Atlanta Snowpocalypse 2014

[Winterhawk]

Granted my area of NC is rural and not comparable to Atlanta or Charlotte but even for the small event we had last week, the NCDOT was brining the roads before the WWA was even posted. The same for this bigger event.

 

To my knowledge they don't have brining capability here and even that has limitations.

 

It was just a fail; a lot of ideas and suggestions on this thread are valid and those in positions of decision making should make note.

 

Blaming NWS is shameless; giving local mets credit is laughable at best. 

 

NONE of the local stations were good and for them to try to say they were is completely disingenious at best.

[Lookout]

CNN has great coverage right now.  they are talking about the same thing. the govt didnt do what they needed to.  CNN said the blaming and lack of responsibility and accountability is horrid.  CNN has a met and they also were saying what was happening like the NWS. the govt and employers ignore it and blew it off. 

 

i am impressed with cnn right now for holding accountability and backing up the nws with their own info they were putting out.  i mean who wouldnt have heard on monday about the snow in ga? who doesnt listen to the radio or something to see?  anyone waking up after 5 AM would have heard the watches, advisories and warnings. 

Al roker slammed the mayor and governor this morning. I don't think I've ever seen him so mad.  You know it's bad when al roker b**ch slaps you on national tv for incompetence.

 

No one is buying what the mayor and governor are selling. They are just making themselves look dumber and irresponsible by trying to pass the blame around and claiming things that actually aren't true.

[WXinCanton]

what a nice trip to Waffle House :/

 

 

 

[Snowless in Carrollton]

To my knowledge they don't have brining capability here and even that has limitations.

 

It was just a fail; a lot of ideas and suggestions on this thread are valid and those in positions of decision making should make note.

 

Blaming NWS is shameless; giving local mets credit is laughable at best. 

 

NONE of the local stations were good and for them to try to say they were is completely disingenious at best.

IMO, the NWS did a much better job than the tv met's.

[donsutherland1]

I don't understand why the Gov is in CYA mode unless it's to protect the GDOT as if he feels it's a reflection on him. This is where you put on your big boy pants, address the media that mistakes were made they shouldn't have, move discussion towards making sure it doesn't happen again and make sure that for once that actually happens. There are also things individuals could have/can do differently to help the situation instead of looking towards one or two entities for direction, but due to the current anger, even though that important element in all this needs to be addressed, the current anger, vitriol and blame fans going on would make that an unwise thing to do at this point in time as it looks like another excuse.

Unless I'm mistaken, he's up for re-election this year.

[audioguy3107]

Best pic I've seen so far! Hilarious!

[NEGa]

after finishing the thread i am feeling better with what others have said.  this is horrendous and the nws did as they should. i am glad i wasnt the only one who caught the mayor and his "we did in one day this time" comment. complete BS

 

even a non wx weenie could look at the radar yesterday morning, look at the temps, and realize that at some point it was probably going to snow and be cold when it started.  

 

common sense and responsibility are gone. i am truly sorry for those stuck and caught in this - what a horrible experience.  i thought the stories last night were bad. but atl is STILL in gridlock? people stuck 24 freaking hours???

[Snowless in Carrollton]

Best pic I've seen so far! Hilarious!

I didn't know 400 was still a toll road.

[dsaur]

I agree. Planning for improvements should be focused on the weekdays when people are at work and children are at school. That's where the greatest vulnerability/potential impact lies. Moreover, excepting for weeks with holidays, those days encompass 71% of the week.

 

Atlanta's hilly topography argues that anything less is an invitation to major problems. For those who are not familiar with Atlanta's terrain, below are two topographical maps:

 

http://www.howardmodels.com/0-topographic/topographic-map-models/scott-road/scott-road-07.html

 

http://www.atlantamodels.net/imagelib/sitebuilder/misc/show_image.html?linkedwidth=actual&linkpath=http://www.atlantamodels.net/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/military-topo-fs.jpg&target=tlx_new

 Don, the hills are the key in Atl.  What tickles me about the butt covering, and throwing the nws under the bus, is that a dusting, heck, a half a dusting when the temps are below freezing, and the ground way cold, will make the hills impossible.  You don't need 2 inches.  A dusting is plenty. Tony

[Snowless in Carrollton]

For some reason, I think a lot of people overlooked just how cold it was going to be while snowing. Mid 20s or lower when snowing means roads are going to be an absolute nightmare. This wasn't your typical 32-33 degree snow event. 

