Snow...

[Alex]

Drove through a lot of snow between Springfield, IL and the Quad Cities the other day.

[SSOWorld]

Exit A?  Where's Exit AA?

Lots of freezing rain right now.  They're saying up to 6 in of snow (in addition to the ice)

[Jim]

Having just driven down the east coast, mainly along I-95, a few days after the big mid Atlantic storm, it's safe to say that the DC area is not built for or equipped for the kind of snow they had.  Side roads were completely untouched by plows and were a deep snow/ice pack with deep ruts and snowbanks were left in some very inconvenient places even on the Beltway.  It looks like the sound walls are sometimes built so close to the side of the road that there's no place to put the snow except on the shoulder or part of the right lane.  There seems to be little effort to clear shoulders even in places that the space exists to push the snow aside.  I'm glad I didn't have to try to get through that area any sooner after the storm passed.

There was still some snow on the sides of the roads as far south as Emporia, Virginia.  I was hoping there'd still be some in North Carolina but not quite.  The snow cover was definitely the most impressive in the immediate DC area.

[froggie]

Beltway actually wasn't that bad...some of the on/off-ramps were (and in 2 cases still are) a pain, but the mainline lanes themselves have been fine since Sunday afternoon, at least in my quadrant of the Beltway.

Concur on the side streets/roads.

Curious where you were where you think the soundwalls are built so close to the side of the road.  I haven't noticed anything like that except some locations within the District itself.

[Jim]

Beltway actually wasn't that bad...some of the on/off-ramps were (and in 2 cases still are) a pain, but the mainline lanes themselves have been fine since Sunday afternoon, at least in my quadrant of the Beltway.

We did the western half on Tuesday night (I-95 North to 267) and Wednesday morning (267 to I-95 South).  The problems on the Beltway were mainly at ramps, where snow was left in the triangle between the mainline and a ramp that seemed to fall or get knocked around at times.

Curious where you were where you think the soundwalls are built so close to the side of the road.  I haven't noticed anything like that except some locations within the District itself.

I am thinking of areas near the I-270 junction, but maybe those weren't sound walls.  It just seemed that there was no place to push the snow, so it was right up against the white line in the right lane.

[Scott5114]

Oklahoma just got clobbered. Western Oklahoma got up to a foot, Oklahoma City got around six inches. There's a rather impressive snowbank against the structure that my apartments' mailboxes are in. I ran out there to drop my Internet bill in the outgoing mail box and sank up to my knees in the stuff. OHP has much of the Oklahoma City interstate system shut down and the Governor has declared a state of emergency. I decided to call in to work...they had two employees dedicated just to processing call-ins.

[Chris]

This is what salt does to porous asphalt concrete + heavy traffic:

A28, Zwolle, NL

[froggie]

I don't think that's salt so much as it is a drainage failure, which is the primary cause of potholes.

[Truvelo]

In that last picture appears to be a half hearted attempt at fixing it

[Chris]

In that last picture appears to be a half hearted attempt at fixing it

Yes, they are repairing those holes all day long, there are road closures every day. The problem is the foundation of this road is messed up real bad, so they'd have to replace the entire roadway, not just the top layer. They temporarily fix it now, but a few hours later, the hole is there again. At some places, the shoulder looks like a dirt road, with all the asphalt debris there.

In 3 months, this road will be subject to widening from 6 to 8 lanes, all problems will be gone then.

The problems will last this winter though, they forecast major snowfall tonight and icebox temperatures during the coming week or so.

[Truvelo]

It can't be as bad as what I saw when driving along this road in Minnesota. The workers were pouring loose asphalt into potholes. All it does is cause clattering and banging when driving over it and I'm sure the rental car company really likes their cars returning full of stone chips.

[froggie]

Nice photo...which route?

[jgb191]

I can't stand this miserably cold weather.  

59 degrees this afternoon in my area of South Texas, and 63 tomorrow, though a bit milder on Thursday and Friday in the mid 70s.  

Summer, please get here fast....can't wait to see 100s again.

[agentsteel53]

heh, I am the exact opposite - anything over 55 and I want to claw my skin off!  59 being miserably cold?  I keep my room at 56 on the thermostat, and wear a jacket indoors in the winter

a few weeks ago I was at -33 in the Cascades in Oregon and perfectly comfortable.  Absolutely no wind, and the clearest skies I have ever seen in my life... (beats US-85 in South Dakota, 6100 feet at -11 degrees) ... I took a few pictures, added oil to my car as needed, and kept on driving!  

then a couple days later, -17 but with wind ... - wind chill -68 at Macdonald Pass in Montana.  Now THAT was cold!!!!  Had to hold the tripod down to take a 20 second exposure of Helena, Montana off to the east...

[Truvelo]

Nice photo...which route?

According to the EXIF this picture was taken 3 minutes earlier and it also shows loose asphalt.

[froggie]

Ah yes.  Earlier in the decade, MnDOT District 6 put most of their eggs in the rebuilding-52-thru-Rochester basket, and the rest of the District's roads (including MN 16) are suffering somewhat as a result.  It doesn't help that the Root River valley (where your photos are) gets wet and occasionally flooded, which just compounds the pothole problem.

Mind if I snag those photos for my Minnesota pages?

[Truvelo]

Mind if I snag those photos for my Minnesota pages?

I have plenty of others if you want them, I'll upload them to my site and give you the URL so you can choose which ones you want. Just give me an hour or so...

[Chris]

We had some snow again in Zwolle, the Netherlands. Maybe 1 or 2 inches. Not that much, but at least it's white.

[Truvelo]

Froggie, I've sent you a private message with the URL of the MN16 pictures.

We also had about an inch here last night but it's raining now and is melting.

[DAL764]

This is what salt does to porous asphalt concrete + heavy traffic:

Nice, this is how 50% of Hamburg's street currently look like, and many of those WITHOUT the heavy traffic. Man, I wish we would use better asphalt that doesn't crack so easily, but alas that asphalt is not "green", so no chance of that being used...

[jgb191]

Feels great to be back to normal again....made it to 80 degrees on New Years Eve and looking at 79 on New Years Day.

[mightyace]

There was 2" of snow in Bloomsburg on New Year's Eve.

[PAHighways]

Winter Weather Advisory where I live, but other counties under a Winter Storm Watch, until 6 PM Sunday.

[Scott5114]

Currently in Norman the temperature is 27 with a 40% chance of snow tomorrow night. The next chance of snow after that is a slight chance on Tuesday night.

It's been pretty cold since last week's blizzard, so it still hasn't all melted yet. Roads are OK but everything else is wet and muddy.

[Bickendan]

Portland got hit with an inch or two the 29th. Probably going to be the only major snow this season for us, dammit.

But as usual, the metro area as a whole couldn't deal with it-- cars were abandoned in the travel lanes on the Sunset (US 26)...