Post #321,564
2/16/10 6:27:36 PM
|
It ain't braggin' if you can do it - and for every year
The forecast: a mighty winter blizzard sure to dump a record-setting blanket of snow that will grow from inches to feet overnight, just in time for rush hour.
When it happened this month in Washington, they called it ÂSnowpocalypse and an overwhelmed city couldnÂt keep its streets clear. When it happened last week in Chicago, they called it ÂTuesday and kept the blacktop black from first flakes to final drifts.
ÂIÂd take my plow drivers and put them up against anyone in North America, said Bobby Richardson, ChicagoÂs snow-removal boss. ÂTen inches, a foot of snow? ThatÂs nothing for us. Nothing.Â
source: http://www.suntimes....de-021610.article
"Chicago to my mind was the only place to be. ... I above all liked the city because it was filled with people all a-bustle, and the clatter of hooves and carriages, and with delivery wagons and drays and peddlers and the boom and clank of freight trains. And when those black clouds came sailing in from the west, pouring thunderstorms upon us so that you couldn't hear the cries or curses of humankind, I liked that best of all. Chicago could stand up to the worst God had to offer. I understood why it was built--a place for trade, of course, with railroads and ships and so on, but mostly to give all of us a magnitude of defiance that is not provided by one house on the plains. And the plains is where those storms come from."
-- E.L. Doctorow
|
Post #321,565
2/16/10 7:24:28 PM
|
maybe canada could rent them for zamboni drivers
If we torture the data long enough, it will confess. (Ronald Coase, Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences, 1991)
|
Post #321,583
2/17/10 3:23:30 AM
|
I'm willing to bet that the Montreal folks might have
something to say about that.
|
Post #321,587
2/17/10 8:55:19 AM
|
doubledown on that one
I was leaving laval heading for otterburn park one day (about 20ish miles) a light snow started. There was 8 inches on the ground by the time I arrived at beliol 20 minutes later. That area can snow but the muni's always kept up
If we torture the data long enough, it will confess. (Ronald Coase, Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences, 1991)
|
Post #321,596
2/17/10 10:07:32 AM
|
Dunno about "every year".
Although it's mentioned in the story, the storm of January 1979 didn't turn out so well in Chicago.
http://www.chicago-l...s/blizzard79.html
According to the U.S. Department of Commerce Weather Bureau, Chicago's average annual snowfall is 33" and rarely exceeds 40". Since records began to be kept in 1899, there have only been four winters in which total snowfall exceeded 60". But during the winter of 1978-79, the total was a staggering 88.4"! And by the end of January, there was an accumulation of more than 47" on the ground, most of which was compacted ice!
The Blizzard of 1979 started on Friday night January 12 and lasted until 2 a.m. Sunday January 14. On top of 7-10 inches left over from a New Year's Eve storm, 20.3 inches of new snow fell--setting a record for total snow on the ground.
Transportation came to a standstill for several days. The CTA had snowfighting equipment, mostly cars fitted with small snowplows suitable for the 8"-12" of snow that usually falls at any one time. But it soon became apparent that these were inadequate against the 27" of snow on the ground and so the shops manufactured makeshift plows of heavy plywood laid in cross-grained layers of up to 6". The use of wood instead of steel kept the plows insulated against the 600 volt DC third rail. The plows were attached to the front of married-pair units, using both designated work cars and revenue units from the passenger fleet.
[...]
Any city will have trouble with a major storm that happens every 15-30 years or so. E.g. http://en.wikipedia....rm_of_the_Century
Cheers,
Scott.
|
Post #321,606
2/17/10 11:11:32 AM
|
Staggering? Pshaw
Cleveland has broken 40 inches in one month a couple of times -- http://www.erh.noaa....cletop10snow.html
And for the year, it's topped 100 inches three times since 1968 -- http://www.erh.noaa....fall-seasons.html
I've been here since '95, so I've seen two of those. The first, in '95, I went to bed and there was no snow at all. Hadn't had the first snow of the year yet. I woke up to 19 inches and a state of emergency. Welcome to Cleveland!
And those totals are taken at the airport, which doesn't get nearly as much as the Eastern suburbs. --
Drew
|
Post #321,613
2/17/10 12:12:50 PM
|
Pfft.
Montreal averages 86 inches of snowfall a year. I think the big record that bit the dust a couple of years ago was around 130 inches for the year. That same year Ville de Quebec got around 165 inches.
'Course, if you want to talk about insanity, you want to get down in the maritimes, where some times they've ended up with 120 inches in a month.... but that's not quite the same; they don't have cities with millions of people in them down there.
|
Post #321,619
2/17/10 12:34:53 PM
|
Re: Dunno about "every year".
And every Chicago politician has used that storm as the impetus to make sure the roads get cleaned so they don't get voted out of office.
"Chicago to my mind was the only place to be. ... I above all liked the city because it was filled with people all a-bustle, and the clatter of hooves and carriages, and with delivery wagons and drays and peddlers and the boom and clank of freight trains. And when those black clouds came sailing in from the west, pouring thunderstorms upon us so that you couldn't hear the cries or curses of humankind, I liked that best of all. Chicago could stand up to the worst God had to offer. I understood why it was built--a place for trade, of course, with railroads and ships and so on, but mostly to give all of us a magnitude of defiance that is not provided by one house on the plains. And the plains is where those storms come from."
-- E.L. Doctorow
|