[donsutherland1]

 Don, the hills are the key in Atl.  What tickles me about the butt covering, and throwing the nws under the bus, is that a dusting, heck, a half a dusting when the temps are below freezing, and the ground way cold, will make the hills impossible.  You don't need 2 inches.  A dusting is plenty. Tony

Absolutely. I've seen cars slide down ramps that aren't very steep or have trouble getting up hills during light snowfalls in some of New York City's suburbs. Atlanta has some special challenges created by its topography and that has to be taken into consideration in developing an effective plan/strategy for dealing with winter storms.

[Winterhawk]

Unless I'm mistaken, he's up for re-election this year.

 

His only competition would come from within and that's probably not going to happen. It's not so much politics imho but really just the latest example of the complete lack of responsibility folks are willing to take; whether personally or professionally.

 

Makes James Spann even more refreshing given the days we are in..

[toxictwister00]

Civil Emergency Message issued for Atlanta metro area until noon Thursday.

 

BULLETIN - EAS ACTIVATION REQUESTED
CIVIL EMERGENCY MESSAGE
GEORGIA EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY PEACHTREE CITY GEORGIA
RELAYED BY NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE PEACHTREE CITY GA
100 PM EST WED JAN 29 2014

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN PEACHTREE CITY HAS RELAYED A

* CIVIL EMERGENCY MESSAGE AT THE REQUEST OF THE GEORGIA EMERGENCY
MANAGEMENT AGENCY IN ATLANTA GEORGIA.

* A STATE OF EMERGENCY REMAINS IN EFFECT FOR ALL OF GEORGIA DUE TO
IMPACTS FROM A WINTER STORM ON TUESDAY THROUGH THIS MORNING.

* THIS MESSAGE REPLACES THE WINTER STORM WARNING THAT EXPIRED AT
100 PM EST THIS AFTERNOON. IT WILL REMAIN IN EFFECT UNTIL NOON
ON THURSDAY AND PRIMARILY PERTAINS TO THE ATLANTA METRO COUNTIES
OF GEMA AREA 7. THOSE COUNTIES INCLUDE FULTON...DEKALB...CLAYTON
...COBB...GWINNETT...DOUGLAS...ROCKDALE...FAYETTE AND HENRY
COUNTIES.

* A COMBINATION OF SOME SLEET INITIALLY FOLLOWED BY 1 TO 3 INCHES
OF SNOW CAUSED MOST ROADWAYS TO BECOME EXTREMELY HAZARDOUS AND
IN MANY CASES IMPASSABLE. THE ICE AND SNOW HAS BEEN COMPACTED
INTO SOLID SHEETS OF ICE WHICH CONTINUES TO CAUSE TREACHEROUS
ROAD CONDITIONS. HUNDREDS OF VEHICLES AND TRUCKS ARE STILL
STRANDED OR ABANDONED ON PORTIONS OF THE INTERSTATES AND PRIMARY
ROADS IN THE ATLANTA METRO AREA. ANY MELTING THAT OCCURS THIS
AFTERNOON WILL REFREEZE TONIGHT AS TEMPERATURES FALL INTO THE
TEENS.

* THE GEORGIA EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY REQUESTS THAT TRAVEL BE
LIMITED TO EMERGENCIES ONLY FOR YOUR SAFETY...AND FOR THE SAFETY
OF EMERGENCY OFFICIALS AND GEORGIA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
EMPLOYEES THAT CONTINUE TO RESPOND TO THE DANGEROUS IMPACTS OF
THE WINTER STORM.

$

16
 

[Snowless in Carrollton]

Wonder why the Civil Emergency Message was just for the metro area ? Here in Carrollton all the roads are impassable. 

[Cold Miser]

Been following this disaster and man, what a crazy situation.  I was just watching the news feed above from channel 11 and saw that there are 800 or so accidents in the city of Atlanta.  Unbelievable.   The amount of cars that they  are showing that were just left on the median and shoulders is insane.  They also mentioned that 40 plows have come into the area from other towns, or maybe the government (?).  I heard that the city of Atlanta has less than 10 plows that it owns but am not sure if that is true. 

 

It was pretty amazing seeing this weather event unfold from up here in the north-east, but at the same time seeing the end result of ill-preparation by local officials is pretty sad.

