Nashville’s Perfect Storm…
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Sunrise this morning finds Nashville and most of the Middle Tennessee area beginning the slow and dangerous process of digging out from the worst blizzard in recent memory. The entire region was buried in as much as 1/4 inch of heavy, wet snow. Some outlying area reported accumulations as much as 1/2 inch. Temperatures are not helping the dangerous conditions as thermometers plunged below freezing, dipping as low as 29 degrees in some parts of the area.
This photo from The Tennessean is accompanied by a caption that a Wal-Mart customer gets excited about the snow as he pushes his cart in the parking lot at Wal-Mart in Cool Springs.
Not everyone will be so thrilled, as motorists’ usual morning routines of driving while talking on cell phones, drinking coffee and eating bagels, will be made dangerous by the extremely wet pavement. Backroads and lesser used routes may not be free of snow sludge until late morning when the current 35 reading is expected to top 40.
Many area schools will be closed today to keep the children safe from each other. It is normal practice to include a number of snow days in the school year calendar. This arcane practice has roots in the days before global warming, which, of course, does not exist because Bush said it doesn’t. Regardless, the school superintendents have the flexibility of those built-in snow days to use as they see fit, for inclement weather conditions, failed infrastructure in the schools (heating, A/C, plumbing, internet connections), or because they just need a day off to get away from the little bastards.
Please continue to monitor your source of local weather information for news of the next winter storm that we also did not know was coming. And, be safe out there…
15 Comments so far
[...] Asked has the lowdown: Sunrise this morning finds Nashville and most of the Middle Tennessee area beginning the slow and [...]
[...] post by nobody asked… and software by Elliott Back This entry is filed under Latest news update. You can follow any [...]
Heh.
The same things you report from Nashville would have–has happened–in my hometown of Austin. As I write this comment from Wichita, though, it’s 12 degrees; there’s an inch of snow and nicely-ice-glazed streets; yet it’s a rather ho-hum morning. Whenever I tell my mother, who lives in Austin, that it has snowed on, say, a Saturday, she asks, “Will they have the roads clear by Monday?” For her, there’s no difference between flurries and 6-8 inches; snow is snow.
All is relative, no? A newish colleague of mine, a North Dakota native, told me she recently scoffed at a local weather guy’s use of the term “frigid” to describe temperatures in the ‘teens. “Unless there’s a windchill of 40 below, it’s not frigid.”
[...] as thermometers plunged below freezing, dipping as low as 29 degrees in some parts of the area. [Nashville’s Perfect Storm - nobody asked - 01-17-08] Spread It Around: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and [...]
[...] Winston, who is probably one of the most clever men around, writes this: Sunrise this morning finds [...]
“1/4 of an inch”…..OH GOD Winston…my prayers are with you all. Will they be sending any Federal “Disaster Relief” to help you? Stay strong…be safe….you are in my thoughts….
Excellent post. Everything is relative. My girlfriend is in South Carolina this week on business and they started the schools and many offices late today because they got some snow flurries last night that did not even stick. Frigid has different meanings in different places. On my first trip to Maui we were planning a drive to the top of Haleakala, the big mountain and were discussing this trip with a bartender the night before. His comment was that we did not bring enough clothes with us to go up there. About half way up we realized that we had left our sweatshirts in the condo and only had our short sleeve shirts to survive the “bitter cold”. Well we were just fine as the sun was out and it was not cold at all.
Did you really mean 1/4 inch of snow? How do you get “buried” in that?
We had a very similar crisis in east Tennessee. We had a very heavy dusting of snow that melted before sunrise. But the rain continued causing many traffic accidents in our area. The grocery stores quickly ran out of bread and milk.
We are waiting for FEMA to arrive. Hopefully it won’t be too late.
…. it’s bad over here too, man…. please send Scotch……
I do love your satiric pieces. We in Western Oregon do the same bemoaning when we get a frosting of snow and it lasts beyond lunchtime. Woe unto us! Very funny observations and great way to start my morning.
it’s really weird..my friend in virgiania is thrilled with the snow as she’s a school teacher and will be enjoying a snow day or two,friend in alabama is all agog as they don’t get a lot of snow there..and then the rest are screaming for it to stop…it’s 37 here and looked outside and there is snow mixed with the rain…arghghgh
I’m guessing you don’t get much snow in Tennessee?
You could have some of our rain if you like …
[...] the Wal-mart flasher was describing himself [...]
[...] My recent mockery of the extreme winter weather we have experienced in the Nashville area this year got me thinking about origami, Gruyere cheese production in Switzerland, and global warming. Now before you Bush zealots get your panties in a wad, let me assure you that I have heard your Fuhrer’s proclamation that made global warming illegal, scientifically impossible, religiously immoral, and socially unacceptable. Fine. If you are so shallow as to need the likes of him defining your lives and what you are allowed to believe, then you probably get what you deserve — screwed along with the rest of us who do not fall all over ourselves to get a glimpse of the hem of his garment. Some of us prefer to continue thinking for ourselves and acting for the common good. [...]