Osler's Razor

So you are canceling your classes today?
 

Here in Texas, this is HUGE, and it should be too, cause people here can barely drive even when it is sunny outside, trust me I know this all too well. You guys from the north can walk to school/work in nine feet of snow and drive during blizzards, so you guys should still goto work and school. As for me, I am terrified of the "wintry mix" so I will be inside, wearing my PJ's, and drinking hot coco, while watching the tv. Happy Snow Day!
 

Hey, I am PUMPED about the wintry mix! This will probably be that "horrific storm" that I tell my grandkids about..."Back in the great wintry mix of 2007..."

And I will say that since this is the deepest snow/sleet/wintry mix I have ever seen in my life, I and those like me are doing Waco and surrounding areas a favor by not driving. So you're all welcome!
 

The same way that people in Detroit or New York would shit a brick if they had a tornado warning and huge hail like is common in North Texas, we hate slick roads.
 

I lived in New Jersey for the first 11 years of my life. In the front room, we had a cast iron stove (the kind that runs on the sweat of your brow and wood) and I remember my father piling logs into it during a couple really bad winters in my youth when we lost heat. They got rid of the stove when I was about 5, because after I lived with it for almost 3 years, they decided it was a hazard to have a really hot stove within easy reach around a child my age.

The storm I remember most forced us to be housebound for 3 days. (I want to say it was 1990.) School was closed for a week. As proof of what a dork I was, I was bored by the end of that week.

For my freshman year, I went to upstate NY for school. By this time I had lived in Texas for 7 years. I came back to Texas by the next winter. NY colleges never cancel for snow or ice. We'd be slipping and getting soaked up to our knee, but we'd be in class. The president of the college got his driveway plowed before our sidewalks were done. And he walked to work.
 

Different kind of storm--but scary result...

The rain in Del Rio, TX started falling at about 10:00 pm, and within the next two hours over 14 inches had fallen. At about midnight, we realized that about 3 feet of water was running through the apartment parking lot. I descended from our second story apartment and waded through the flash flood waters (not a good idea) to retrieve some valuables from the car while lightening crashed throughout the city every few seconds (not a good idea). By next morning, entire houses throughout town had been swept away by up to 8 feet of water. I spent the next week of my short time in Del Rio yanking soaked carpet out of homes and shoveling mud into the street.
 

Are other people unable to get onto Blackboard and check their email? Just wondering if I am the only one without Baylor email. Keep warm everyone!
 

I've never been trapped by snow or ice, nor have I lived in a house that lost power for more than a few hours due to weather.

A few years ago the tail end of a hurricane came through Northern Virginia and knocked down a tree on top of the house where I was staying.

My best snow story was from four years ago. The D.C. area experienced the hardest winter in many years. We enjoyed several major snowstorms in 2002-2003 and for once, it didn't all just melt away the very next day. As a kid born in the midwest, I am still a little mad at my parents for moving us to such a warm climate. So I was overjoyed by all the snow.

The only problem was that all the snow interfered with my training schedule for running a marathon at the end of March. Its hard to run 20 miles when all the paths are covered with ice and slush. But I did it anyway.

And of course it snowed on the day of the race. It was my first marathon and I was near the back of the pack. Sand trucks were waiting for us to finish the course so they could treat the roads for motorists. I wore a baseball cap and kept having to wipe snow off the bill as I ran. The worst part was that the roads were actually warm for the first couple of hours and the snow melted as it accumulated. Which meant every step was into a puddle. Nothing worse than wet cold running shoes, combined with the knowledge that I had to keep running for many more miles.

By the end it was nice powder... which meant you weren't quite sure what the powder covered and what you might be stepping into. Fortunately I did not step into any holes. I waited a few more years before doing serious bodily injury during a run.
 

In the days of my youth, many years ago, we had a huge ice storm-accompanied by downed power lines, 5-6 inches of snow, high winds, etc. We had no power for 2 days- and the actual tempeture was -5 degrees F. We were lucky to have a fireplace and plenty of blankets that winter!
 

8:35-- I am not cancelling class today!

8:55-- As for tornados and hail, unfortunately Michigan gets that, too- in fact, I was INSIDE a tornado that pushed my car clear across the road once. It's not fair that we got all the winter disasters AND all the summer disasters.
 