[Batman]

The funniest (or I guess I should say saddest)  thing about this is how much more informed the folks on this forum are than our government officials. Thanks to the skilled mets and junkies on this fourm, I had a very good idea that MBY and the city of Atlanta would get more than the NWS and ATL mets were calling for. I told my wife Monday night that that there was a good chance we get 3" here in Tyrone. We got about 3.25". Is that because I am a weather forecasting expert? No! But, I can look at the models and learn from listening to skilled people here. If I know that there is a really good chance that we get a major snow with temps colder than they have been during a snow in 18 years, then government officials should know as well! Furthermore, the general public should have at least been informed of the possibility. The potential for serious event here was really greater than most potential winter storms because of the temp profile and computer modeling.

 

Ineptness is not unusual for Atlanta. For a city of it's size, it truly is a joke. This time, their ineptness put lives at stake and exposed themselves for the world to see.

 

Two things that I hope truly get exposed here (besides the people already mentioned) are TV "in house" computer models and smart phone weather apps. Too many people see these two things either on TV or on their phone and think they know what the weather is going to be like for the next 4 or 5 days. I am confident that some folks suffered greatly yesterday because of their reliance on these two rather useless tools.

[WxKnurd]

Random observation, but this Civil Emergency will Most likely lead to the cancellation of the GT-UNC game and if not, will be quite possibly be the quietest college bball played in modern time.

[BraseltonGAWX]

Unless I'm mistaken, he's up for re-election this year.

Yes, correct. He narrowly won his party's nomination in 2010, but then cruised in the general election over the democrat Roy Barnes (a previous Governor). He has done good things for this state actually and I am one of his fans. His handling of these press conferences and his comments and defensiveness have been terrible though, as others have said. Not sure why he is bumbling this so bad.

[Lookout]

Yes, correct. He narrowly won his party's nomination in 2010, but then cruised in the general election over the democrat Roy Barnes (a previous Governor). He has done good things for this state actually and I am one of his fans. His handling of these press conferences and his comments and defensiveness have been terrible though, as others have said. Not sure why he is bumbling this so bad.

Please leave the political aspect out of this discussion and focus on how they handled it..or didn't handle it.

[Batman]

I forgot to thank Don Sutherland for his Brilliant post this morning. That should be required reading for every Atlanta area met. Yes including Atlanta's most accurate and dependable weather forecaster. He blamed the computer models (yes the computer models) on his last post at 6:54 am Tuesday and then signed out until later in the week because he would be "too busy". Sorry for the rant. Did not mean for it to take away from the intend of my post.

Thanks again Don!!!

[a5ehren]

Random observation, but this Civil Emergency will Most likely lead to the cancellation of the GT-UNC game and if not, will be quite possibly be the quietest college bball played in modern time.

I doubt there was going to be a huge turnout anyway. We (GT) suck pretty hard this year.

[Winterhawk]

Wonder why the Civil Emergency Message was just for the metro area ? Here in Carrollton all the roads are impassable. 

 

We in the suburbs don't count; they particularly ignore us in the Northern Suburbs and Carrollton may as well be in Alabama for how you're treated.

[LithiaWx]

Simply put I believe there was a unique combination of factors that lead to this event. Here is a list of factors that by themselves may not mean much but added together get you what happened yesterday.

1. Late shift towards more precip getting brought north than originally though

I felt that the NWS reacted well to the change in models but I wasn't a fan of changing the Winter Storm Watch to an advisory and then to a warning for the Atlanta metro. This likely added some confusion to people who didn't see the change until perhaps they were already at work or on the way. Yes, they were on top of central Georgia counties with the early winter storm warning but IMO looking back on it appears to have been a mistake not including the metro and it's very large population in the original warning.

2. Temperatures in the mid and lower 20's during and after the event.

3. Storm hitting at midday

4. Not enough snow and ice removal and treatment trucks.

I saw some areas that had obviously been salted and sanded but I did not see a single truck and there were not many spot that got salted. It seemed limited to only bridges and not all of them were treated.

5. The cold snap that cancelled schools last week.

I think it made some complacent in their views of how serious weather can be. Most didn't take it seriously, and still don't.

[jburns]

 

It was pretty amazing seeing this weather event unfold from up here in the north-east, but at the same time seeing the end result of ill-preparation by local officials is pretty sad.

