Saturday, January 30, 2010

Germany not immune to snow panic?



North Rhine-Westphalia, which includes the cities of Cologne and Dusseldorf, recorded 300 accidents on Friday night and Saturday morning.


Full BBC article here.

Friday, January 29, 2010

Panic Heads South; DC Area Just Mildly Nervous



The Capital Weather Gang, Snowpanic.com's favorite weather blog, predicts about 1-4 inches in DC, but 6-12 in Richmond.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Haiku

Soft, smoth, and crunchy
Snowballs and granita stuff...
Or hard zastruga!

Sent in by snowpanic.com reader Tanja Cilia.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Time to Start Thinking About the Milk and Toilet Paper...



The Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang has the following analysis:

Here is the current (VERY EARLY) probabilities on accumulations:

40% chance: Less than 1"
20% chance: 1-4"
20% chance: 4-8"
20% chance: 8"+


I recommend you skip the caveats, as well as the fact that less than 4" is the most likely scenario to focus on the fact that 4-8" isn't even the worst case.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

The Colin McEnroe Show

The Colin McEnroe Show had a 50-minute discussion of "Snowmageddon" today.

I have posted an audio file of Dr. Snowpanic's 3 1/2 minute contribution.

"Snow panic, big time, in CT"

When I was invited to appear on Connecticut Public Radio, my big fear was that the radio host would think that I was Dr. Snowpanic because I had a doctorate in something related to snow panicking. After appearing on the show, I got an e-mail from someone in the Department of Psychiatry at Yale commenting on snow panic.

Dear Jon,

Heard you on NPR today and your comments reminded me of my reaction to Connecticut winters.

I grew up in Colorado and moved to Connecticut about 18 months ago. As a kid, I don't remember my schools EVER closing for a snowstorm. Some of my elementary school classmates skied to school. That was a place where several times, each winter, blizzards deposited two, three, four feet of snow on densely populated urban/suburban areas (with wind-blown snowdrifts piling to easily 20 feet. I have lots of photographs of me, my brother and my sister skiing off the roof of our three-story house). I have been by turns puzzled, amused, annoyed and enraged by the way people here deal with snow (or don't, as the case may be).

Last winter, a December snowstorm deposited maybe 5 or 7 inches in the New Haven area. Schools were closed, traffic snarled forever and the entire city pretty much ground to a stop. As it happens, the day of the big snow, I drove with my family to Montreal, Quebec, where, overnight, it snowed nearly three feet. Then, it rained on top of that, turning everything to solid ice. By dawn the next morning crews and machines had cleaned every street in town, life went on as usual and everyone enjoyed the winter weather. A few days later, on returning to New Haven, I was astounded to find that the streets still had not been cleared and the poor town was still pretty much paralyzed. What is wrong with this picture?

This is New England, right? It snows a bit, pretty much every year, right? You can pretty much count on the necessity to plow the roads and otherwise keep civilization moving, each and every year, right? Now, next year, the year after that and until global warming turns the place into Miami. Right?

What's the big effing deal? Most places where it snows, folks enjoy it a lot and cope.

P.S. Please don't talk to me about how expensive is efficient snow removal. Connecticut is one of the wealthiest states in the country, maybe THE wealthiest, far richer than highly tax-averse places, like say Montana, where they get vastly more snow and deal with it infinitely better. WTF!??

P.P.S. Socio-historical question: Isn't the problem that for hundreds of years, going back to colonial times, people who moved to Connecticut were utterly unprepared for North American winters and suffered greatly, along with their neighbors, their livestock and their crops? People in Connecticut react to their winters as though it was still the eighteenth century.

Christian R. Miner, Ph.D.
Assistant Clinical Professor
Department of Psychiatry
Yale University School of Medicine
New Haven, CT 06511


I have to say that I didn't expect Snow Panic to extend that far north.

Hello, Connecticut!


Dr. Snowpanic will be on The Colin McEnroe Show today around 1:40 to discuss "snow panic", the psychology of snowstorms, and this site.

If this appearance has caused any of Colin's listeners to wander over here, please feel free to e-mail your tales of Snow Panic to Dr. Snowpanic.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

"Winter Weather Risk"

At snowpanic.com HQ, we're keeping an eye on what the Capital Weather Gang calls "a threat for mixed precipitation at times late Wednesday into early Friday." Over our years of watching Maryland weather, we've seen that sort of inkling turn into a doozy of a snowstorm more than once. Still not panicking yet, though...

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Dear Dr. Snowpanic, 2010 division

Dear Dr. Snowpanic:

I heard BC is having his makeup party this weekend....

It's supposed to snow again. Hmm....

-Concerned

Dear Concerned:

Just as Redskins fans have learned not to make Super Bowl reservations when a rookie head coach jumps out to a 6-2 record, we here at Snowpanic.com have learned not to fire up the blogging engine every time the forecast calls for a dusting. While we do not require snowpocalyptic conditions to get excited, at least wait until the stores of your local convenience store are stripped of bread, milk, eggs and toilet paper before canceling your plans to attend this shindig.