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The view from above
By adamg on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 8:00am
This is what the storm hitting us today looks like from the GOES satellite. The movie (MP4) version of the storm forming is pretty impressive.
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Comments
Always good to know
... that we are, indeed, going to get it.
Pre-emptive school closings
We may indeed get it, however, this newish trend of cancelling school the day before is getting a little ridiculous (particularly for storms like this one, where there is going to be a sharp precip cutoff).
I know that there are two schools of thought on this (no pun intended), but for many of us, it would have been better if there had been a half day of school and an early dismissal (if even that is necessary) rather than a whole day cancellation.
I think that there might be some pretty good pushback after this one because while it is going to snow, I think we might be in for a big bust on accumulation. The temp. here (approx 13 miles WSW of downtown Boston) has dropped from about 30 early this a.m. to the low 20s now, which typically is indicative of increased cold air drainage from the north, which has the effect of drying the atmosphere and surpressing the bands of precip to the south.
Colleges/Universities too
So many colleges/universities also announced Monday closings yesterday, including those with large on-campus residents. (Though as of now Harvard, MIT and BU are open).
When colleges pay instructors enough to live nearby
... they can manage to stay open.
When they pay enough that one parent can stay home full time with the kids home from school, they can manage to stay open.
Since they only pay their 28,000 new administrative positions enough to do those things, they have to shut down because nobody can risk it.
That's a bit unfair...
That's a bit unfair to the vast majority of those "28,000 administrators," who below the highest levels can't afford to live near those schools or on one income any more easily than most instructors.
Let the record show
That Isaac is volunteering to spend the night(s) with any kids trapped at a local school because "we can't call a snow day before it even snows!!!".
You weren't here when it started snowing in 1978 as schools let out and kids got trapped and seriously injured. Some of the stories aren't cute or charming.
Easy enough to find examples
What kind of parent just
What kind of parent just anxiously waits at home for their kid to come back from school?
A parent with several kids
Smaller kids at home means you stay home. Especially when other parent may be commuting and stuck.
Also, a parent who drives a 1968 rear wheel drive vehicle and has no regional tradition of tire chains. (or, a parent where the family has one car and that goes to work with the other parent)
A parent who expects that school buses will run.
A parent with no idea where their kid went (remember - no cel phones! Phone systems went down, too). You don't go idly driving around in that.
No 911 either, and already overwhelmed systems due to snow and coastal flooding.
A parent who called other parents and heard buses were running and thinks "the bus is just slow".
My real question - even then - would be "What kind of Principal leaves before the last bus gets the last group of kids?" Even then that was bad form.
A parent in 1978.
A parent in 1978.
In this story, if a parent called the empty, locked school, no one would answer. There would not be emergency call forwarding to bus dispatch. No way to know whether your kid was on the bus or not. You assume on the bus, and sit tight for the bus to get to you, or for someone to call from somewhere.
Let the record also show that issacg appears to have been right.
I wasn't just shooting from the hip. I have some knowledge of how the weather works around here, and certainly, I can read a radar image, which even at 5 am this morning clearly showed that the precipitation was having a difficult time making it north from the vicinity of the Cape Cod Canal.
You imply that I haven't been around here long enough to know about the blizzard of '78 or how the weather around here often goes. In response, I ask only that you review my earlier comment and look out your window (unless you live in Plymouth or Bristol counties).
I have school aged children. I get that no one wants to be stranded, and I certainly wouldn't want to put anyone in that position. My point was, and remains, that it was relatively clear early this morning that this storm was not going to create that kind of situation (whereas last night there was still too much uncertainty). Accordingly, I was suggesting that the school cancellation/delay/early dismissal calls should have been held until this morning around 5 am (as used to be the case almost always).
Lastly, the constant calls about the blizzard of '78 are rarely appropriate, and were not here. Our abiltiy to foresee the weather (especially for the coming day at about 5 am) is MUCH better and so is our abilty to quickly disseminate information and for people to find it on their own. Case on point: I am not a meteorologist, but a busy Dad in a household where both parents work full time and then some, just like most other people around here. Yet I was still able to determine, early this morning, that school was cancelled unnecessarily based on the information available.
Now, I presume that you're volunteering to address all of the complaints from parents in April or June if these unnecessary snow days come back to bite everyone in their tuchas?
Half day of school?
Early release? Unplanned?
You're funny. That only works when a district owns its own buses. If even then.
There also have to be parents at home to meet the younger kids.
Welcome to the land of
Welcome to the land of overreaction and panic. I typically point this out in threads where they shut down an entire school system (or city) because of a manhunt or a bomb threat or a simple chemical spill, but I guess we can now add mere weather to the list of things the adult children that run the world now panic over.
We have another volunteer?
