Is "Snowpocalypse II" a "Dud?" (Reston: vacation, suburbs)

[SteelCityRising]

9.5 inches in my part of Reston and still coming down (although that measurement could be off due to the drifting). Also, the back edge of the storm is on a line roughly from Winchester to Marshall to Manassas to Stafford and closing in on the immediate metro area. I predict the steady snow will be ending in most of Fairfax/Loudoun/Prince William Counties by 2:30 PM with snow ending inside the Beltway by 3:30 PM. Part of Maryland within the DC commuting area should see steady snow through the dinner hours, so closure tomorrow for the Federal government looks likely.

[slduvall]

Just got in from shoveling...the snow in Kingstowne seems to be fluffier than the previous snow. Or maybe the shoveling arm is getting into shape..

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by slduvall

Just got in from shoveling...the snow in Kingstowne seems to be fluffier than the previous snow. Or maybe the shoveling arm is getting into shape..

You'd be surprised. I normally work my biceps out with my exercise equipment, but I rarely give my triceps a workout. After spending hours shoveling out myself, friends, and neighbors during the last storm I flexed my arm the next day and couldn't believe how BULGING my tricep was! Hopefully this snow is also wet and sloppy so I can get another workout!

[novajs]

Just got this email

"With deteriorating weather conditions, employees should note the conditions in their area and apply good judgment in deciding whether to remain in the facility or travel home. Our facilities will remain open, and the safety and security of our employees remains our primary concern."

Originally Posted by Jesco White

BTW.. who else works for a gov't contractor and is required to work regardless of the Gov't operating status? I've been going into empty buildings to work , while gov't workers are getting the ole impromptu 10 day vacation (more days overall than I've saved in 2 years). I worked 11 hours today, will do 11 on thursday & friday, will work saturday and then on Presidents day just to avoid taking Vacation. Does this appear as screwed up to anyone else here as it does me? Keep in mind I'm a gov't contractor and not a VDOT employee...

[Lawn Guru]

Yeah, how pathetic is that? But they care so much about their employees.

Originally Posted by novajs

Just got this email

"With deteriorating weather conditions, employees should note the conditions in their area and apply good judgment in deciding whether to remain in the facility or travel home. Our facilities will remain open, and the safety and security of our employees remains our primary concern."

[Jesco White]

Originally Posted by Lawn Guru

Yeah, how pathetic is that? But they care so much about their employees.

Seriously.. what a great way to screw people out of 50% of their vacation time. I'll seriously take inclement weather policies into consideration when looking for jobs in the future. I've never bothered in the past...

[beatlecrazy]

I still had to come to work in this disaster. Our company never closes
I'm the receptionist, and there were no calls and no visitors. It is a very slow day! We're located in Chantilly but I drove from Manassas...treacherous this morning. The visibility was awful!

[mjs1987]

For those of you that havent lived here as long as I have (23 years in May), I grew up with forecasts just like this one every year. They always overplay coastal storms that hit Northeastern cities hard and they underplay southern storms. I remember a few years ago in 2001 or 2002 that all the local channels were predicting 3 feet of snow a week before the storm. 3 days before the storm it came down to 2 feet. Than 2 days before the storm it came down to a foot. Then a day before it went to 6-12". Then storm comes and we get all rain and a quick coating of snow that melted in a few hours. I also remember one time in 2003 waking up to an unpredicted ice storm and the big snow storm that year started a full day earlier than predicted with locally heavy snow up 24-30 inches but area wide 12-20. I remember in the winter of 2000, the area got 10-15 inches snow in a January storm but the day before they were predicting it to go to the south and east and miss us altogether. Normally, we get rain when snow was predicted or nothing at all. I cant remember all the time we were supposed to get heavy snow and we got rain or sunny skies. On same token, we also a lot of times get way more than predicted and it surprises people when 6 inches come instead of 2-3. The smaller two snow storms last week and this one today are more representative of a typical winter in DC accumulation wise. Where this winter is rare is that we have not had any freezing rain or sleet over much of the area and we normally get some of that every winter. The unusual thing this winter is the rain/snow line being so far south. This reminds me of a blown up version of the 2003 and 1996 seasons. Only difference with 1996 was the flooding we got that year that we may not get this time around.

This is the same thing with any other type of system. Often times in the summer, the worst thunder storms happen when they predict 20-30% chance and when they predict 60-70% chance of severe storms we get nothing or just a normal thunderstorm. The weather here does love to tease us though. Almost every year we get a warm up, sometimes 2, in either Jan/Feb and always in March/April that comes crashing down to earth with a return to winter temperatures. In the fall, particularly in 2004, we get late season severe thunderstorms and some small tornadoes. However, we havent gotten many of those strong cold fronts with big winds in a while. In a typical winter, we get more wind storms in the winter than this year.

