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.

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.

Snow Panic, Texas Style

The Lubbock area is being hit with up to 8 inches of snow. Texas Tech has canceled classes, power lines are down, and the roads are dicey.

Meanwhile, the chances that DC will get anywhere near that much continue to drop.

Here's a link to the above picture of Amarillo snow.

Haiku

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

Sent in by snowpanic.com reader Tanja Cilia.

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.

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.

"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...

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.

Time to register icepanic.com?

The Post reports:

After a Sunday of snow-clearing, nightfall brought temperatures in the 20s, and by morning wet sidewalks were icy. That sent people tumbling, and many rolled into emergency rooms for X-rays, splints and casts.

"We had a total of 57 X-rays this morning for backs, ankles, hands and wrists," said Ron Harris, a spokesman for Howard University Hospital.

And there were other hazards:

At George Washington University Medical Center...."Today, we have had less than a dozen visits, mostly people complaining of injuries from shoveling."

What? Me Panic?

According to the Washington Post, a roof collapse on a Georgetown home is being partially blamed on the heavy snow atop.

We cannot think of a more valid reason to panic post-snowfall than the weight of snow on our fragile roofs, and have measured the snow on the roof dormers here at SnowPanic.com HQ. The results:


<<< On the sunny side of the roof, only 6 inches of snow remain on the dormer.

On the shady side, however, 11 inches or more have accumulated. >>>

We're certainly hoping that slate roofs can withstand the pressure of however many pounds of snow per square foot that amounts to. We're also wondering how many pounds of pressure that represents. When our resident mathematician gets back to HQ, we'll assign him the task of figuring that out.

Winning Haiku

Our winning haiku, as chosen by Snowpanic.com's very impressed poetry editor, was sent in by reader Jeanene Burke:

Snowpocalypse here
Panic! No shovel for you
It’s warm in San D.

Congratulations!

If anyone wants to turn in further haikus, we will be happy to publish them, even though they are too late for the contest.

And remember, with tomorrow's rush hour, we have further opportunity for tales of panic. If Monday produces any of those (or others emerge from this weekend's wreckage), please send them to jon@snowpanic.com.

Bringing a Gun to a Snowball Fight

The Washington City Paper has more details about the video I re-posted last night from the incident where a cop pulled a gun on people at an impromptu snowball fight.

Apparently Detective Baylor got upset at snowballs being directed at his Hummer, so he got out and brandished his gun. Only when other police officers responded to reports of a man with a gun did he identify himself as a police officer.

Detective Baylor, you may have clinched the title of Snow Panicker of the Storm (though we're still open for nominations). But can you write a mean haiku? E-mail your entry to haiku@snowpanic.com.

Snowpocalypse Haiku Contest

SnowPanic.com is sponsoring its first contest! Write a Haiku with the theme of the Snowpocalypse in the Mid-Atlantic. Those who need to Google "Haiku" might reconsider their entry.

Winners (1st, 2nd, and 3rd place, plus honorary mentions) will be selected by the SnowPanic.com selection committee; each will receive a coveted spot in the blog.

Deadline: 9:15 pm on December 20, 2009 . (That's 12 hours, people; it's a 17-syllable poem!) Winners announced sometime after that.

Original works only. Unattributed plagiarism will not be tolerated.

Send your entries to haiku@snowpanic.com.

The Harold Meeker Effect

Retailers this season are scared witless by the loss of one major shopping day this year. From their POV, of course, this is a major catastrophe.

Yesterday was supposed to be one of the busiest shopping days of the year, but Snowpocalypse 2009 quashed most merchants' hopes. Even the very bravest shoppers were stymied by the piles of snow.

We at snowpanic.com are reminded of a Far Side Cartoon:



Everyone looks at the news from their own perspective. The local news may report about death and destruction from Snowpocalypse, but for the Wall Street Journal, it's: Snowstorm Threatens 'Super Saturday' Sales.

Online poker, however, is on the rise. Gambling911.com reports: East Coast Snow Storm: Good News for Online Poker Rooms.

Lest you think that Snowpocalypse transcends political boundaries, reader comments on news articles around the Interwebs confirm that with the heavy snowfall came conclusive disproof of global warming.

Here at snowpanic.com, we don't view the record snowfall through the lens of Christmas commercialism. Neither do the effects on online gambling or even climate change denial represent our main concern. For us, the Snowpocalypse is about one thing: how can we make money by starting a blog about chionophobia?

Readers Report

A reader from Laurel, Maryland writes in:

As the sun rises above the new snow-topped horizon, I realize a new nightmare begins as the snow ends -- the grisly search for survivors and those not so lucky. Those unfortunate souls trapped in their cars or foolish enough to attempt some "winter fun" in this most serious and record-breaking storm. I am expecting scenes similar to that of "I am Legend" (except with a lot of snow) or "The Stand" (well those were really quite similar weren't they?). Perhaps a trip to Whole Foods first. I will keep my eyes peeled for survivors.

"Cop admits to pulling gun at snowball fight"

I think the title of this video says it all. Ah, DC's finest.


Originally spotted at Gotcha Media.

Saving A Spot

Saving A Spot
Originally uploaded by matt house

It wouldn't be a snowstorm in Baltimore if people weren't using chairs to reserve parking spaces.

Is it too late to register mildchillintheairpanic.com?

A reader from Southern California writes:

My son put on a jacket to go outside. He later took it off because he was too warm, but it was a tense 30 minutes.