I’m sure the Grant County Press and local newscasts notice weather events in W.V., and cover them just fine.
You’re forgetting that those media centers also double-up as local news outlets. The New York Times isn’t just the paper of record, it’s also the local newspaper here in Manhattan. ABC News and WABC 7 New York, each answer ultimately to the same corporate structure. Most network affiliates in NYC are owned by their networks, instead of being franchised to other owners like the rest of the country.
So when you tune into, or visit the websites of, the national news outlets, you’re also visiting someone else’s local news outlet — usually NYC, DC, or LA — and you’re going to get some of their local news too.
.
Comrade Luke
My favorite weather report ever was the one they showed on The Daily Show, where they had some woman in a canoe, rowing down the street, while people were walking about 30yds behind her because the water was barely over ankle-deep.
Gatsby
‘ Tis the usual media hysteria here in NYC. Two feet of snow! The world must be coming to an end.
jeff
John, normally I’d agree completely with you, but I’ve just finally made it home and I have never seen so much immobility and actual suffering of so many human beings from weather. I am disabled, and had to struggle for a mile then go through all kinds of other Job-like shit to get home. It’s a big deal. This is the worst blizzard in perhaps 30 years–certainly in the last 10–at least in NYC. I’ve never seen every mode of transportation down for 24 hours, even after 911.
xjmueller
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: I’ve been in Lovettsville, VA for 4 years now. Just south of Brunswick MD. Great little community.
JC
I think you mean fall. Winter just started.