Interstate Highways Are Snow Traps

Cars stuck on a steep hill during a March, 2017 blizzard in front of
my St. Albans, Vermont house.  Luckily for the drivers, this isn't a
limited access highway like Interstate 89, so the motorists were able
to use my driveway and those of my neighbors to turn around.
They weren't stuck for hours like they would have been on the Interstate.

Here's one of those problems in which no good solutions come to mind: Snowy crashes on Interstate highways that trap motorists for hours.

Under normal conditions, the United States Interstate Highway system moves people and goods efficiently from one place to another.

Along with us dweebs in cars and small trucks, zillions of tractor trailers zip back and forth delivery goods and supplies to zillions of places and people.

Until it snows.

There's no good mechanism for getting people moving again when tractor trailers jack knife on ice, or cars slide off the highways and into ditches or other cars.

Such was the case last evening, when a snow squall froze a previously just wet section of Interstate 89 between Burlington and Montpelier. The Interstate was basically a parking lot from mid afternoon into the evening because of this mess, reports WCAX-TV.  The traffic jam continued hours after the snow squall had ended, demonstrating how hard it is to untangle an Interstate highway crash.

Elsewhere yesterday, parts of Interstate 80 in Nebraska, Interstate 35 near Kansas City and Interstate 70 southeast of Manhattan, Kansas were closed due to a snowstorm Sunday, the Weather Channel reported.

More closures are possible as the storm heads northeast into the Ohio Valley and eventually southern New England.

Snow squalls are the worst, because they cause rapid changes in road conditons and sudden white out conditions.  That's still a threat here in Vermont Wednesday, which would make it the third time in a week that heavy snow squalls either shut down parts of Vermont highways or threatened to.  Wednesday's snow squalls here in Vermont might be the worst of the bunch. (There were problems with snow squalls last Thursday and again yesterday.)

The limited access of Interstate highways that make them safer with no cars merging from side streets.  But the only way to get cars trapped behind snowy wrecks, or any kind of wreck is to wait until the mess is cleaned up so people can progress to the next exit at least.

Sometimes, people are directed into those little patches of asphalt connecting opposite lanes of highways where cops wait for speeders. Then the motorists can go basically U-turn back toward their starting point but that takes a long time to accomplish too.

Police and first responders must give priorty to getting the injured to hospitals, investigating the cause of the crash, and getting things cleared in a safe manner that doesn't cause more injuries.  Plus, they often don't have the manpower to figure out a way to move all the stuck traffic behind the wrecks.

That's why people are often stuck for hours behind Interstate crashes. They're not the highest priority, I'm afraid.

My advice, and it isn't perfect:  Make sure you have a full tank of gas, especially in the winter, before you venture out.  If they say snow squalls are on the way or are already here, stay home.  Try to listen or hunt for traffic alerts so you can avoid gummed up areas.

As we enter a winter full of ice storms, snowstorms and snow squalls, you, too might be stuck on the Interstate for a long time.  They only way to manage it is to be prepared.

Yet Another Overperforming Snowstorm Socking Vermont, Surrounding Areas

A long line of cars slogs through heavy, wet snow at Exit 19 of
Interstate 89 in St. Albans late this afternoon. 

Well, this is certainly turning into a doozy of a snowstorm for Vermont and adjacent areas, isn't it.

The first half of the storm, roughly into early afternoon, really hit east facing slopes of the Green Mountains.

Some areas definitely got more snow than expected. Some examples: Marshfield reported 16 inches, Walden, 15 inches, Moretown, 14 inches.

That's a lot of snow.

While it is still snowing along those eastern slopes, it's coming down lighter now. And it probably won't get particularly heavy in those places overnight.

There will be more accumulation there, but it won't pile up nearly as fast as it did earlier today.  The mountain summits, which got tons of snow the first half of today, will continue to pile it up fast, so we'll see some pretty amazing totals up there.

We're now in the second half of the snowstorm,  The wind has shifted and increased from the north and northwest, so it's the western slopes of the Green Mountains that are getting clobbered. Road conditions deteriorated fast late this afternoon in the Champlain Valley as the snow finally started to accumulate.

For several hours at least this evening, the snow will come down at a good clip even in the Champlain Valley. Elevation will still be a factor:

Forecasters think totals will range from as little as three inches along the immediate shore of Lake Champlain, to six inches or so a few hundred feet higher in elevation and a few miles inland from the lake, to a foot or more along the western slopes well east of Burlington -- towns like Underhill, Jericho, Huntington, Bakersfield, East Enosburg, all those types of places.

These are storm totals, taking into account what already fell plus what's expected to accumulate.