This must have been written about you:

He is credited as having been raised by coyotes near the Pecos River after falling from a wagon as a baby. On his return to humanity he invented the lasso, tamed and rode a cyclone, used a rattlesnake as a whip, could rope an entire herd at one go, used the entire Rio Grande to water his ranch, and performed other similar feats. He rode a horse called Lightning (known in some stories as Widow-maker) and dated a girl called Slue-Foot Sue.
 

yeah, well once when I was INSIDE a tornado it started to snow and I made it out in time only to be swept by a hurricane which later threw me into a sand storm, and it happened all in the same hour!! My life is pretty amazing.
 

Hee hee. It wasn't that bad, really. The car was ok.
 

I think I have the worst weather horror story of all. Back when I lived in Utah, my father and I were walking through the forest looking for a Christmas tree to cut down (it seems just as stupid to me now as it did then, but its just what you did in Utah). While we were in the forest, an earthquake occurred. It sucked because all the ice and snow from the trees was raining down on us. While my father and I were running to get back to the car, I was struck by lightning. My father called an ambulance, which was able to get to us fast all things considered, but when we finally got to Salt Lake City, it was under attack by Godzilla and the hospital there had already been smashed by eye lasers. So we had to go to a hospital in some small town about 30 miles away.
 

Thomas--
I bet Osler was there too.
 

Squeeky--

No, at that exact moment I was busy. In fact, I had picked that exact day to climb Mt. St. Helens, thinking nothing of the vague rumblings coming from the mountain itself...
 

Yeah, well, I drove from Waco to Dallas in a "wintry mix" in a car with a broken cupholder!
 

Does zombie attack fall under the category of inclement weather? Because if it does, then I have more stories. . .
 

Thomas--

Zombie stories would qualify IF the zombies were put into that state through some weather-related incident. For example, zombies created by electricity normally would not qualify, unless they were struck by lightning.

Snow zombies, of course, are fair game.
 

As a fellow michigander, I remember school only getting cancelled if the windchill fell to 60 below. I'd say we got more snow than ice, but when we did get ice, it was certainly a doozy! The weight of the ice on tree branches would make them bow down to the ground (and incidently create GREAT forts to play in). I remember my Nanna telling me about an ice storm that was so bad that they put on ice skates and skated down the street. Now THAT would be a reason to shut down everything! :)
 

Maybe Thomas remembers this if he was in Salt Lake at the time, but the winter I was....um...6? 7? Somewhere around 1990, at least, maybe 1989 (my God I'm so young), there was The Big Snow. Ask anyone who lived in SLC (in this context, NOT the SLC) at the time, and they will remember the Big Snow.

SLC usually gets around 6 ft of snow a year. That time, we got about four feet of it AT ONCE, over 2 days. And it stayed so cold it completely froze, except for brief periods where it would thaw and then froze again, so we didn't have 4 (and then 6) feet of solidly frozen ice. And, as anyone else from somewhere that gets true ice and snow, then you know that ice and snow frozen together is HEAVY, and if you're trying to shovel it over your head, it's not very fun.

Finally, it got to the point where no one, not even Karl Malone (the Mailman!!!) could throw the ice over the bulwarks cut on either side of everyone's driveways, because it was about 8 feet of solid ice on either side. In desperation to get out, people started pushing the ice and snow (true "wintery mix") into the streets on either sides of their driveways just to get out.

Then the snow plows would go by and clear the streets, and push all the "mix" back into our driveways. We'd dig out, they'd push in, we'd dig out, they'd push in. There was no where else to put it. This went on from about...November to March, solidly. We didn't even see the Rockies for all of that time, and I lived in freaking Taylor.

Finally people started going a little crazy, and two snow plow drivers (I think it was two...it was at least one, maybe the other was only wounded) were literally shot to death when people got so nuts with them that they ran out with shot guns and blasted them. I am not making this up, sadly. This is also a winter where the power went out a couple times, but we had two fireplaces and just bunked down in the living room.

Unfortunately, we moved out of Utah before I learned to drive, so all I know about driving in "ice" is go really slow, clutch the wheel with both hands, and brake about two minutes before you get to a stop sign. And watch out for all the people doing 50 in their SUVs.
 

