Snow

Get over it ,nothing new to buffalo,they can handle the snow.
 
Pretty impressive. We rarely get that much here. A little sad to hear of the deaths associated with it.
 
I grew up in West Seneca and spent a good portion of my life in WNY. Lake Erie until (if) it freezes over acts as a gigantic reservoir for moisture. Toss in a circling low from an Artic Blast and you have a snow cone making machine.

I made tons of money during high school and college plowing apartment complexes for those apartment supervisors who didn't want to leave their 6 pack of Genesee Cream Ale.

I was also in Buffalo during the Blizzard of '77. Nothing like being able to climb out of your second story window and slide down to ground level.

The people of WNY are tough and resilient. They will be fine. Just make sure you keep sending your Care packages consisting of chicken wings and beer :)

I will be up there this weekend to hunt with my brother. Should be interesting...
 
That's a lot of snow! I think my snowmobile would be stuck, may have to resort to snowshoes.
 
evapilotaz said:
I will take my dry heat any day over snow. I don't have to shovel sun shine to go to work.
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I'll take winter weather to triple digit temperatures, thank you. I can walk outdoors year round, just have to put on a coat some days. Try that in Tucson.
 
Tom-D said:
Yep, that's why they called out the national guard today.
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As I suppose you already know, a lot of that has to do with our illustrious emperor governor Andy Cuomo, who's a world-class control freak who just can't help himself from trying to micromanage things about which he knows nothing. The Thruway Authority and DOT have always done a truly admirable job -- and that's high praise coming from a Libertarian -- removing snow, without gubernatorial interference. They pretty much have it down to a science.

Unfortunately, control freak Andy simply can't refrain from butting his nose in where it's not needed -- and doing so in a very ostentatious manner, at that. This year he dramatically and publicly ordered the Thruway and some of its spurs shut down without giving the Thruway Authority and the State Police the opportunity to orderly carry it out by closing the entrances and getting existing traffic off the road, which is how they've done it ever since the road was built. That's the biggest reason for all those people being stranded. The shutdown was carried out in a haphazard manner that trapped people on the road.

Last year Andy's micromanagement caused the opposite problem. On several occasions, he closed major Interstate highways in anticipation of snow, forcing hundreds of thousands of cars and trucks throughout the region onto secondary roads, thus bottle-necking traffic throughout the entire Northeast, for snow that hadn't even fallen yet! In several cases, the anticipated snows never arrived in any significant amounts, making him look like a complete buffoon.

Andy was widely criticized for preemptively closing the roads and causing an unnecessary, multi-state traffic nightmare last year, and he's being criticized for the timing of the Thruway shutdown this year. That might evoke my sympathies were it not for the fact that he shouldn't gotten involved in the first place. I'm a birthright New Yorker and I don't recall any previous governor, of either party, who felt the need and believed himself to possess the requisite expertise to take command of snow plow crews on the Thruway. It's pretty much unheard of.

Another thing that non-locals might not know is that the Thruway is a restricted-access toll road. You can't get on it without either being handed a toll ticket by a human toll collector or going through a gated E-ZPass booth. But yesterday afternoon Andy went on record blaming drivers for the mess because they "irresponsibly" entered the highway after it was declared closed -- which would have been impossible had it been done properly.

Best I can figure is that Andy's comment must be for national consumption because anyone who actually lives here knows that it's nonsense. If the road were properly closed, no one could have gotten on without literally crashing a toll gate.

Don't get me wrong: I have no problem with the Guard being called out to help. In fact, that's the first thing Andy's done during this storm that actually made sense. He would have done himself and the rest of the region a big favor by simply being available by phone to authorize whatever resources the folks at NYSDOT and NYSTA said they needed, and otherwise keeping his nose out of the details.

Rich
 
Tom-D said:
I don't miss that sh-- at all. it was 50 here yesterday, today will be warmer.
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Whenever I start to complain about the rain on the we(s)t side of the state I remind myself that you don't have to shovel rain. :D
 
NFL announced they're moving Sunday's 1:00 PM Jets@Bills game to Detroit on Monday Night.
 
