Post a quote, that could have just been text but instead for some stupid reason is an image, entertain me!

Yes, the sound dampening effect of falling snow is magical.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Yes, the sound dampening effect of falling snow is magical.

I usually don't notice due to yelling at everyone for forgetting we drive this way every winter and everyone forgets.

It... doesn't really work in a car.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

It... doesn't really work in a car.

Why was it snowing in your car?

Hobear wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:

Yes, the sound dampening effect of falling snow is magical.

I usually don't notice due to yelling at everyone for forgetting we drive this way every winter and everyone forgets.

Yah, Minnesota driver's completely lose their collective sh*t ever time it rains or snows. Especially the first time for the season.

Rainsmercy wrote:
Hobear wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:

Yes, the sound dampening effect of falling snow is magical.

I usually don't notice due to yelling at everyone for forgetting we drive this way every winter and everyone forgets.

Yah, Minnesota driver's completely lose their collective sh*t ever time it rains or snows. Especially the first time for the season.

I’d like to introduce you to western Oregon, where even just a light dusting of snow is enough to shut down an entire city and cause a 500% spike in traffic accidents.

ruhk wrote:

I’d like to introduce you to western Oregon, where even just a light dusting of snow is enough to shut down an entire city and cause a 500% spike in traffic accidents.

Atlanta: Hold our beer...

Anywhere in the South: "We shut down entire counties if it gets below freezing, never mind actual snow."

Right, but in those areas, its the exception, not the rule. Here in Minnesota this is not new if we get snow. yet people still can't figure out how to drive in it.

Taharka wrote:

Anywhere in the South: "We shut down entire counties if it gets below freezing, never mind actual snow."

This. We were in Atlanta when they got 1/2 an inch of snow and basically society collapsed. School closed, emergency vehicles on certain roads, closed business, etc.

It's fun to tease them about it, but in reality they have almost no municipal equipment to deal with snow or ice, so it's not surprising that even tiny amounts are more than they can handle.

Stengah wrote:

It's fun to tease them about it, but in reality they have almost no municipal equipment to deal with snow or ice, so it's not surprising that even tiny amounts are more than they can handle.

This is absolutely true. No gritting machines, no plows, no nothing.
It's just safer to keep people inside if there's a strong chance the roads or bridges might freeze over.
That said, they still act like it's the end of the world.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/hs7HPcw.jpg)

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/lMiHWPj.jpg)

Rainsmercy wrote:

Right, but in those areas, its the exception, not the rule. Here in Minnesota this is not new if we get snow. yet people still can't figure out how to drive in it.

Yeah, we were unprepared for our first snow this year and it was chaos. Some streets still have not gotten out of our 2nd blizzard pile and we've had a warm week to do it. Monday morning there is supposed to be another couple inches and I just know taking my kids to school is going to take 3 times as long.

tanstaafl wrote:
ruhk wrote:

I’d like to introduce you to western Oregon, where even just a light dusting of snow is enough to shut down an entire city and cause a 500% spike in traffic accidents.

Atlanta: Hold our beer...

Shoot, you beat me to it

farley3k wrote:
Taharka wrote:

Anywhere in the South: "We shut down entire counties if it gets below freezing, never mind actual snow."

This. We were in Atlanta when they got 1/2 an inch of snow and basically society collapsed. School closed, emergency vehicles on certain roads, closed business, etc.

I was trying to go into work when it snowed in Atlanta, and when I got onto a feeder highway far outside the city limits, I literally could not control my car. The tire tracks through the snow were, as far as I could tell, black ice. I couldn't get any grip with my tires, ended up slowly sliding through the oncoming lane, and just managed to sorta steer into a parking lot or driveway, where I got traction again. Even creeping the 300 yards back to the surface street I'd come from was terrifying.

I don't know if the roads are different there or not, but I was completely unable to drive in a half-inch of snow, and while I am ignorant about snow, I don't see any way I could have handled it better.

I saw the same thing, more or less, a few years later in Athens, where it turned out to be impossible for any normal car to climb certain hills. They'd get about halfway up, and just lose traction and slide all the way back down.

I don't understand why Minnesotans have such an easy time of it, but snow can be pretty much undriveable in the Atlanta area until the plows come through, and they don't have many plows.

Appropriate tires for one thing.

Ain't no one with studded tires in Atlanta.

Ain't no one with studded tires in Minnesota either. They're illegal.

Fair. But winter tires are still a far cry from summer tires, which i assume are what most Atlanta folks have on their rides.