When you are from this area, you get used to not trusting weather reports. I have a show me attitude to weather. Until it comes and is over, I dont believe the weather reports very much because they are hardly ever very accurate. Its like this with every season here. In the summer, I remember many summers where they predict temps near 100 and it tops out near 90 and some days when they predict 90 and hits 95.

I actually think this winter with all the snow isnt as bad as the ice storm in 1999 and Hurricane Isabel. Both those storms knocked out power to a good portion of the area for several days. I remember we had branches pile 3 inches high across the yard from Isabel. The Isabel clean up took a lot longer than any of these snow storms due to the size of some of the branches and small twigs that piled up that needed to be bagged up.

One thing to remember is that until the past 10-20 years most of the area was farmland or forests. A drive through Great Falls shows what much of the area used to look like before the explosive growth. My grandfather moved here in the late 1950s and in the 70s and 80s he worked occasionally in Germantown with the Feds at satellite facility and back then Germantown had only a post office and general store with a few other buildings and now look at Germantown! The encroachment of pavement and the lack of trees changes the weather patterns. In areas that used to have more trees and more dirt than grass, the temperature would fall faster and stay colder under the canopy. Today, the urban heat island extends farther out than it used to. Many cities that are here today didnt have reporting stations or even exist. Dulles has only been open for 48 years and National airport is on the river banks and gets less than most other places. So the truth is, especially on a localized basis, that storms that put down a lot of snow were more common in the past than they are now. With the records keeping at an unrepresentative location in Alexandria and with Dulles being so young, who knows how bad winters especially in the western suburbs were before 1960. I know a lot of people that lived here in the 1960s in the western suburbs that remember some big storms back then. Recent trends though, every 4-6 years for snows of 10-20 inches and every 14 years of 18-36 inches area wide. I do wonder though how bad the winters were in areas that were forests just a few decades ago with no record keeping. Typically, the difference between snow, rain, freezing rain here is 2-4 degrees with many storms. Without all the development that has gone one, there is an chance that winters in the western and northwestern suburbs were worse than a typical winter that we get now is. There are few reliable records that go back far in the suburbs so it is difficult to make a scientific statement on it.

The unpredictable weather is one of the things I love about the area. Its always funny to see people react one way or the other when the weather changes or to see people stock up on supplies before a storm that turns out to be rain. Unlike any area of the country I have been in, this area seems to have the worst weather predictions and the worst reactions to it from the people. Ive spent a lot of time in Nashville, Raleigh/GSO, New York, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh from visiting family and vacations, and the weather reporting in those areas and the reactions from people have been much different than here. Even in Nashville where they rarely get any snow I didnt see the panic that I saw here for a similar level of snow. Even 2-4 inch snows causes people to panic here. Some of it has to do with the transient nature here. You have a mix of southern transplants and northern transplants and the northern drivers know how to drive in the snow but the southern drivers arent as used to it and they often times panic and cause accidents. There is something about this area that causes people to react different to weather than in other places. Other cities shrug off similar winters as we get this year but for us it is an apocalypse storm. Even a very rare winter in Seattle last year didnt get similar dramatic terms as "snowmageddon" and "snowpocalypse". We always get snow in the winter even if its not a huge amount so I am not sure why this area reacts so badly to even a small storm. I remember January 2007 we had a small snow storm, maybe 1-2 inches, and the toll road and I-495 was a mess with dozens of accidents. It took 2 hours to get from Ashburn to Rockville.

[normie]

Originally Posted by beatlecrazy

I still had to come to work in this disaster. Our company never closes
I'm the receptionist, and there were no calls and no visitors. It is a very slow day! We're located in Chantilly but I drove from Manassas...treacherous this morning. The visibility was awful!

Glad you made it home safe. For a "dud" this storm put us into the record books. Reagan National Airport (DCA) reported 1" of snow between 1 and 2 p.m., upping its storm total to 9.8" and making this officially the snowiest winter on record. It has received 54.9" this year, exceeding the 54.4" of 1898-1899.

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by normie

Glad you made it home safe. For a "dud" this storm put us into the record books. Reagan National Airport (DCA) reported 1" of snow between 1 and 2 p.m., upping its storm total to 9.8" and making this officially the snowiest winter on record. It has received 54.9" this year, exceeding the 54.4" of 1898-1899.

Also bear in mind that Reagan National Airport is usually the "low spot" in the region due to its location. With nearly 33" from the last storm and now this storm there is now over 40" on the ground in and around Dulles Airport! Apparently Reston had 10" from this storm, but I just got back in from shoveling out my car, a co-worker's car, and the cars of about seven neighbors, and it didn't feel like nearly that much at all. It looked more like four inches due to the heavy drifting. Those winds, amazingly, are just starting to pick UP again!