Happy Holidays

[bystander]

Wow, what a Christmas Eve. Blizzard conditions, 22 F, 35 mph winds (gusts to 65), 15 inches of snow in 24 hours. Interstates shut down. Governor declares state of emergency. National Guard called out to rescue stranded motorists. Interstates are still partially blocked with abandoned vehicles. We don't know how to deal with this. We usually don't get this much snow all winter long, let alone within 24 hours. I want to know who the idiot was that wished for a white Christmas. Oh well, all is good.

Hoping things are well with you and wishing you all a Merry Christmas.

[geckzilla]

My dad and brother (also in Oklahoma) couldn't get together for Christmas day, hehe... and here I am in NY thinking I would be the only one with the snow. Too bad it's all sanded, salted, and covered in dirt by now. The untouched patches are still kind of pretty, though. I'll be honest, I like snow and I like that it shut down this stinking city for a few hours of precious silence. Happy holidays indeed.

Iirc, the last time Oklahoma got this much snow was in the 80s. Happy memories from my childhood. Then the 90s rolled around and all the weather ever gave us was thick ice coatings. Anyway, the ice storm a couple years back I'm sure was much worse. Power out for days and thousands of trees down was definitely a bigger emergency. I'm not sure it affected western Oklahoma as badly as the eastern half, however. Maybe you didn't experience that. Tulsa was hit hard.

[bystander]

OKC got hit hard by the Ice storm, too. For long term effects, and deaths, it was much worse than this. They let us off work early (noon, I think) and the roads were all but impassable before I got home and I'm less than ten miles away. Next day, 3 inches of ice on my car. Our power went off that next day for about half a day. Some people were w/o power for over a week.

This was the worst snow storm I can remember. I grew up here in Oklahoma and remember building snow men and snow forts and snow that stayed around for weeks. We don't get that any more. Lot's of ice storms, but no snow that lasts past the next day.

I was in northern Japan when I was 13, and we had 10 feet of snow in January, but nothing like this.

The closest I remember was in the late 70s in March (77?). I was on spring break, and had helped a friend move to Nebraska. We got snowed in there, but by the next morning all the roads had been cleared. Coming back home, the further South I got the worse the highways were. By the time I got to Guthrie, I35 was down to one lane each direction. I got off I40 half a mile from my house and almost didn't make it home. The snow was almost too deep for my little Honda Civic (13 inch wheels).

[geckzilla]

That's weird, how is 10 feet of snow better than the 15 inches you just got? Was it the gentle snow instead of the angry, wind-driven snow?

[bystander]

We never got more than 8" at any one time. It only snowed at night when we got the cold winds from the northwest off the Siberean plains. During the days it would shift to northeast and the Sea of Japan and was quite mild. It was funny, you would get up and see snow plastered to the side of trees and buildings. Instead of melting, it would sublimate directly to water vapor so you would see the walls and trees steaming. It usually snowed 2" to 3" every night and would go away the next day. There was rarely more than a foot total accumulation at any one time. The drifts could get quite deep, though, and the streets off base were very muddy. They had one street on base they never cleared. It was about 3 blocks long with maybe an 60' vertical rise. It leveled out briefly as it crossed the two cross streets and emptied into a large flat park. Lots of fun. Misawa AFB.

[geckzilla]

That's a fantastic experience. ...Speaking of sublimation, my first experience with it was saving a softball sized piece of hail wrapped in a piece of aluminum foil and forgotten in the freezer for a few months. Oh, that was another Oklahoma disaster. The roofers had a blast with it and so did the auto body shops. Place may as well have been a war zone. Anyway, that ball of hail was gone the next time I checked on it. I was surprised to find only a hollow sphere of foil and when I realized what happened I was annoyed I didn't pick an air tight container for it.

By the way, I think we really need a general banter section right about now...