 

We all have our moments and not just in the South.  Major cities and ice don't mix well.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_1969_nor'easter

 

Thousands of travelers became stranded on roads and in airports. Overall, at least 94 people lost their lives to the storm. Following the event, the mayor of New York, John Lindsay, was criticized for failing to respond to the snowstorm adequately. Some areas of the city remained uncleared for over a week after the storm, and city schools were closed for several days.

[WNash]

I'm from Nashville which has at most a quarter of the population and traffic of Metro Atlanta. A bit of snow or ice causes chaos there, too, but this is orders of magnitude worse than anything I ever saw.

IMO the finger pointing at mets is wrong, and blaming politicians or drivers is useless. The road network in Atlanta is barely sufficient for traffic on a good day. A restricted network, with a high accident rate taking out lanes and a serious decrease in the average speed, is certain to cripple the city.

Everyone tried to use the same limited resources at the same time. Would closing schools have helped? Sure, a bit. But the excess volume still would have shut down the city. The Atlanta situation is just a exponentially worse manifestation of the same panic consumption that causes the bread/milk rushes, etc., but I doubt that the road network could handle this even if there were staggered closings, etc.

One takeaway: I won't be making fun of DC for shutting down for weather anymore. They have the authority to do it, which allows them to avoid this sort of nightmare.

[WXinCanton]

Simply put I believe there was a unique combination of factors that lead to this event. Here is a list of factors that by themselves may not mean much but added together get you what happened yesterday.

1. Late shift towards more precip getting brought north than originally though

I felt that the NWS reacted well to the change in models but I wasn't a fan of changing the Winter Storm Watch to an advisory and then to a warning for the Atlanta metro. This likely added some confusion to people who didn't see the change until perhaps they were already at work or on the way. Yes, they were on top of central Georgia counties with the early winter storm warning but IMO looking back on it appears to have been a mistake not including the metro and it's very large population in the original warning.

2. Temperatures in the mid and lower 20's during and after the event.

3. Storm hitting at midday

4. Not enough snow and ice removal and treatment trucks.

I saw some areas that had obviously been salted and sanded but I did not see a single truck and there were not many spot that got salted. It seemed limited to only bridges and not all of them were treated.

5. The cold snap that cancelled schools last week.

I think it made some complacent in their views of how serious weather can be. Most didn't take it seriously, and still don't.

 

I really think this made schools less willing to close for the whole day

[BraseltonGAWX]

Please leave the political aspect out of this discussion and focus on how they handled it..or didn't handle it.

Yep, sorry about that Chris. Was trying to answer Don"s question but got carried away.

[blueheronNC]

His only competition would come from within and that's probably not going to happen. It's not so much politics imho but really just the latest example of the complete lack of responsibility folks are willing to take; whether personally or professionally.

 

Makes James Spann even more refreshing given the days we are in..

 

I just really don't like it when our elected officials try to discredit the National Weather Service simply because it's an outfit of the federal government.  The Santorum-esque axe to grind to privatize our weather forecasting is one of the most dangerous movements I've seen from a public safety perspective in recent memory.

[SnowGator]

One thing that perplexed me is the seeming lack of coverage of this historic event (at least in terms of ice and snow in the FL panhandle and SC coast) by the major news networks in the days leading up to the actual event. I work from home and when the Nor'easter from earlier this month was approaching, CNN and FOX both were warning everyone with weather reports seemingly every hour and then had reporters staked on every corner from D.C. To Boston to report on the first wind gust to the last snow flake.

This event......I waited. As someone who has been reading these forums for years I had a pretty good idea something was going to hit, yet I did not see the major news networks (who are now rightly vilifying local responses) reporting any doom and gloom, providing warnings of severe ice storms, etc until the day of the event. Why?

[WidreMann]

One thing that perplexed me is the seeming lack of coverage of this historic event (at least in terms of ice and snow in the FL panhandle and SC coast) by the major news networks in the days leading up to the actual event. I work from home and when the Nor'easter from earlier this month was approaching, CNN and FOX both were warning everyone with weather reports seemingly every hour and then had reporters staked on every corner from D.C. To Boston to report on the first wind gust to the last snow flake.

This event......I waited. I did not see the major news networks (who are now rightly vilifying local responses) reporting any doom and gloom, providing warnings of severe ice storms, etc until the day of the event. Why?

The south isn't a big market and the economic effects are less.