By DAVID FILKINS, Staff writer Friday, November 30, 2007
ALBANY - Capital Region residents should enjoy their weekend because the Monday morning commute could be ugly.
That's the message from National Weather Service meteorologist Kimberly Sutkevich, who said the first significant snowfall of the year is expected Sunday afternoon, turning to sleet and freezing rain around midnight and shifting back to snow Monday morning.
Between 3 to 13 inches could fall.
"Try to enjoy Saturday and early Sunday," Sutkevich said. "Hopefully we'll remember how to drive in the snow."
Counties have been preparing for the first snowfall for more than a month, ordering road salt and testing plow equipment to make sure it is working properly.
"A lot of this stuff, salt spreaders and plows, hasn't been used in six months," said Albany County Department of Public Works Commissioner Michael Franchini. "We have to be prepared. Being able to respond is the name of the game around here. It's all part of the routine."
Albany County ordered 7,000 tons of new road salt this fall, which was added to stock piles from last year. "And we'll probably replenish after every storm," Franchini said.
Even though the worst of it isn't expected until late Sunday, Sutkevich said tonight and Saturday won't be balmy, either. Scattered snow showers could blanket the region after midnight tonight, with temperatures in the low 20s and gusts of wind up to 30 mph.
Saturday is expected to bring relief from precipitation, and temperatures should be in the upper 20s, setting up Sunday, which Sutkevich said could start with light snow in the morning before turning to sleet later in the day.
The storm is expected to leave the area Monday afternoon.
I worked in Black Hawk Colorado - outside of Denver -elevation 8500ft a few years back- The automobiles for sale ads were 2 catagories - 2 wheel drive and 4 wheel drive. I was surprised that so many " regualar "looking cars come in 4WD.
Well it is December and it is winter, we knew this was bound to happen sooner or later. Must be that damn global warming, huh?
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Here we go again: Icy storm on its way BY TATIANA ZARNOWSKI Gazette Reporter
The first snowstorm of the season may dump a slippery mess on your Monday morning commute. Although forecast to bring only 3 to 5 inches of snow total, the precipitation could include sleet and freezing rain tonight, making roads slippery and possibly causing power outages when winds pick up Monday afternoon. “It could be a significant amount of accumulation of sleet and ice,” said Brian Montgomery, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. Forecasters expect snow to start falling lightly this afternoon and get heavier tonight, with sleet and freezing rain mixing in. The National Weather Service puts the chance of precipitation at 70 percent today and 100 percent tonight. On Monday, a little more snow may fall during the morning and winds could reach gusts of up to 50 miles per hour in the afternoon, Montgomery said. It’s a good time for residents to take stock of their emergency supplies and also brush up on winter driving tips, say several agencies. The state Emergency Management Office urges residents to prepare emergency supplies and winterize vehicles. “Everyone in your family should know who to call and where to go in case of emergency,” said Director John Gibb. People should keep an eye on weather reports, stay off the roads unless it’s necessary and tell someone about travel plans. Vehicles should be stocked with blankets, a shovel, flashlights and extra batteries, extra warm clothing, a set of tire chains, battery booster cables, quick energy foods and a brightly colored cloth to use as a distress flag, he said. Cellphones or two-way radios should have fully charged batteries so they are useful in an emergency. People should also stock emergency supplies including extra blankets, candles and matches in their homes in case the power goes out, the American Red Cross of Northeastern New York recommends. An emergency kit should include first aid items and essential medications, a batterypowered weather radio, flashlight and extra batteries, nonperishable food and bottled water. Winter storms also increase the risk of heart attacks because people over-exert themselves shoveling snow. People should take breaks when working outside, Gibb said. Carbon monoxide poisoning cases also increase during the winter because people have problems with home heating systems or use them inappropriately, he said. Generators should not be run indoors, and gas ovens should not be used to heat homes. Few people at Marty’s True Value Paint and Hardware on Saturday were preparing for the storm. The store was doing brisk business, but most people were buying something other than shovels, ice melt and snowblowers. “Nothing will happen till they see the white on the ground,” predicted co-owner Manny Aragosa. “I imagine about 10 o’clock Monday morning we’ll get a flood of calls saying, ‘My machine won’t start.’ ” Aragosa said people with older snowblowers should try them out before the storm to make sure they run, but many people won’t. “I feel sorry for them, but you can only do so much,” he said. However, other customers prepared early by snapping up most of the store’s snowblowers well before this weekend. “This year, people were looking for snowblowers ahead of time because they got stuck last year and couldn’t get out,” Aragosa said. As of Saturday afternoon, Aragosa had only three snowblowers left. Last year at this time, he had 20 still in stock, he said. If the city of Schenectady gets more than 3 inches of snow, parking is prohibited on certain priority streets until the snow is cleared, said police spokesman Lt. Brian Kilcullen. Signs on those streets alert motorists that they may not park there during snowstorms. State and local road crews are prepared for the storm, with sheds stocked with salt and plows at the ready. The state Department of Transportation plows 34,500 miles of state highways each winter and uses about a million tons of rock salt.