Who knows, the way this storm has been behaving, there might be more surprises with even deeper snow in these communities. After all, right along the western slopes, most forecasters think the snow will keep going into Saturday morning.

Winter storm warning have been extended westward to include all of Franklin and Chittenden Counties.

Basically, don't travel anywhere tonight. Also postpone travel until Saturday afternoon, when things will have definitely improved.

It's been bad enough all day. NECN reports roughly 100 crashes and slide offs in Vermont during the day. This includes a fatal crash on Vermont 22A and several multi-vehicle pileups. Interstate 89 near Montpelier was impassable for a time due to crashes.

Power failures with the heavy, wet snow have been a problem in some areas all day. At last check, around 6 p.m. there were about 1,250 homes and businessses without power across Vermont.

I have a feeling these numbers will go up through the evening as the heavy wet snow really starts to pile up in populated areas of Franklin, Chittenden and Addison counties. Gusty winds now blowing aren't helping. If anything, those winds will increase overnight.

At least the snow will turn more powdery as we go through the night, so the chances of further heavy, wet accumulations will go down.

It's still supposed to be cold Saturday. After a mild-ish Sunday, it will be cold again Monday and Tuesday. The late week still promises to turn at least somewhat warmer. Long range forecasts are iffy, but many forecasters are dangling the prospect of highs in the 50s a week from today.

I'll believe it when I see it.

Video Tour: Weather Around U.S., Canada Has Many Objects Succumbing To Gravity

There have been lots of ice storms, lots of heavy snowstorms, and lots of rain in so many places around the United States and Canada over the past week.

This of course, means falling objects: Falling trees, falling ice, falling rocks and hillsides, even. Here's a video tour of some of the trouble spots.

Michigan was hit by an ice storm much nastier than anything Vermont experienced Wednesday evening. Here's some trees in Limon, Michigan, reluctantly, but ultimately succumbing to the ice:



This one's scary. A bus was coming down a icy hill near Kansas City when it slid out of control and tipped over. It was all caught on a security camera. The three children, one of whom uses a wheelchair, the driver and a bus monitor all had very minor injuries and will be OK:


In Toronto, Canada, ice falling from a 40-story building crashed through the roof of a postal truck. The truck driver was inside, but very luckily, not hurt.

Flooding, Ice, Blizzard-Like Conditions In Vermont This Saturday Morning

Amy Kolb Noyes posted what appears to be significant
and damaging ice jam flooding in Johnson, Vermont amid
Saturday morning's snowstorm. 

UPDATE: 11 a.m.:

Extensive flooding is reported around Johnson, Vermont due to ice jam flooding.

Route 15 in the area is closed, and photos on social media show flooded buildings amid swirling snow in the Johnson area. An emergency shelter has been opened by the
Johnson, Vermont fire department.

Evacuations are also reported due to ice jam flooding around Swanton, Vermont.

Rainfall Friday was particularly heavy in the Lamoille River basin, which includes the Johnson areas. Nearby Eden received 2.82 inches of rain - an incredible amount for January.

Many other weather stations in and near the northern and central Green Mountains had two inches of rain or more. Between that, and the record warm temperatures Friday and the snowmelt, it's understandable now why the flooding turned out to be worse than expected.

Stay tuned for more details.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION

It's not every day in Vermont in which there are flood warnings on many of the state's major rivers, while blizzard-iike conditions are hitting parts of the state, and ice is weighing down trees in other parts of Vermont.

Yep, in case you haven't noticed, it's wicked bad out there this morning, as expected.  There are floods, there is zero visibility in snow, the roads are horrendous, and you should just stay home until it gets better later today.

Heavy snow falling on St. Albans, Vermont Saturday
morning, one day after it was 60 degrees.

As of 8:30 a.m. Saturday, it was snowing hard at my house in St. Albans, in northwestern Vermont. Conditions are easily the most challenging they've been since the epic Pi Day blizzard last March 14.

Yes, there's much less snow than that March three-foot epic, but visibility is down to near zero in heavy snow and blowing snow. Snowfall rates now in the Champlain Valley are going at one to two inches per hour, which is a lot.

Roads are practically impassable. Nobody is even trying to make it up the steep hill in front of my house. The wind is gusting to about 35 mph and the temperature is down to 12 degrees. It was 60 degrees just yesterday afternoon. Now, it's absolutely brutal.

The heavy rains and record warm temperatures have led to ice jams on many area rivers, including the Winooski, Lamoille, Mississquoi, Otter Creek and others. Amid all this snow and ice, some Vermont roads are close by the ice jams and flooding, including Route 2 near Montpelier and Route 78 near West Swanton.