Also the south just plain gets ice. Liquid water comes down, gets everywhere, and freezes. Up north winter weather tends to be dry, fluffy stuff that you can push out of the way and otherwise deal with if you know how. I remember a few years back New England got hit with the kind of ice that coats everything and they were just as paralyzed as we would be. They were all confused and confounded by it, and our reaction was "What? That's what winter is. I thought you people said you could deal with winter."

The paralysis from ice storms always comes from frozen tree branches falling and taking out power all over the place. The day to day stuff like driving was fine once the initial storm was over, it just took a couple weeks for some places to get their power lines fixed.

Malor wrote:

I don't know if the roads are different there or not, but I was completely unable to drive in a half-inch of snow, and while I am ignorant about snow, I don't see any way I could have handled it better.

As Jonman said, studded snow tires, or even just dedicated (non-studded) snow tires make a hell of a difference. All weather tires really just mean they can handle dry and wet conditions. There wasn't much else you could do with the tires you had. One piece of advice for if you ever get stuck is to just get some dirt from the side of the road and put it under your tires. Kitty litter works well too. Several years ago I was visiting my brother in Arizona during and they had a light dusting of snow. We went up to some park that involved a bunch of switchbacks up a mountain and had to save a bunch of teenagers in a massive truck who were trying to come down but freaking out about sliding off the edge of the road and tumbling down the rest of the mountain (which was a pretty legitimate fear, honestly). They were in the middle of both lanes and had been trying to chip out two tracks in the ice for their tires for about an hour and were slamming on the breaks everytime the back tires would slide even a little bit. They were very skeptical that just spreading dirt from the side of the road on the ice would work, but we got them unstuck in about 5 minutes.

I saw the same thing, more or less, a few years later in Athens, where it turned out to be impossible for any normal car to climb certain hills. They'd get about halfway up, and just lose traction and slide all the way back down.

They do make our roads from different materials, we use asphalt almost exclusively instead of concrete for a number or reasons, but main ones are that it handles snow & ice better and isn't as vulnerable to salt. A bigger factor though is that we have trucks that spread dirt and salt on the ice, which greatly improves traction and melts the ice. You'll see the same thing on un-sanded hills here, although a good chunk of that is people not knowing how to drive on them. They forget all about how momentum works and try to creep slowly up the hill, then slam their brakes on the second they lose any traction at all, which only dooms them to the slide back down.

As has been said, the problem in the south is that it really isn't snow on the roads; it's ice.

Our weather usually isn't *that* cold so our snow usually arrives when the weather has been above freezing, so the roads are still warm. The first snow melts, but if it keeps snowing it eventually cools off enough that it re-freezes as ice. And we don't get enough snow above it to pack. So, it *looks* like snow you can drive in, but it isn't.

And we don't have that many salt trucks or snowplows because they would simply sit in storage outside of a few days every few years and it isn't worth it. So we just dump sand on all the bridges, tell everyone to stay home, and call it a day off.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/WS04UF8.jpg)

Neither, it's "for f*ck's sake".

In Minnesota and the northern states we have loads of chemicals on the road which makes driving possible but also slowly eats your car. Yeah snow tires are great but they are expensive so I have always grown up in all season tires and if you had bad tires in fall you either hope for a light winter, don't drive much or get new tires.

The problems we have are several. First storm if unprepared roads will make a bad day or two of driving as the plows fix and lay down chemicals.

The next is if there is a storm near rush hour. Good God just go get a beer and dinner because you'll just need to pee your pants while waiting 3 or 4 hours to get home.

If a storm rains all the chemicals off the roads it's ice city almost no matter your tires. Some people have chains but most just stay out of those mixes and stay home.

The next is people. Some people think 4 wheel drive is license to be a moron and drive like crazy. These people go in the ditch. Other people panic so hard that they also cause accidents and go in the ditch. The rest of us try to go slow and that's what you do.

Black ice and other unavoidable conditions get us all on occasion. The last two years under bridges has been really bad. Sometimes your car shifts position and then snaps back on pavement.

I remember visiting Phoenix and wondering why everyone drove brand new cars and then I realized I was staring at a late 90s Toyota that was pristine. It was a real trip coming from the Midwest.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/HBLu8H5.png)

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/lSi3liB.png)

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/GjwUBUm.jpg)

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/JKww3Ds.png)

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/N6NNr0s.jpg)

All money is made up numbers after we left the gold standard. The value of gold is also a made up number. All value is a made up number. The only things that have inherent value that is tangible are things necessary for survival. We've just been making the barter system for those things more and more abstract.

jrralls wrote:

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/WS04UF8.jpg)

I always assumed the first, but APA is strangely silent on the topic.