Few problems reported with season’s first snowfall Mixed bag of sleet, snow could make roads messy during morning commute Gazette Reporter
A storm over the Great Lakes region brought the first snowfall of the season and caused scattered accidents throughout the Capital Region, but no serious problems. However, a mixed bag of sleet and snow is expected today during the morning commute. State Police reported numerous cars off Interstate 88. Schenectady Police spokesman Lt. Brian Kilcullen said things were fairly quiet. “We haven’t had any weather-related accidents, so we’ve been pretty lucky there. There hasn’t been a lot of accumulation,” he said. Kilcullen said if more than 3 inches fall, there will be no parking on the city’s priority streets until the snow is cleared. Denise White of Albany International Airport’s information desk said there have been a couple of cancellations and some delays. “Everything for the most part is on time,” she said. But the airports in the Metropolitan New York City area were hit hard Sunday. Hundreds of flights coming into the New York City “If it does turn to ice, we’ve got the roads already salted. We probably won’t go back until 3 o’clock in the morning,” he said. CBS 6 reported that snowfall is expected to taper off this afternoon and an accumulation of between 3 inches and 7 inches is likely in the immediate Capital Region. The temperature will be 32 degrees early and then dip to the upper teens and low 20s by nightfall. Albany was expected to have up to five inches of snow by Monday afternoon. Overnight, the region could expect sleet and freezing rain mixed with some snow. That should be followed by brief rainfalls and snow in the morning, but “the brunt of the storm is going to be from midnight to 6 a.m.,” meteorologist Hugh Johnson said. “It’s kind of a mess — probably the best way to term it in one word,” said Bob Kilpatrick, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. “It’s going to be a mixed event with snow and some sleet to the north.” Areas north of Saratoga will be hit harder by the sleet and snow, area’s three regional airports were delayed up to two hours because of wind and ice conditions created by the weather. Delays were about 45 minutes at Newark-Liberty International Airport, an hour at La-Guardia, and two hours at John F. Kennedy International Airport. The weather caused people to scurry to the stores to find winter equipment. “We’ve been selling shovels. road salt, all day long,” said Jeremy Scott, head cashier at Lowe’s in Niskayuna. “It’s been hectic in here. It was definitely more than a typical Sunday.” The snow also kept the plow crews busy in the area. Glenville Highway Superintendent Rick LeClair said crews were out salting the roads beginning at 1 p.m. and continued plowing operations through 8 p.m. while the mid-Hudson region down to Poughkeepsie would probably only get an inch or two at most, he said. The central Adirondacks and the Lake George region will get the most snow — about 10 or 12 inches in some areas, Kilpatrick said. Roads will likely be icy around the region. “Like in any type of winter weather event, it tends to get pretty bad,” Kilpatrick said. Further north, St. Lawrence, Franklin, Clinton and Essex Counties were expected to avoid the bulk of the precipitation, but snow and sleet could move in overnight with the heaviest falling after midnight. Between 8 and 13 inches were expected in the higher elevations north and west of the Adirondacks.
Can I say how much I hate these weather reports? These weather wo/men try to sensationalize even the weather for goodness sake. I like the words they choose to create fear. Such as....'ripped through', 'blasted', 'blitz', hazardous', 'dangerous', 'monumental' and tooo many more to mention. Just look out your window and tell me what you see? Is it ANYTHING like they predicted? NO! Not here anyways! And yesterday every market was mobbed for fear of this hazardous, dangerous, monumental snow and ice storm. Of course now they are inflicting even more fear by saying that the winds are going to kick up and there could be power outages. Palllleeeeezzzz!!!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Bumble, that's the grocer's effect on the weather report. You're welcome, Neil Golub. Nice little influx to help fund the new HQ, and just in time, huh?
