Panic on the streets of Birmingham

Being a transplant from the north, I snicker about it as well to an extent --- until I think about all the people who die every winter from dangerous roads. You're correct in that maybe some areas of the country are a little too willing to do it.

Lives are more important than a prep basketball game and that's why I usually try to catch myself before snickering about it too much. I remember working at a paper up north in which three kids from a high school bball team were killed on their way home from practice. 16-year olds on icy roads -- slid into oncoming traffic.

Those are the things that bring me back down to earth when I laugh at all the southerners freaking out. I scratch my head and wonder about the logic sometimes but in the end I suppose it's hard to argue too much when safety is the issue.

 

Another step in the wussification of America...

I can handle the snow. I can drive in the snow. What will keep me home, should this snow hit, is knowing people like Dixiehack can't drive in the snow (no offense, dude. You started the thread.)
I will laugh at the bulletproof drivers in their SUV's who don't understand the concept of "because you have an SUV and it has four-heel drive, doesn't mean you can still go 80 on the freeway and not end up in the ditch." But that also happened when I lived in Michigan and Minnesota too. Just another degree of stupid...
Now, if the ice happens? I will be in my house, hoping the slowly-dying branches from the pine and oak trees around my house won't crack off and damage it. I know some will break, am hoping the big branches don't.
And I get my weekly feature story done early so I can sit back on a Sunday and watch football, and spend Monday leisurely writing my script for this state's big high school football award banquet on Wednesday.

 

Actually I grew up in Middle Tennessee where it snows every winter. Nobody would confuse it with Duluth, but happens enough to take away the panic factor.

Now the idea of my wife or other Alabama natives driving on this? Pee your pants time.

 

Slappy, thank you for bringing up the jackass in his 4x4 is trying to blow past you in a blizzard, trying to prove that his SUV will never slide off of the road.

I hate that f--ker.

 

In my experience, people who drive in snow more often are a lot more likely to think they can drive in it like an idiot. I had a lot more issues with overaggressive snow drivers in Massachusetts than I have in the lower midwest and the south. People in the latter two either drive two miles per hour and won't stay off their brakes (STAY OFF YOUR BRAKES, PEOPLE) or stay off the roads completely.

We're supposed to get 2-6 inches in my neck of the woods, which is a typical winter storm for here. All my friends in Dallas, however, are both excited and flipping out because of the snow that's already started there.

 

The people in Yakutsk (low of -64 tonight) make fun of the wusses in Minnesota and Pennsylvania who postpone sporting events because they cannot prepare for cold weather properly.

 

Hang the DJ.

 

It's snowing its motherfucking ass off.

They predicted up to 4" and we may get double that. Fortunately, the roads are still a little warm so the real trouble will be on the bridges.

 

Honestly, my first thought was "holy shit, saban took the Michigan job!"

Wishful thinking, I suppose.

 

That thread would be titled "R.I.P. Starman."

 

Haha that or "Holy shit, RichRod took a job on the 'Bama staff."

 

As noted, the biggest problem is the ice, which your 4-wheel drive SUV isn't going to help you get through. And it tends to happen when the temp is 30-33F.

I live in Central Indiana, which is on the southern fringe of the regular snow band. South of us, ice is very prevalent. North of us, it's very rare. Where we are, it sometimes accompanies storms, but not always.

We had a little skiff of snow -- a half-inch, maybe -- fall in an hour a couple of days ago. But there was a thin layer of ice under the snow that came first, and there were wrecks *everywhere*.

North of us -- Chicago, Michigan, Wisconsin, Canada -- it's cold enough when storm systems come that ice doesn't happen. Winter precip = snow, and that's pretty easy to scrape off the roads and drive through. However, in the South, it's not at or below freezing very often, so it's more common to have 30-33F temps, and therefore ice, either at the beginning or at the end of winter weather, which makes conditions significantly worse.