Snowflakes in Huntsville

[Rick in Dixie]

I was in the Towing Industry in Huntsville from 83' to about 90' and could tell you some wild stories about Ice and snow, Huntsville never gets a whole lot, but it don't take a lot for people who don't know how to drive in it to get in trouble . The big snow of 93' was most memorable for me , it was forcast to start in the North Al area around 10pm , just to bring you up to speed , I left the towing business in 92 and started driving 18 wheelers over the road , anyway the morning of the forcasted snow storm, I was setting in Milwauki Wis. unloading at 4am , I had a drop and hook load just 40 miles north which only takes me an hour to be on my way back south headed for home , I knew I had a short window of time to get back to Alabama and up Brindlee Mountian to Arab before this stuff hit, as I came off of the Tri State Toll Rd. in Chicago, I met up with 4 other trucks from North Al. The first thing I heard on the two way radio was come on Arab , lets go home , so I fell in line with them and we dropped the hammer headed south on I 65, we all talked about what time we thought we would get to Tenn. line and how much from that point on to where each one of lived, it looked fairly promissing , if the weather forcast was right , we would all get home with 3 hours to spair . we kept on hammering south and finnally made it out of Indianapolis In. and 50 miles to the south we hit snow, Oh No ! but we kept rolling, trucks that were going north started telling the south bound trucks that the road was getting a little greesy trough Loisville Kentucky, well thats when we started worrying , because Kentucky was notorious about shutting down the roads, but we ventured on and finally made it to the Tenn. line, timeing was still looking do'able as long as nothing stupid happens, but as we dropped down through Tennessee the snow got heavier and started pileing up on the road way, at this point I think we all knew that we have missed our window of oppertunity of getting home, as we started up and down the rolling hills near cornersville Tn. we started seeing trucks setting on the shoulder of the road just spinning their wheels, I told the other guys to not stop moving unless it was absolutly nessessary, by this time we were down to a top speed of 40mph and spaced out about a 100 yards, as we started up the last hard pull , we were overtaking a truck that for some reason thought that the left lane had less snow on it , well it had less snow because it all blew off of the ice, now he is a threat of blocking the whole interstate if he gets crossed up, so we all dropped another gear and slipped around him just before he spun out and jack Knived , "Boy That Was A close One" , Now we were just 6 miles from the Alabama Line , it was now 1am , we missed our target time by 5 hours , but we were practacally home , so far so good , we made the curve and hill at the bama line with only minimal spinning of the tires , we were now about 10 miles before we say good by to one of the trucks that was headed home in Athen Al. he parted ways and the rest of us traveled on, as I approached Exit 340 I said my good bies and catch yall somewhere next week , and got off heading into Huntsville , the other 3 were headed on down to Cullman where one lived and the other 2 were trying to get to Jasper. When I exited onto I 565 , there were no tracks in the snow to be seen, and it was already about 6" on the roadway , so far so good, as I rolled through Huntsville I raised a local CB opporator in south Huntsville and asked if she knew any thing about the roads going up Brindlee Mountain , well she contacted the Morgan Co. Sherrif Department anex at the base of the mountain and they told her to tell me that there large pine trees over the road and it would be daylight before crews can get up there to cut them out , and that the roadway was very tretchrous and icy, well after hearing this I pulled into the parking lot at Haysland Square Shopping Center and locked her down " Game Over " I got within 14 miles of my house and couldn't go any further, after coming almost 800 miles non stop , home was so close but yet so far, I set and sulked till daylight. The owner of the trucking company showed up at my truck about 10am and locked up the truck and shut it down, and took me home in his 4 wheel drive. My rig set down there for 5 days untill the roads were solid enough to travel on, we like to have never got it started back up, the temps during those 5 days never got out of the single digits.

[knightofeffect]

I can't remember a year when Monte Sano hasn't at least gotten a thorough dusting. Typically the mountian gets light snow events 3 times a year, with a 2+ inches event happening every 3 years or so.

[Reactionary]

koe - we even get snow drifts of up to six or eight inches

[Southlander]

Wow, Rick, that was quite a tale! Glad you stayed safe, though.

Yeah, usually when they predict snow in these parts, you can count on it for Monte Sano and Lookout Mountain. The rest of us don't see any or just a few flurries. My husband has his sled from his childhood days in Nashville. I think we've had it out to use in Decatur maybe twice in 30 years!

[knightofeffect]

Reactionary - Yea, I really miss those times. I haven't lived on the mountian in over 10 years, but I was certainly there for the '93 blizzard . Now that I'm all grown up and have to work, I can understand what a pain an event like that can be, but that still doesn't keep me from hoping for it again one day.

[Sarges Dad]

Welcome to Huntsville where if you do not like the weather today, just wait a day or two. Thats what I love. I can get a tase of winter, and still hang out the hamack after Church a few times during the winter. I do mess the snow we use to get. I have not seen decent snow since New Years morning 2000. Maybe 1 1/2 inches to 2 inches.

[Ajchez]

The first time I ever saw snow was in '93 during the blizzard. I was 9 at the time, and didn't quite appreciate why everyone was freaking out. All I knew was that mom was worried about the food spoiling and dad finally had an excuse to use the fireplace. Unfortunately, after having the firewood sit out back for a decade it had become infested with all sorts of little critters. We spent the first half hour trying to squish all these bugs that ran out of the fireplace, some of them on fire. Our neighbor thought a mini-van would be a great vehicle to take out driving and see the snow. She ended up in a ditch after spinning out on the first turn out of the neighborhood. We kids ended up taking our innertubes (no, we didn't have sleds) and riding those down the hill.

Great fun that was. I can't wait for the next blizzard to shut this state down for a week.