My favorite, but also the least dangerous, was a beautiful early morning tennis practice that occured during our preseason workouts in March. We all trudged to school at 5 am in order to use the gym for our indoor workouts. The baseball team had it in the afternoons. We worked out between 6 and 7:15, hit the showers and headed to the cafeteria for breakfast. What a perk! Anyway, as we drank our orange juice and ate our Capn' Crunch, we watched the snow fall. Sure was pretty, but the streets outside the building seemed awful quiet for that hour of the morning. Just then, the superintendant of schools came storming through the cafeteria on his way to the faculty lounge. About halfway there he turned and said, "Didn't anyone tell you boys that school was called off about an hour ago? Go home!" We got 18 inches of snow that day.
 

RG - I also lived in utah around this time. I vaguely remember what you are talking about.
 

Over Christmas break, I was stuck in Taos, NM b/c of “record-breaking snow”. As a native of south central Texas and having lived nowhere else but sub-Saharan Africa, I had little respect such terms as “snow-packed and icy” and “frozen over and impassible” or “12-foot drifts covering the highway”. It’s just a little snow, I thought. Harmless white stuff! Plus, I had a flight to catch. (Albuquerque to Chicago with a layover in Denver). I soon learned that half the roads in the great state of New Mexico (so about 30) were closed. But I was not deterred. Even when a call to United confirmed that both my Albuquerque and Denver flights were cancelled, I still scoffed at the snow gods. Not until Fox News informed me that Donald Rumsfeld, scheduled to be a pallbearer in Gerald Ford’s funeral, couldn’t make it b/c he was stuck in Taos, NM did I concede defeat. I knew Fox News would never lead me astray, and if Rummy wasn’t getting out for Gerry’s funeral, I figured my chances were slim indeed.
 

Weather Disasters:
In the Blizzard of '77, my friends and I decided we really had to go to McDonald's to take advantage of their special cherry milkshakes for GW's birthday. I don't even like cherry milkshakes (or I don't think I do...) and yet I joined my friends to hike miles in the knee deep snow through the woods and empty streets to the McDonald's ... only to find it closed! I realize now that we should have called first, but that would have defeated the adventure and my memory of the blizzard!

A decade ago, when I was in my first job after law school, working for my first law boss... in a huge office of us 2 lawyers and an office manager... I was not having much success in getting the boss to talk to me... mentor me... give me any idea what she wanted. After 6 months of asking for staff meetings with no success, the ice storm of 1994 came. I had trudged into work many a day only to find the boss not there... but this day, I decided that I was NOT going to fight the elements. When I called the boss to let her know I would be staying at home, her response was "Well, I was going to have a staff meeting...!"
 

This is not an ice storm.

What I had in Seattle once was an ice storm--power was gone for a couple days, I caught near-pneumonia because huddling next to a candle under a pile of puffalumps and blankets in a high school letterman's jacket covering all the clothes I could possibly fit underneath that just wasn't warm enough.

Seriously, the ice was heavy enough to split whole trees--those giant weird Christmas trees they have out there, too--in half some places. YUCK.

As far as Texas ice storms go, though, when I was three or four we had a couple inches of sleet that covered everything. I tried to make a sleet ball and it didn't work. I was sad.
 

Osler I remember that storm.

I remember sleeping by the fireplace. IT was reallllly warm, but my Cat, Daisy slept on my head all night.
 

I feel the need to defend my fellow Texans. There's a good reason we don't drive on ice...WE DIE. Ice goes in tea to make a delicous drink or in a martini shaker to make a delicous drink, but definitely not anywhere near the tires of a car.

Unlike people from the North, we are not used to the cold weather. We wear ski jackets as soon as it dips below 60 degrees, which is perfectly acceptable!

We are adapted to the heat. We like it hot year round. If I haven't worn shorts at least once in January, there is something seriously wrong with the weather (stupid el nino).

Point is, we die when water freezes, and whenever the north has a "heat wave", aka 2 consecutive days of 90 degree temps, old people start dropping like flies.

P.S.
Is my ski jacket acceptable "wintry mix" attire?