There are reports of an emergency shelter opening up in Swanton today, in case some homes are surrounded by ice jams, so it is pretty serious out there.

Hard to see (click on picture to make it bigger, but this
web cam grab from 9:25 a.m. Saturday morning shows
near zero visibility on Interstate 89 in Georgia, Vermont,
with a police vehicle helping a motorist that had
slid off the road. 

The intense snowfall rates in western and northern Vermont this morning will taper off later this morning and this afternoon, so just hang tight until then. It's worth it just to hunker down and wait it out.

Amid the chaos outside, thank goodness the power outages aren't too, too bad. As of 9:15 a.m., about 1,300 homes and businesses were without power, mostly in central and southern Vermont.

The overall forecast remains the same. The snow will taper off and end tonight, save for a few mostly mountain snow showers. We are definitely back to the Arctic deep freeze, with subzero lows tonight and highs only in the single numbers Sunday.

But hey, at least the skiers and winter sports fans got some of their snow back.

Speaking of which, it's still looking questionable during the upcoming Tuesday to Thursday time frame. It definitely looks like it's going to snow, but the computer models, as they were yesterday, are still arguing over whether it will be a lot of snow, or just a little.

Russians Have Problems Driving In The Winter, Too

Chaos in Vladivostok, Russia streets during the first
major snowstorm of the season. Image from RT.

Russia has a pretty wintry weather reputation, but that doesn't mean everybody can handle the cold season.  

The most recent example comes from Vladivostok, which had just had a slippery snowstorm (which is not at all unusual for mid-November in that city. )

It was the first major storm of the winter, which always seems to catch people off guard.

Like in cities in the United States and elsewhere, things did not go well on the roads and highways around Vladivostok.

The Russian news and propaganda agency RT says there were at least 256 accidents around the city due to the storm.

Let's not get too smug here in the U.S. There's already been plenty of winter-related car mishaps and there will be many, many more before winter ends.

The video below shows you the traffic jams and the wrecks that ensued during the snow in Vladivostok and is an instructional video of what not to do when it snows. Although the cat at the very end gets it right by staying indoors and just observing.

Watch:

Road Nightmares, But Bits Of Fun Too In South, East Storm. (Videos)

A pretty image of Saturdays snowstorm in Central Park,
New York. Photo by Stephanie Keith/Reuters

As always with big winter storms that hit populated areas, like the Southeast and Eastern Seaboard this weekend, there's always some wonderful, or scary, or eye-rolling videos of the goings-on during and after the storm.

The storm dumped a huge swath of ice and snow from Mississippi to New England, causing all kinds of problems and delights.

So we have videos!

First, here's a video compilation of the havoc after the icy storm in Birmingham, Alabama:



It wasn't much better in Raleigh, North Carolina. The people at the beginning of this video should have just given up:



The storm moved up into New England during the Saturday, contributing to this big pileup on Interstate 91 near New Britain, Connecticut:



Now, some fun! The Georgia Tech swim team had their meet canceled because of the snow, and they were stranded by the storm in a Virginia hotel.

So they had their own unique swim relay in the snow.

Watch!



For those of you who really want to know what a LOT of snow looks like, not just that few inches in the South, check out the lake effect snows in this video near Watertown, New York earlier this week:

Storm Update: Still On Track For A Mess

Lots of blue, pinks and purples on the National Weather Service
map Saturday morning, indicating many, many snow, ice and
cold weather warnings, alerts and advisories. Add caption

It's snowing this morning in Vermont, as expected, as we get set for a storm total of two to four inches north and three to seven inches south. 

It was much worse down south this morning in places like Washington DC, Philadelphia and New York, where freezing rain is making a total mess of the roadways.

Places like I-95 in Baltimore and the Capital Beltway in suburban Washington DC were shut down by ice this morning.  You'll see a lot of highway pileups on the news tonight from that region, for sure.

Here in Vermont and the rest of the North Country, we'll get into the ice later on, but I don't think it will be quite as bad as down south. Still, I wouldn't recommend travel tonight, especially east of the Green Mountains.

East of those Green Mountains, and in the St. Lawrence Valley of New York, it will be hard to scour out the cold air tonight, so a bunch of freezing rain is likely.

It won't accumulate enough on trees and wires to bring them down, but it will make roadways dangerous. I wouldn't go out and drive in these areas tonight and Sunday morning, to be honest.

In fact, the ice might spread a bit this evening. In parts of southeastern New England, a weak wave of low pressure tracking along the coast today in tandem with the larger storm to the west might pull colder air back into that region this evening, freezing things back up and causing another period of icy weather there.

