Snow Day in Madison

This is deja vu from our last two winters here. On the CBS morning news Tuesday, they sent weatherman Dave Price to Flagstaff, Ariz., site of a huge snowstorm that was making its to the midwest. The weather band stretched from Arizona to Wisconsin, where the majority of the snow cut through the middle of the state (south of Hayward, north of Janesville), which meant that once again Madison would get more snow than up north. In fact, this did happen: UW-Superior was the only UW system school to stay open yesterday.

It sucks that Madison just happens to sit in the eye of all these snow storms. Waking up yesterday, I thought it was eerie to see the quiet streets, downed branches and basic white-out. The plows did a nice job, though I'm surprised how much ice there is today given that hardly any cars drove yesterday to pack it in. There was so much ice on the steep hill that is S. Hamilton St. that a bus got stuck this morning, and all the cars behind it got stuck.

How bad was the 19.5" of snow yesterday? All state agencies closed; no mail, no busses, nothing. The hospitals were super busy with people experiencing chest pains from shoveling and several injuries from snowblowers (FOR PETE'S SAKE: DON'T STICK YOUR HAND IN THE SNOWBLOWER!!!). UW-Madison played host to a snowball fight on Bascom Hill, though not enough students came out to break Michigan Tech's World Record.

Speaking of snowballs, did you see the seven-foot snowball near the Vintage (University Ave/Frances St.)? It took at least 10 people to build it. There also were reports of 10-foot tall (or taller) snowmen all over campus, including one in the roundabout near the Natatorium.

By evening, I saw several pizza delivery cars moving about, as well as a taxi or two. I was willing to venture out to pick up some champagne at the liquor store, but no surprise, it was closed.

Sadly, winter still hasn't even started yet (11 days away). I thought this was supposed to be a tamer winter?

Forecast is Never Correct

Forgot to post this a while back ...

Check out the forecasted high (26 degrees) for Dec. 6 from Channel3000.com, and then look at the current temperature (29 degrees). Wow, that's just pitiful. Can't they change their forecast to 29 degrees so they don't look as stupid as they already are?

Fog-related accidents on I-90

What a terrible series of accidents today on I-90 just east of Madison. If you didn't already know, two separate accidents (one eastbound, one westbound) led to pile-ups of 30+ vehicles and at least two deaths. It was reminiscent of about five years ago when there was a multi-car pile-up on I-43 between Beloit and Milwaukee. In this case, there were many other troubling factors that I think could've helped the situation.

1) Lack of communications. I was lucky to just catch a two-second blurb on the radio about the accident and the road closure at about 7 p.m. For a full hour afterward, I flipped through all the radio stations waiting to hear another announcement, but I didn't get anything until I was all the way home. In extreme situations like this, there should be radio announcements every 15 minutes to warn drivers to avoid the area.

2) No signage. I realize the state patrol was busy, but they should have put digital traffic signs before the area telling traffic to exit the Interstate early.

3) Bad drivers. I drove from Madison to Milwaukee at noon, and I cannot believe how many people either didn't have their lights on or used just their parking lights in the fog. Also, too many people were tailgating, and the over-cautious drivers were also screwing things up by breaking too often and fluxuating speeds too much. In fact, bad driving was what led to the accidents, as people were too eager to break, and then a semi that was following too close smashed into them.

4) Meteorologists. I know I always bash them, but jeez, they predicted the fog would end at noon (that's not even close!). Now, they have extended the dense fog advisory until Monday morning. So they were "only" off by 24 hours?!

I wish speedy recovery to all the people involved in the accidents.

Watch out for bad weather--yeah right!

About mid-week last week, residents of the Dane County area were warned about approaching severe weather for the weekend, including the possiblity of tornadoes. (Wait, tornadoes in October?) We were warned to stay home, as this weather could pose a major threat to us.

Seriously?!

When should we ever believe meteorologists? Besides referees, this is the only profession in which you can be wrong 100% of the time and not be fired. Remember this summer when we were warned of bad weather, causing businesses to close early? And then ABSOLUTELY NOTHING HAPPENED? Same thing this past weekend (beautiful 70-degree weather--just the EXACT OPPOSITE OF WHAT WAS PREDICTED).

Hey weather people: way to waste four years of college for a degree that is meaningless! Anyone can look at the doppler radar and predict weather more accurately than you can.