And people wonder why all the crazy people live in California??

Fruits and nuts just can't survive in that climate!!

(Im in california...fruity and nutty never tasted soooooo good);)
 
Ghery said:
Whenever I start to complain about the rain on the we(s)t side of the state I remind myself that you don't have to shovel rain. :D
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We call it self shoveling snow. just leave it alone it goes away.
 
It's been getting warmer here all evening, and the A/C just clicked on.

Should be in the mid-70s all weekend. Ahhhh....

(I do feel for Buffalo. We got lake effect snow in Racine fairly regularly. The worst was 40" in 1978. I can't imagine 70"!)
 
silver-eagle said:
4 wheel drive just gets you stuck in worse places.
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Just because you have a 4X4 doesn't mean you can stop any quicker.
But you can jack them up, and put huge tires on it so you can hydroplane over the white stuff. :) but don't stop
 

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silver-eagle said:
4 wheel drive just gets you stuck in worse places.
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In college we had a group that would get together on Monday morning to compare notes on where they had gone in in northern Idaho and where they got stuck with their 4wd vehicles. The rest of us came to the conclusion that you expressed above.

In Colorado 30+ years ago I'd get passed on the road to work by guys in big 4wd pick-up trucks. They forgot that everyone had 4 wheel brakes and nobody could stop.

Yes, I drive 4wd vehicles now, but that's so I can get up the hill to get out of my neighborhood the few times it snows around here. And it does make a difference.
 
I still remember fondly the day a young systems engineer asked me to come outside at work and show him how to turn on his push button 4WD on his fancy new Land Cruiser. I showed him, including explaining the differences between locking the differentials and not, and locking the center differential, since the Cruiser had those features ... and then we had a little heart to heart about why he wouldn't ever need any of those features.

"If you have to lock the center differential, you're already in the ditch because you were an idiot out driving in conditions you shouldn't have been. Pull the 4WD lever to get home on a bad day, drive slow enough you can always stop before you hit anything, park it in the garage, and don't leave until you can drive with the lever turned off."
 
denverpilot said:
I still remember fondly the day a young systems engineer asked me to come outside at work and show him how to turn on his push button 4WD on his fancy new Land Cruiser. I showed him, including explaining the differences between locking the differentials and not, and locking the center differential, since the Cruiser had those features ... and then we had a little heart to heart about why he wouldn't ever need any of those features.

"If you have to lock the center differential, you're already in the ditch because you were an idiot out driving in conditions you shouldn't have been. Pull the 4WD lever to get home on a bad day, drive slow enough you can always stop before you hit anything, park it in the garage, and don't leave until you can drive with the lever turned off."
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Great advice....:thumbsup:
 
I was in south east Texas visiting my mom one winter. As usual for the area, it rained, then the temp dropped below freezing. Black ice.

I was traveling to the next town over to visit a friend of mine and was in the line of traffic. Including cars, 2WD pickups and a couple 18 wheelers, all well spaced for stopping, and going 15 mph. Some fool in a over jacked 4WD pickup, Colorado plates, huge tires, a real redneck special, pulls out of line and starts passing everyone, laughing because they are from Colorado and know how to drive in winter.

The next curve is only about 20 degrees to the right and slightly banked for drainage. He turns the wheel, then yanks it, brake lights come on and straight he goes into the ditch, across the ditch and taking out about 20 feet of fence line. I stop because I know who owns the fence.

As they get out of their vehicle, I just shake my head. The passenger asked why. I told him it is typical to see Colorado plates in the ditch around here. Do you know what black ice is? Everyone you passed knows what it is, how to identify it and how drive safely on it.

Originally Posted by silver-eagle
4 wheel drive just gets you stuck in worse places.
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Yes it does..... :rofl::rofl::rofl:
 
Zeldman said:
I was in south east Texas visiting my mom one winter. As usual for the area, it rained, then the temp dropped below freezing. Black ice.