I'm still expecting another flash freeze Sunday, as a strong cold front sweeps eastward. Temperatures in New York wlll start to fall in the morning then drop quickly across Vermont in the afternoon as the cold front continues pushing east.

It'll be awful underfoot Sunday night and Monday, as temperatures plunge to zero or so. The slush will freeze to ice quickly. The roads will be bad enough: Expect a possible third slow Monday morning commute in a row.

Sidewalks and driveways will be horrendous. I expect a big uptick in emergency room visits across Vermont and the rest of New England Monday as people slip and fall on the ice. Be careful out there.

Meanwhile, we're "enjoying" the ice, much of the rest of the nation is having a lousy weekend of weather, too.

A bitter cold wave has enveloped the Plains and Midwest, with cold air plunging all the way through to Texas.

There's quite a contrast on that cold front. At one point in Oklahoma Saturday morning, temperatures ranged from 6 below in the northwest corner of the state to 65 above in the southeast corner.

Ahead of that cold front severe weather, with the possibility of a couple tornadoes, could hit parts of Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee.

As I've advertised, it'll calm down during the upcoming week, and turn milder across much of the nation, including New England.

Let's Play Hockey On Interstate 95

Here's something you don't see often: A hockey game on normally super busy Interstate 95 in Connecticut.

During that epic ice mess in the Northeast last Sunday, traffic came to a standstill on I-95 because of crashes. While people waited for the mess to clear and the air to warm, a hockey game got going on the slippery frozen surface of I-95.

Watch:

Departing Storm Turned Into An East Coast Ice Disaster

A Pennsylvania DOT web cam caught this
pileup on an ice covered highway Sunday.  

Yesterday and last night's storm unexpectedly turned out to be one of the most disastrous of the winter as freezing rain froze roads over a wide area of the East and caused zillions of car crashes, some of them fatal.

Up and down the East Coast, the National Weather Service, and virtually all other weather forecasting outfits, had predicted ahead of the storm that roads would freeze over in freezing rain from Maryland to Maine.

They sure did, and they did more than anyone expected.

In hindsight, which is always 20/20, I'm thinking weather forecasters should have been more strident in warning about the icy roads that were coming. But many of the highways froze more extensively and much more suddenly than anyone could have predicted.

At least five people were killed and dozens injured in crashes and pileups across the Northeast on Sunday. 

Parts of major highways closed in the chaos from Pennsylvania to Vermont, and people who were not involved in actual crashes had to wait on closed highways for hours. A hockey game broke out on a stretch of Interstate 95 in Connecticut as traffic halted amid the ice.

On top of this, there's late word from WPTZ-TV as of 9 a.m. today that two people died this morning in a crash on an icy highway in Essex, Vermont.

I often rail against people driving too fast for the conditions and I'm sure that was a reason for some of the crashes across the Northeast. But the pavement froze so suddenly and in such a slippery fashion that I don't think many motorists could have prevented the crashes they were in.  

Dawn broke on a snowy scene in
St. Albans, Vermont this morning.  

As bad as this was, imagine if this hit during a weekday? The worst of the ice hit during what would normally be the morning commute. But this was a Sunday, so fewer people were on the road than say, a Tuesday.

The rain and freezing changed to snow as expected across Vermont, but snowfall totals were slightly less than expected.

It took a little longer than originally thought for rain to change to snow, but the National Weather Service had said that was a possibility as they were forecasting the storm early Sunday.

Still, much of Vermont received two to six inches of snow, with eight inches being the most reported in Barton.

For the record, I was forecasting 5.5 inches of new snow for my property in St. Albans, Vermont. I received 3.0 inches, but a band of snow approaching my area early this morning might boost that total slightly.

Light snow is continuing in parts of northern Vermont this morning, and before all is said and done, some of the ski areas will certainly be reporting more than eight inches of snow from this storm.

The weather will be calmer across the eastern United States this week. A small storm looping southeastward from Canada could give parts of the Mid-Atlantic region  one to four inches of snow Wednesday or Wednesday night. Stay tuned on that one.

Snow Squalls And Ground Blizzards: More Dangerous Than Big Snowstorms?

Skies cleared shortly after a snow squall
contributed to a 150-car pileup in Michigan
today. One of the vehicles involved was a truck
carrying fireworks, which burned and
exploded. Photo via Twitter, @UTM16.  

It seems like its often not the big snowstorms that cause chaos on the roads. It's the so-called little events, which aren't necessarily so little.

Recently, localized snow squalls have made the news often by causing carnage on the highways. And ground blizzards, which usually involve little falling snow but a lot of blowing snow, are equally treacherous.