And Bumble, nice quote, where'd you get it??
Calling an illegal alien an "undocumented immigrant" is like calling a drugdealer an "unlicensed pharmacist"
Bumble, that's the grocer's effect on the weather report. You're welcome, Neil Golub. Nice little influx to help fund the new HQ, and just in time, huh?
And Bumble, nice quote, where'd you get it??
[color=red]Calling an illegal alien an "undocumented immigrant" is like calling a drugdealer an "unlicensed pharmacist"[/color]
probably from a police officer.....
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
Actually I read it somewhere and thought it was so true!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Its funny how we remember stuff when we were young- When it snowed - you couldnt take your boots off until spring. Trying to make it to school the first time without boots or ruubbers and not getting your feet wet was trickey-
Forget global warming cant anybody remember the fun stuff ?
CAPITAL REGION Area braces for big storm Nor’easter expected to come in early Sunday BY LEE COLEMAN Gazette Reporter
A major winter storm with snow, sleet and freezing rain is expected to move into the Capital Region early Sunday. “Pretty much it’s looking like a big mess,” Joe Villani, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Albany, said on Friday. The storm, which is forecast to last into Monday morning, could bring as much as a foot of snow to Albany, 16 inches of snow to Saratoga Springs and as much as 2 feet of snow to parts of the Adirondacks. A complex weather system coming out of the Ohio Valley will combine with a system coming up the mid-Atlantic coast bringing the nor’easter storm to the region, Villani said. Temperatures will just reach the mid-to-low 20s today and drop to 15 degrees overnight. Winds will pick up Sunday night (between 10 and 20 mph) with low temperatures reaching 10 degrees. According to the forecast, the snow will change to sleet or freezing rain late Sunday morning or early Sunday afternoon with more snow and less sleet to the north. The sleet is expected to change back to snow later Sunday afternoon as colder air moves into the region, Villani said. “It will be kind of a roller coaster,” he said. The below normal temperatures over the past two weeks and above-normal amounts of snow are in contrast to the mild and almost snowless December 2006. “Last year we didn’t get a half inch of snow [in December],” Villani said. The average temperature in Albany last December was 35.2 degrees, 7.2 degrees above normal. This year’s average daily temperature so far is 25.4 degrees, some 5.4 degrees below normal. “Last December was the third least snowiest on record,” Villani said. Last December was also the seventh warmest December on record in Albany. Meanwhile, highway crews across the region were bracing on Friday for yet another storm, coming on the heels of Thursday’s ice and snowstorm. And it’s not even official winter yet. Winter arrives at 1:08 a.m. on Dec. 22. “It’s a battle,” said Highway Superintendent Walter Barss of the town of Greenfield in northern Saratoga County. He said the price of salt has gone up $4 per ton and the ice storms of the past two weeks have already taken a chunk out of his department’s salt supply. Barss said his department, which has about 100 miles of hilly roads to plow and salt, has already used 900 tons of salt. “We use about 4,000 tons of salt in a normal year,” Barss said. He said last year’s mild winter allowed his department to stay well within its salt and overtime budgets. This year overtime is way up and diesel fuel prices have also gone up dramatically, he said. “We are paying for the good weather we had last year,” Barss said. Doug Myers, a spokesman for Albany International Airport in Colonie, said the airport’s snow team was starting to prepare for this weekend’s weather even as they were cleaning up after Thursday’s storm that dumped between 6 and 8 inches of snow on the Capital Region. Myers said the snow team works 12-hour shifts around the clock during such storms. The power companies that serve the region are also preparing for the worst. New York State Electric and Gas (NYSEG), for example, said it has placed company personnel on alert. NYSEG serves parts of Saratoga and Rensselaer counties. National Grid, which serves most of the region, is also watching weather conditions closely. The power companies generally increase normal staffing levels when major storms are predicted. The power companies urge people to report downed power lines and power outages as soon as possible. To report a power outage to National Grid call 800-Niagara. To report an outage to NYSEG call 800-572-1131. Events scheduled for Sunday were already beginning to be canceled Friday; among them the Schenectady Permanent Firefighters Association’s Christmas party for children, which has been rescheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday at the Hibernian Hall.
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