I was traveling to the next town over to visit a friend of mine and was in the line of traffic. Including cars, 2WD pickups and a couple 18 wheelers, all well spaced for stopping, and going 15 mph. Some fool in a over jacked 4WD pickup, Colorado plates, huge tires, a real redneck special, pulls out of line and starts passing everyone, laughing because they are from Colorado and know how to drive in winter.

The next curve is only about 20 degrees to the right and slightly banked for drainage. He turns the wheel, then yanks it, brake lights come on and straight he goes into the ditch, across the ditch and taking out about 20 feet of fence line. I stop because I know who owns the fence.

As they get out of their vehicle, I just shake my head. The passenger asked why. I told him it is typical to see Colorado plates in the ditch around here. Do you know what black ice is? Everyone you passed knows what it is, how to identify it and how drive safely on it.
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The first winter I lived Upstate after selling my consulting business, I noticed that most of the cars in the ditches were 4WD pickups and SUVs, usually driven by recent transplants like myself, not by long-time locals. Upon retiring to the country, they'd go out and buy themselves a 4WD truck with "all-season" tires, and they thought that made them exempt from laws of physics such as inertia, momentum, coefficient of friction, and so forth.

At the time my primary car was a RWD Kia Sportage with a good set of snows and a hundred pounds of rock salt in the back as ballast, and I had no problems. Of course, I'd also had the advantage of having lived in the Syracuse area for several years of my young adulthood. If there's anything you learn living in Syracuse, it's how to drive in the winter. I'd also taken a winter driving course that was quite excellent, in retrospect, when I was with EMS up there.

The thing that most of the people in the ditches had never considered is that no matter how many driven wheels you have on the ground, the laws of physics still apply. Four wheels become four sleds when the road is covered with ice or compacted snow.

Another problem is that snow tires have fallen somewhat out of fashion in the past few decades as many people have bought into the myth of "all-season" tires. There's no such thing as an "all-season" tire in bitterly-cold weather. In fact, once the temperature drops below even a relatively-balmy 40 F, the rubber of "all-season" tires rapidly starts losing its grip. When the temperatures drop into the teens, the loss of traction is substantial even on dry pavement. The rubber of winter tires, on the other hand, is optimized for cold-temperature traction.

I actually was having a talk about this with a new driver in my family not long ago. I mentioned how pretty much everything about the science of snow tires has changed since I started driving, mostly because tire companies and others actually started testing most of the assumptions that were in place back then. The testing proved the assumptions to be false. For example:

When I started driving, snow tires were only recommended on the driven wheels. Now we know that they should be on all four for maximum effectiveness.

Back then, the conventional wisdom was that if you could only afford two new tires, you put them on the front. Now we know that the better tires should be on the rear -- even on FWD cars -- for maximum safety.

Another myth was that wider tires were better in the snow because they provided more friction surface. Now we know that narrower tires are actually better because they cut through the snow rather that sledding over it.

I also remember that back then, we were advised to reduce the pressure in the tires in the winter. Nowadays, most manufacturers recommend increasing tire pressure several PSI over the doorpost values when using winter tires. Apparently this has to do with the composition of the rubber (winter tire rubber deforms more easily), the snow-cutting effects of higher pressure, the increased heat dispersion efficiency in cold weather, and the slower speeds used when driving in snowy or icy conditions.

It took me a while to accept some of these changes, but a few winters ago I decided to take a leap of faith and go with them, and I reluctantly had to agree that they were all true. The improvement in winter sure-footedness was phenomenal when I followed the current recommendations.

Studded tires are also a lot less popular these days. In my county, the Sheriff's department strongly recommends studded snow tires. If you actually call and ask them about it, they practically beg you to use them. But most people don't like studs, mainly because of the noise and the slower speed ratings.

Another reason people don't like studs is that they can reduce the tires' useful life. But they usually won't if you keep the speed down, especially on warmer days. Winter tire rubber doesn't do well in warm weather in any case, studs or no studs. But I still manage to get two seasons, sometimes three, out of a good set of studded snows.

My curmudgeonly father is one of those who won't buy any snow tire, much less studded ones, which is quite odd because he was one of the most ardent advocates of snow tires around when I first started driving. But when radials became commonplace, he bought into the "all-season radial" tire myth in such a big way that it recently had me shaking my head quite vigorously when the stubborn old man outdid even his usual standard of stubbornness.

