April Snowstorm, Part 4

Overnight, the temperatures barely touched the freezing mark as my ice cube was about 60% melted by 9:00 am. As of this writing, it's about 35 degrees and snowing (and has been all morning), though the snow simply is not sticking much. There's a light coating of wet, partially white slush on some parts of the ground and cars. The roads are wet and not really a problem for drivers. It's simply not cold enough for the snow to accumulate. As soon as it hits a surface, it's pretty much melting.

While the local weather forecasters were scaring the bejesus out of the locals, the real storm is wreaking havoc to the east. Syracuse is reporting about a foot of snow, and the coastal cites, especially New York and parts of Long Island, are flooding because the storm there is all rain, heavy rain, and it's been falling for a day now. The East coast is a real mess.

It's noon here, so time for the forecasters to update live. I just checked on the back porch ice cube and it's about 85% melted.

OK, Lynette Adams reported for Channel 10 (WHEC) from Charlotte, that waves on the Lake reached 8 feet, though their footage - both live and recorded - showed waves as high as maybe 4 feet at most. It's still a little windy near the lake, though it's not bad here on Ridge Road (about 4 miles inland). The trees are barely moving, but the effect of the light wind (8-20 mph), above-freezing temperatures and steady light snow/rain mix is keeping anything from accumulating on tree limbs.

John Stehlin (best voice on local TV) on Channel 8 (WROC) is reporting a wedge of warm air moving in, and saying "maybe" quite a bit concerning any snow accumulation. The other stations are pretty much admitting defeat, calling for at most an inch or two of accumulation in the metro area, though spots South and West are getting anywhere from 4 inches to a foot on the ground.

Whatever precipitation we get here is supposed to trail off by late afternoon, so this "event" will be pretty much over by the time people are getting out of work.

So much for what some of the TV forecasters had been calling a potentially "historic" weather event. As usual, the media has to scare us into paying attention, and, again, they've delivered poorly. It's a complaint you'll hear from me often. Sure, sensationalism sell papers and gets big ratings, but it's not responsible journalism.

I'll leave an ice cube out on the back porch for Josh Nichols. He can use it to backbuild.