Wednesday, January 29, 2014

It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity


This is a view from my back door looking south.


This is a view from my back door looking east.


This is another view from my back door looking east.















We didn’t get half an inch of snow. We got three inches of snow.

That is not really the problem.

The problem in this part of the world is ice.

Snowjam 2014 has hit North Georgia, and it is very reminiscent of Snowjam 1982.

Hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of cars were abandoned yesterday on local roads and highways after hours of getting nowhere fast. Many, many people walked for miles to get to their homes. It took 6.5 hours for one of our sons to drive his car eight miles. Our other son left his car in a bank’s parking lot and walked the last four miles to his house. Lots of people spent the night in their cars or in school gymnasiums.

This morning the temperature is 9 degrees Fahrenheit and the wind chill factor is below zero.

Our daughter’s family in Alabama fared no better.

As Atlanta’s WSB radio station used to say, Welcome South, brother.

9 comments:

  1. Oh good heavens, my heart bleeds for y'all! I am presently preparing a food parcel that will be dropped by parachute in the next few days. It contains cereal bars, dried milk powder, tea, powdered soup, cans of bully beef and of course an extra large pack of Yorkshire pudding mix. Hang on Bob! If it gets too difficult just spend the daytime snuggled up with Ellie in your bed. You must avoid hypothermia at all costs!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Chattanooga was bad, but at least not as bad as Atlanta. We were home, and plan to stay here until tomorrow sometime.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This is serious stuff. I hope the weather picks up soon for you all over there. As an aside, what a cracking sized garden you have. *smiles.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Lovely photos of your snowfall Sir Robert. But not good news about how it is stranding people in their cars. Let's hope your BIG thaw comes soon. This cold snap has gone on for weeks now. And yet the UK had a long Winter last year. Weather is just weird. No ~ weather is just weather. Keep warm x

    ReplyDelete
  5. Glad you are staying warm. Thank you for the beautiful pictures!

    ReplyDelete
  6. We had our snow in December. A week after I broke my back, we had at least six inches of snow and temperatures of -10. Most winters we don't even get snow, and we very rarely see zero, and there I was unable to take the canopy roof off the patio, shovel the walks and driveway, or anything else. One can only laugh.

    ReplyDelete
  7. The worst part is ice. How very true. We've been getting a lot of news over here in Britain about your bizarre weather.

    And now you are getting it in the South.

    Try and stay warm, my friend.

    Gary

    ReplyDelete
  8. Bitter cold here, but no precipitation. Just a bit of snow can cause havoc in the south. Snow jams in Arkansas are similar to that you described. Glad your sons are home safely, and glad you are inside. There are some advantages to being retired. Hope you're staying warm.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Thanks to all of you for commenting. Some of the media get it and some of the media don't, so I don't know what you've read or heard. In the deep South we don't have snow tires, or chains, or even snow shovels. When our driveways and sidewalks freeze over, we stay indoors and wait for it to melt. When our highways freeze over, then melt during the day, and freeze over again when the sun goes down, and melt again the next morning, and freeze again that night, it's "Katie, bar the door!" in these parts. The terrain (we're in the foothills of Appalachia) doesn't help either. Yet the many of the media people up north persist in reporting with a sneering attitude. Just this morning I saw an article with the headline "Southern City Paralyzed By Minor Snowstorm That Would Just Be A Minor Inconvenience In The North" -- oh, really?

    It ain't the snow. It ain't the snow. It ain't the snow. (Anything I say three times, especially through clenched teeth, is true.) It's ICE and HILLS and HILLS and ICE, people.

    I managed to make it to the supermarket yesterday afternoon (4 miles, 15 minutes) to pick up a prescription that we had called in on Monday for refill. Guess what? The supermarket was open but the pharmacy was closed.

    ReplyDelete

<b>Always true to you, darlin’, in my fashion</b>

We are bombarded daily by abbreviations in everyday life, abbreviations that are never explained, only assumed to be understood by everyone...