What happened was that last year, one of my brothers had a company SUV that was nearing the end of its lease. My dad had always liked the car, it was in great condition, and it was a known quantity; so dad decided to buy it. But during the first winter, he didn't like the way it handled in the snow; and rather than buy a set of snow tires for it, he traded it in on an SUV that is much bigger than he and mom need, burns much more gas, and costs them a pretty sizable chunk of their pensions every month.

Now you have to understand that mom and dad live on the top of a mountain where they get an awful lot of snow, so you'd think if anyone would get snow tires, it would be my dad. But he absolutely refuses to do so. He got rid of a perfectly-good SUV rather than buy snow tires. I don't know what he'll do if the new car doesn't perform to his satisfaction in the snow, but I doubt that he'll buy snow tires.

For my part, I like snow tires; and because I live along a road with a fairly steep incline and tight turns that tends to refreeze when the temperature drops below 15F or so, I also like studs. There are few things worse than coming home on a cold night, being half a mile away from your house, and not being able to get there because the road has refrozen. If for no other reason than that last mile, the studded tires are worth having, at least in my opinion.

Oddly enough, dad approves of my snow tires -- not just my using them, but the specific tires. He's commented a number of times that they're "nice snow tires," and he agrees that I got a great deal on them. Part of the reason is probably because I happened to use his favorite mechanic to mount and balance them, and his mechanic commented that they were great snow tires and that I got a great deal on them by the time Discount Tire Direct, General Tire, and Car Care One all pitched in with their respective rebates. I think I paid something like $60.00 or $65.00 each for them by the time all was said and done.

So every time I stop by mom and dad's place, dad comes out to admire my General Altimax Arctic studded snow tires. But as much as he admires them, he won't even consider snow tires for his own ride. It's kind of puzzling to me, to be quite honest.

Rich
 
Studded snows are awesome, living just enough out of the snow that I don't have to switch and store tires, even more awesome.
 
It's not just ignorance that keeps some folks from using studded snow tires -- some states outlaw them. Unless things have changed recently, Michigan is one of them.

But yes, the "all season radials" myth really caught on back in the '60s and '70s. I know that my parents stopped buying snow tires, and I just bought my first set ever this year. Damn, they were expensive, though, and the reduction in mileage definitely hurts. :(
 
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azure said:
It's not just ignorance that keeps some folks from using studded snow tires -- some states outlaw them. Unless things have changed recently, Michigan is one of them.

But yes, the "all season radials" myth really caught on back in the '60s and '70s. I know that my parents stopped buying snow tires, and I just bought my first set ever this year. Damn, they were expensive, though, and the reduction in mileage definitely hurts. :(
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Oddly enough, I haven't experienced any significant reduction in MPG with the snows, possibly because I increased the pressure by the KIA-recommended 4 PSI. It's hard to say for sure because the winter fuel started flowing about the same time I mounted the snows. But using ethanol-free 91 octane winter-blend, I did better than 38 MPG with the snows mounted; so if there's any MPG loss for me, it's minimal.

I suggest you check the car's owner's manual to see if they recommend higher pressure for snows. It really surprised me the first time I came across that. I resisted because I thought it surely would reduce the effectiveness of the snow tires. But much to my surprise, that hasn't been the case, in my experience, over the past four winters.

YMMV -- quite literally.

