January 15, 2007
It's a Cold, Cold World
If you didn't already have the day off of work or school courtesy Martin Luther King, Jr, you probably do now courtesy Mother Nature (or the rapture, your choice). Even the MLK parade is canceled! Austin roads are wet and slippery, the temperatures are dropping, and everything is going to get worse before it gets better.
If you absolutely can't stay home today, please take a minute and familiarize yourself with the Emergency Conditions Information Page (be sure to read the ice safety tips), and give your loved ones (especially the elderly / disabled) information about the CodeRED emergency system.
The City of Austin announced today that "CodeRED," a high-speed emergency notification system, is in place and ready for use. The "CodeRED" system offers the ability to deliver pre-recorded emergency telephone notification and information messages to targeted areas at a rate of up to 60,000 calls per hour.
As the city rounds up sand trucks, stocks up the South Austin Rec Center for those in need of a warm, dry shelter through the storm and Austin Energy cracks knuckles in preparation for likely outages, we're settling in with some hot tea, everything we've Tivo'd but been too lazy busy to sit down and watch, and staying in our pajamas. Today's forecast just isn't looking too fun:
- Winter Storm Warning in effect until 12 PM CST Tuesday
- Winds will be north at 15 to 25 mph...with the wind chill index in the 20s
- Through 10 am today: occasional rain mixed with sleet and briefly with freezing rain
- Precipitation amounts of one quarter to one half inch are possible
- Ice accumulation of up to one quarter of an inch
- Highs in the lower 30s
- Temperature steady or slowly falling in the afternoon
- Chance of precipitation 100 percent!
City of Austin Home Page
Weather Underground's forecast for Austin, Texas
Channel 6: Providing weather updates on the tv and on the web
Photo by Marcus Biastock on Flickr
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Oh my god. It's like your Katrina. You may need to watch out for mass looting, err sledding!
It's 1 here in Nebraska. 1 degree, and business as usual. I only WISH it was 33. I'd go play some tennis :)
In all seriousness, bundle up folks. That must be a shock to the system.
i vote for the rapture.
aaron: quit snickering! :)
I just went to stock up on water and batteries and Carlos told me that cars are sliding all over Pleasant Valley!
Are you serious that you actually are stocking up on water and batteries?!
Wtf.
Haha! The news has managed to create a panic as they always do with any kind of weather that's not sunny and warm. Do people in TX really think people from the north just stock up on food in October and hibernate for the winter or something? We're going to have a few hours of partially frozen roads, woohoo, call out the national guard and declare this place a disaster.
I'm not in any panic but it's slippery out there. I'm not taking any chances and I'm staying home. Even if you're driving carefully, accidents still happen.
I used to laugh at how people in this city freaked out, including city officials, but after a friend pointed out that cities like Austin aren't equipped or used to cold weather like cities such as Chicago and Detroit, I realized he had a lot of validity in what he said. It's true---we deal with hot weather year around. When ice forms on roads here, no one has chains on their tires, we don't have many deicing resources like trucks and plows, etc. Cities that get a lot of snow and ice maintain treated roads so that people can go about their daily commutes. That isn't the case here, b/c there is no need to. When's the last time you could recall Austin getting hit by an ice storm? Maybe 2-3 years ago, maybe more? I've forgotten.
As Carolyn points out, everything is relative, it makes the national news and people die when the temps in Chicago and New York get into the 90's while down here we'd just head to Barton Springs. It's all a matter of what your locale is used to and prepared for.
Ice sucks no matter where you are in the country. Snow is manageable, but ice is slippery everywhere.
This part of Texas tends to get ice instead of snow because there is still enough warm air to melt the snow as it comes out of the clouds, turn it to liquid rain, and then the low lying cold air re-freezes it at the ground. Go further north and this doesn't happen - it stays as snow all the way, which can be dispersed.
But the point is that people are clearing out the shelves at HEB because it might freeze for a few hours. Its not like we're going to be caught in some sort of storm where no one can move for days and days. You have to admit that's pretty amusing.
Actually, Grape Ape, it's not going to freeze for only a few hours. The weather isn't supposed to improve until Wednesday afternoon. Ice started appearing today. That's 2 1/2 days that people may not be able to go anywhere, and for people who have no families like myself, I don't have to buy much beyond a few cans of soup. However, for people witih families and especially newborn babies like my sister, they can't just buy a few things and need to make sure they have all the provisions they need, even if it's only for 2-2 1/2 days.
I think the aisles are getting cleared out at grocery stores because everyone, people who are single and people who have families, wants to take precaution in case they lose power or in case they are already low on food. It's better to be safe than sorry. Why take the chance when you don't have to? People aren't going out to buy generators for their homes or anything. They're just buying up more of the same of what they normally get on a daily basis: water, bread, canned food. Now if they started buying generators, I'd say that would be amusing. :)