Oh, and you are willing to be in a building where there has been a chemical spill.
On second thought, maybe you don't have the judgement to be responsible for children in an emergency situation ...
Swirly hit it.
I'm happy that you made the distinction, Swirly.
I'll amplify. Bomb scares and the like typically involve complete unknowns with a near certainty of serious injury or worse if they verify.
The weather, while still somewhat unpredictable, comes nowhere close to that level of (lack of) knowledge (especially only a couple of hours out, which I have explained above), and the consequences do not typically approach that dire level either (as the original poster pointed out by highlighting stranding rather than what happens in a bombing).
Look, I get that people have to make a call, and I respect that an understand that. It's just that I am not convinced that people are independently and intelligently evaluating the data and not dispensing with exogenous concerns (e.g., I have heard lots of statements like "well, we haven't used any snow days yet and it's already February, so..." being whispered about by some personnel).
It also seems as if there is something of a herd mentality. If Boston cancels, well... As others have pointed out, the City may have its own special set of circumstances that may justify that decision. It does not follow that everyone from Rockport to Rockland should just blindly follow suit, which is what seemed to happen here (and last Friday, although to a lesser extent).
Do people who post this kind
Do people who post this kind of thing have children in school? It always seems to me that they haven't thought it through. Calling school off early lets parents make child care arrangements, prevents kids from being stuck on buses on bad roads with horrible traffic, and allows DCF to open childcare centers to provide backup care for those who need it.
Boston's extensive busing means that kids can literally be on the school bus for hours on an ordinary day. Opening BPS this morning would probably have meant that kids on longer routes got to school just in time to get back on the bus and be sent home, to possibly empty houses (since their parents would probably be stuck in traffic trying to get home from work).
There was no snow when I left home at 8 this morning, but the snow day looks pretty darn justified now.
If they do have children ...
They're still bitter about how they had to walk to school through 8 feet of drifts uphill both ways and dagnabbit, if they could do it, so can these coddled little wusses who are going to be the ruin of this great nation.
Looks like a hurricane!
Looks like a hurricane!
The storm will wind down by this afternoon
It's in the low 20s in Boston as of 9:45AM. I don't think we'll be getting a lot of snow.
Source?
As of their 9:27 a.m. update, the NWS was still saying "FURTHER NORTHWEST INTO THE BOSTON TO PROVIDENCE CORRIDOR FEEL 5 TO 10 INCHES IS REASONABLE."
Er
Yesterday the NWS was saying 7 to 11 inches for Roslindale. This morning they are saying 4 to 8. Yes, we are now at the best point for a prediction, but I have found them to be a bit conservative in the past (compared to the "real feel" people).
NWS may be conservative
compared to the "shock horror and hype" media (for one thing, they aren't trying to leech mounds of money off of advertisers), but I've consistently found them to be far more accurate.
Yes
Which is why I started to worry yesterday afternoon.
I was in West Roxbury am now in Brookline,
Beacon St; there's very little new snow, I'd say roughly 2+ inches has fallen.It's very cold, and snow fall is light aside from the wind. It's already winding down.
Look at the picture again
Does that look like something that will wind down after three or four hours to you? Maybe if you don't understand geographic scale.
I seem to remember this sort of "this storm is a dud - it won't do anything" chatter a couple of hours into that top-10 all-time accumulation January storm last year because it was off/on for a while. We won't get an all-time dumping here, but the weather reports all say that it is going to keep on snowing and accumulating into the night.
Physically large storms just aren't linear like that.
Schools could have remained open today
At least in Boston where I am, this storm is a damp squib. Buses are running, mail has been delivered, traffic is rolling, pedestrians are walking and life is carrying on. Boston schools could have remain open, if they hadn't been cancelled so far in advance that no one had a feel for how much snow there would or would not be.
I'm just back from "shoveling"
I'd estimate it at 3 to 4 inches of light, fluffy stuff, and I went out after hearing Pete Bouchard saying it was winding down.
I don't believe in Monday morning quarterbacking on the weather, but purely in terms of snow, this was a bit of a bust. What kicks me is that I could have been out doing errands today, but looking out the window at noontime it looked like what they said it would be.
The thing that get me
The thing that get me is that the TV news won't concede and admit it when we have a dud "storm" like this. They will still carry on as if it were a major storm. "In the absence of a storm create one". I don't know when it got like this. The news is like politicians now. They simply lie.
To be fair
If I were writing from Scituate, Marshfield, or the Cape, I don't think I'd be shrugging off this one.
Fascinating as always to read
Fascinating as always to read the comments here. Most of you seem to have only hit peripherally on what I think is the central matter: there are hurricanes in February now. True it wasn't a hurricane by the time it hit shore, but it was when it was still at sea. We can't continue to hide from our worsening climate.