Rich
 
What's this snow thing y'all keep talking about :D





















Oh, BTW the forecast here for Wednesday is rain/snow mix. :(
 
RJM62 said:
Oddly enough, I haven't experienced any significant reduction in MPG with the snows, possibly because I increased the pressure by the KIA-recommended 4 PSI. It's hard to say for sure because the winter fuel started flowing about the same time I mounted the snows. But using ethanol-free 91 octane winter-blend, I did better than 38 MPG with the snows mounted; so if there's any MPG loss for me, it's minimal.
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If you're using a different grade of fuel than you did before changing tires then we'll be comparing apples and oranges. I tried the pure gas available here a few weeks ago and saw a slight improvement in mileage, but not enough to offset the MUCH higher cost ($3.78 vs $3.05-ish). That was before getting the snows. But different engines may react differently (do you normally run 91 octane gas?)
I suggest you check the car's owner's manual to see if they recommend higher pressure for snows. It really surprised me the first time I came across that. I resisted because I thought it surely would reduce the effectiveness of the snow tires. But much to my surprise, that hasn't been the case, in my experience, over the past four winters.
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Good suggestion, I hadn't thought of that. But I couldn't find anything specifically on snow tires in the owner's manual, just a reminder to check the placard for the correct tire pressure, which is 38 lbs. I'm getting ~37 mpg now in my Sonic, compared to ~45 in October with the all-season tires. I didn't do a careful study though, and other factors are surely contributing to the reduced mileage, including winter blend fuel (the transition to which should be complete by now), temperature (a MAJOR influence on mileage in the Sonic, based on day-to-day variations), and road conditions... I also need to run the defogger more now, as the Sonic is an absolute bear for windshield fogging when the heater is running.
 
steingar said:
I'll take winter weather to triple digit temperatures, thank you. I can walk outdoors year round, just have to put on a coat some days. Try that in Tucson.
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I'm with you, Professor. :thumbsup:

However, I still reserve the right to ***** when the temps fall below 0*F.
 
azure said:
If you're using a different grade of fuel than you did before changing tires then we'll be comparing apples and oranges. I tried the pure gas available here a few weeks ago and saw a slight improvement in mileage, but not enough to offset the MUCH higher cost ($3.78 vs $3.05-ish). That was before getting the snows. But different engines may react differently (do you normally run 91 octane gas?)
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I usually do, but not usually the ethanol-free. The increased MPG would actually make the ethanol-free a wash for me at current prices were it not for the deal Price Chopper (a supermarket chain) has with Sunoco, which makes Sunoco cheaper than Mirabito. (Mirabito sells the ethanol-free.)

My average MPG using different types of fuel (all winter grade) with the snow tires mounted have been:

31.8 (corn-laced Sunoco 87 octane)
34.7 (corn-laced Sunoco 91 octane)
38.0 (ethanol-free Mirabito 91 octane)

The car's performance on either flavor of 91 is also so much improved that it would be worth it for that reason alone. When I have to use 87 because it's all that a station has, the car feels like I picked up a passenger or two plus their baggage. But anything over 91 doesn't further improve performance, and in fact reduces my MPG. Right now, for example, I'm struggling to keep MPG above 32 on a tank of Hess 93-octane corn-laced -- and that's actively using hypermiling techniques.

I usually don't use 93, especially from Hess, whose gas I've never particularly cared for. I suspect that their 93 is just 91 spiked with more corn and whatever other high octane / low energy crap they can think of to put in there. Whatever the case, the 93 is a complete waste of money for me. But it's what they had. Most likely the station was trying to get rid of it because the prices on new shipments are lower, so they shut off the lower grades to force the premium. That's a common tactic at low-volume stations up here.

Rich
 
As Azure said, I notice a few less miles per gallon in winter but I attribute that to cold air being more dense than warm air. Winter blend fuel may also be part of the problem.

Michigan outlawed studded tires and tire chains some time ago. I think the lobbyists for the tow truck industry had a hand in that. :D
 
Norman said:
As Azure said, I notice a few less miles per gallon in winter but I attribute that to cold air being more dense than warm air. Winter blend fuel may also be part of the problem.

Michigan outlawed studded tires and tire chains some time ago. I think the lobbyists for the tow truck industry had a hand in that. :D
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I've often wondered about the cold temps reducing mileage. I thought a fuel injected engine would compensate for that (I'm not an engineer so I'm just guessing) but my mileage always drops in the winter. It could be a combination of the winter blend and cold temps I guess.