Today, we had a dramatic pileup in Michigan, when about 150 cars slammed into each other amid snow squalls along Interstate 94 not far from Kalamazoo. One of the trucks involved was carrying fireworks and burst into flames.

That led to some dramatic videos and photos of the fire and other carnage on that highway. At least one person has died and some 16 others are injured.

Elsewhere in Michigan, a major highway south of Ann Arbor was closed today because of a pileup amid snow squalls. 

Of course, last week, we had that big pileup on Interstate 93 in New Hampshire, which also involved a fire when a truck burst into flames in the middle of the mess.

Of course, this made me nervous when an intense line of snow squalls went through Vermont today. I was waiting for the sound of crashes in the near zero visibility along Interstate 89, which, when it's not snowing torrentially, you an see from my house as it is about a quarter mile away.

Luckily, I've heard no reports of major crashes in Vermont so far, but a squall related crash has been reported on Interstate 89 near Montpelier.

It seems most of these pileups occur not in major snowstorms but in localized snow squalls. I think the problem is in part psychological.

When a big storm is forecast or underway, there's a drumbeat of warnings and admonishments to slow down and take it easy. So people do. Plus, conditions usually don't change all that rapidly during a day long snowstorm. The snow keeps coming. The road stays slippery, people slow down.

Visibility was about 100 yards during a snow squall, as
seen in my St. Albans, Vermont yard today. Glad
I wasn't out on the roads at the time.  

In snow squalls, conditions change suddenly. Also, the warnings in the media aren't as dire.

Yes, you get winter weather advisories and special weather statements saying snow squalls are in the area, rapidly changing conditions, poor visibility and ice will make driving hazardous.

But these warnings seem more on the fly, and are not drummed into our heads for hours and hours.

Mostly because we often don't have hours and hours of warnings before meteorologists can figure out snow squalls are developing.

So, with the warnings that might seem to many people as not as dire as a winter storm, people zoom along on the highways, not really noticing the roads beneath their wheels have gotten very slippery.

Plus, some motorists might think "Ah, it's just a dusting of snow. Maybe an inch. It can't be that dangerous, like a big storm." Then they slam into the semi that has stopped in front of them because of crashes that are already developing.

I'm not sure how forecasters really can improve on making people more cognizant that snow squalls are at least as dangerous as big snowstorms, maybe more so. I guess we can issue warnings that are even more urgent sounding than the ones that go out now.

I would love to hear ideas on how to accomplish that.

Another hazard, common to the Midwest and Great Plains, are ground blizzards.

Yesterday, widespread ground blizzards hit the Northern Plains, especially in the Dakotas, western Minnesota and parts of Iowa.  

Groun blizzard along Interstate 29 in Tea, South Dakota
yesterday. Photo via Twitter, South Dakota DOT
and Shawn Cable of KSFY.  

I don't have any reports of major crashes, but these ground blizzards are deadly, too.

The sky might be blue above, but the dense clouds of blowing snow can reduce visibility on highways to near zero.

Plus you often get conditions like you got yesterday in the Dakotas:

Very cold temperatures, and winds gusting in the 50 to 60 mph range. That's very dangerous if you're caught out in the middle of nowhere with no shelter after running your car into a ditch.

Below is a time lapse video of a guy's trip home from work in Minnesota yesterday. Notice in towns, it's not too bad, because the buildings and trees block some of the wind. But get out out into the open country, and it's a different matter entirely.

Watch:

.

Watch Morons Cause Horrible Accident On Wisconsin Highway

A Wisconsin DOT surveillance camera caught the drama of a major pileup on a snowy highway recently.

One of the Wisconsin crashes caused by
speeders in the snow, Photo by Eric Aspenson
Milwaukee Journal Sentinal.  

As you can see, it's the idiots who decide that driving really fast on snow and ice is the way to go are the cause of the havoc.

They either spin out, hit disabled vehicles, or worst of all, slam into the backs of cars whose drivers have already slowed down, because it dawned on them that flooring it during a winter storm isn't the way to go.

On Sunday, several nasty crashes in Wisconsin and elsewhere in the United States occured on snowy, icy highways. Mostly caused by people in a hurry.

I hope there is some way to ticket and fine the idiots who were speeding on this highway and almost killed a whole bunch of people.  And I would love to hear their excuses as to why they thought they could go so fast.

"Oh, ice is slippery?"
"It's the DOT's fault for allowing snow to fall on the highway"
"I have the right to go as fast as I want?."
"So what if I caused carnage on the highway. That's why there's insurance."

Here's the video, which is instructional on how idiots ruin the rest of our lives during snowstorms. Especially watch the fast cars moving in to the pileup. Ugh.