I do think studs rip up the roads pretty good, so as a taxpayer I'm glad they're outlawed in my state.
 
nddons said:
I do think studs rip up the roads pretty good, so as a taxpayer I'm glad they're outlawed in my state.
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Well, they're common in Vermont, and so far, from what I've seen, there's not a lot of difference between VT and MI in pavement quality. Both states have equally terrible roads.

Of course, I don't have any real idea yet how much VT spends to maintain its highways. But I understand the blacktopping project on state route 12 between Montpelier and Northfield in October was the first fix-up for that stretch of highway in many years. Before that it was like a typical rural two-lane highway in Michigan - drivable in a car, but full of breaks and crevices that made it a cyclist's nightmare.

I don't know anything about New Hampshire's laws re: studded tires, but the highways are in much better repair, from what I've seen so far.
 
RJM62 said:
34.7 (corn-laced Sunoco 91 octane)
38.0 (ethanol-free Mirabito 91 octane)
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That's interesting, a nearly 10% increase just getting rid of the corn. I went up from 45 mpg to about 47, so more like 5%. How much is corn-free in your area? Here it's not widely available, I know of only two stations in my area that sell it, and they both price it over $.50 higher than the 10% ethanol gas. The gap is widening in fact, as 10% gas prices keep falling and the pure gas stays up there where it was back in October (which kind of reminds me of a certain other "specialty" fuel, ahem).
 
azure said:
Well, they're common in Vermont, and so far, from what I've seen, there's not a lot of difference between VT and MI in pavement quality. Both states have equally terrible roads.



Of course, I don't have any real idea yet how much VT spends to maintain its highways. But I understand the blacktopping project on state route 12 between Montpelier and Northfield in October was the first fix-up for that stretch of highway in many years. Before that it was like a typical rural two-lane highway in Michigan - drivable in a car, but full of breaks and crevices that made it a cyclist's nightmare.



I don't know anything about New Hampshire's laws re: studded tires, but the highways are in much better repair, from what I've seen so far.
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We used to go to Vermont for 10 days every Christmas from 2001-2005, and I thought the roads were very good back then. I didn't know about the studded tires rule.
 
azure said:
That's interesting, a nearly 10% increase just getting rid of the corn. I went up from 45 mpg to about 47, so more like 5%. How much is corn-free in your area? Here it's not widely available, I know of only two stations in my area that sell it, and they both price it over $.50 higher than the 10% ethanol gas. The gap is widening in fact, as 10% gas prices keep falling and the pure gas stays up there where it was back in October (which kind of reminds me of a certain other "specialty" fuel, ahem).
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It's available, but not widely. The nearest place to me is 27 miles away. The next-nearest place I know of is about 50 miles away.

The price gap may be widening now because the corn gas prices are falling, but the last time I bought the corn-free 91 it was about $3.95 / gal compared to $3.59 / gal for corn-laced 91, so cost-per-mile wise it was basically a wash. I mainly buy it if I happen to need gas while I'm near one of the stations and I don't have a meaningful Sunoco discount accumulated from the Price Chopper thing. Otherwise I prefer Sunoco 91 (with Marine STA-BIL @ 1 oz. / 10 gal for the corn).

Rich
 
nddons said:
I've often wondered about the cold temps reducing mileage. I thought a fuel injected engine would compensate for that (I'm not an engineer so I'm just guessing) but my mileage always drops in the winter. It could be a combination of the winter blend and cold temps I guess.

I do think studs rip up the roads pretty good, so as a taxpayer I'm glad they're outlawed in my state.
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I keep hearing about all these chewed-up roads, but I haven't seen any of them yet. I won't say that most people use studs where I live, but many people do, and our roads are in pretty damn good shape. The state highway that runs through Sparrow Fart is on year eight of a ten-year resurface cycle and looks just fine.

So frankly, I have my doubts about all this talk of chewed-up roads. But even if that happens to be true, there probably is an offsetting savings in terms of fewer accidents requiring police and EMS (not to mention the value of lives). I'm not fond of the "if it saves one life" school of justification, but in this case, it's probably true: The reduction in accidents would probably financially offset the cost of more frequent resurfacing.

Rich
 
Studs do not harm roads, that is an old wives tale.
 
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