Ice Storm Threatens Northeast (again)

Lux Luthor

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WOOHOO!!!

1/4" to 3/4" of ice is poised to bring down trees and power lines, but I'm ready for it. I hope it's MASSIVE!

I just heard Sharon Resultan on the Weather Channel say we should be prepard with candles. What a joke!
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Who does she think she's talking to?
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guncollector

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Lux-

What exactly does an ice storm entail?

Please humor us ignorant Californians with what one can exect in such a storm (i.e. temperatures, precipitation/snowfall, winds, etc.).

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Lux Luthor

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It occurs when sleet and or freezing rain accumulates on trees and power lines. The extra weight causes the trees to topple onto power lines bringing them down, or the power lines themselves get too heavy and collapse.

Here's a news story of a massive one just north of here in 1998. See also the photo gallery. Here's a direct link to a good one.
 

Gone Jeepin

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Hey Lux, don't know how the weather is going to hit you but here in SE MI there is not much of the snow/ice mix falling. It has been going on since early afternoon but no accumulation.

Am at work now and will give you the low down as of 02:30 EST (Read - will take a break and walk outside for a minuet to see). Ok, its cold but the snow/ice stopped. No ice storm here, and here I sit with an ARC LE in my pocket, an E2e HA in my coat, and an M3 in my pack...
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I can only wonder how the hunters that went up for the hunting season opener are doing (Read - I bet they are freezing their butts off waiting for a deer to walk by their tree stands). We at CPF can only hope that these sportsmen were smart enough to take lots of good lights and batteries along for the trip. It would be a shame to waste a long weekend in the outdoors and not use a few good lights.
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Icebreak

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guncollector-

Beauty can be found in the strangest places. We had one here in 2000. Basically shut the state down for several days. On the second morning it was in the 20s but with super clear, bright skies. The sunrise was indescribable on the Oauchita mountains. It was an almost blinding life size, multi-colored, shimmering glass menagerie. If you touched anything in the forest it was coated in clear ice and broke like glass.
 

Stefan

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Icebreak-

It was bad here earlier in the year (Feb-Mar). Was very dissapointing to wake up, and hear the weatherman say, "goodmorning, its -37 for the third day in a row."
 

Charles Bradshaw

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There is a difference between freezing rain and an ice storm. The keys being length of time and amount of ice buildup. Ice storm indicates massive damage to power system and trees, etc. It also means a huge mess to clean up, just to get the power system back online. Some ice storms are localized. This happened here some years ago and there were spotty outages in Mansfield, and more widespread to the south (Lexington and Belleville). Other than that, there was the usual massive amount of branches and limbs, plus some trees down. The branches that came down here, were knee deep over the entire yard.

Best to be prepared for any storm situation.
 

Stefan

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To be technical, wouldn't a summer thunderstorm that drops tons of hail be considered an "ice storm"? After all, they are frozen balls of ice, and they do hurt when they fall on you.
 

Lux Luthor

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It looks like the bad ice missed me (and Tom who's about 10 miles south of me). The ice nailed Connecticut though. 124,000 without power just in that state.

Tom, you should get out more.
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I went up to Ticonderoga yesterday, and it was coming down pretty good. It was all frozen precip down to about Clifton Park, then sleet and rain by the time I hit Troy. I can see it being all rain in Albany - plus cities stay warmer due to heat absorption by the concrete.
 

Icebreak

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Stefan-
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Though not the expert in Science and Technology that some members seem to be I've seen ice storms and watched them develop. What I saw was freezing rain and sleet accumulate and coat everything in a thick, clear glaze. Exactly like what Albany Tom and Lux Luthor described.

Really wish I had some pics of the one I described above. Strikingly beautiful. When you stood near the woods every few minutes you could hear what sounded like a rifle shot. When a large branch or tree broke it would echo.

Lux Luthor-

I wish your power had gone out. Maybe next month.
 

Light-Headed

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I know exactly what you mean Icebreak. Where I grew up, we used to get them frequently. I used to have a newspaper clipping somewhere of a thin power line coated so thickly with ice that it was as big around as a soda can. (they actually had a picture of a soda can laying next to it for comparison since the line was lying on the ground after breaking from the extreme weight.)

We used to get a lot of hail as well, but we just called those hail storms.
 

Icebreak

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Stefan-

I get your drift.
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Light-Headed-

Wow! Soda can thick. I would like to have seen that.

Yes, we call lots of hail that falls from the sky hail storms also.

When I'm irritated and walking quickly we sometimes refer to that as an ice storm as well.
 

Albany Tom

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Originally posted by Lux Luthor:
It looks like the bad ice missed me (and Tom who's about 10 miles south of me). The ice nailed Connecticut though. 124,000 without power just in that state.

Tom, you should get out more.
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I went up to Ticonderoga yesterday, and it was coming down pretty good. It was all frozen precip down to about Clifton Park, then sleet and rain by the time I hit Troy. I can see it being all rain in Albany - plus cities stay warmer due to heat absorption by the concrete.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I should! (I'm actually in Averill Park, but since nobody knows where the heck that is, I just put 'Albany'
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)

I guess it's bad enough in Connecticut that they're asking for radio people help. You guys would love it: Expect no power, so bring your own, gel-cells or whatever. Expect no gasoline, so bring your own, whatever you can safely carry. Do not respond without authorization.

Still just rain here, though...
 

jtivat

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Originally posted by Gone Jeepin:
Hey Lux, don't know how the weather is going to hit you but here in SE MI there is not much of the snow/ice mix falling. It has been going on since early afternoon but no accumulation.

Am at work now and will give you the low down as of 02:30 EST (Read - will take a break and walk outside for a minuet to see). Ok, its cold but the snow/ice stopped. No ice storm here, and here I sit with an ARC LE in my pocket, an E2e HA in my coat, and an M3 in my pack...
rolleyes.gif


I can only wonder how the hunters that went up for the hunting season opener are doing (Read - I bet they are freezing their butts off waiting for a deer to walk by their tree stands). We at CPF can only hope that these sportsmen were smart enough to take lots of good lights and batteries along for the trip. It would be a shame to waste a long weekend in the outdoors and not use a few good lights.
grin.gif
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Well at least one of us did. I had an Infinity Ultra around my neck and Arc AAA in my pack along with a Surge and SC1 SF spare battery holder. On my belt I had a 6P, in my left front pocket E2 LOLA and right E1E with KL1. Now for my (bump in the pitch black middle of the woods light) I had my 10X. I think that is it. Oh ya it was cold 16 degrees Fahrenheit on Saturday morning, it was very hard sitting still in that weather.
 

Albany Tom

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Well, they predicted this one WAY wrong. It's just rain.

For ice, you pretty much have to have a long cold spell, followed by freezing rain. If the ground is warm, everything melts. If the air is too warm, everything melts. If everything is cold, as is usual here, you get snow. Freezing rain is a nasty thing, but we usually only get that in this area in the fall and spring. Our temperatures don't usually hover around freezing, either a good amount below, or above.

I think the weather people are just jumpy because they didn't figure the last big storm would be as bad as it was. (1998? 1999?) They'll forget about it eventually, then it'll happen again. People like to react to things about a year or two after they happen.
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The other bad thing that can happen here is big snowfall before the leaves have dropped from the trees. This means tree limbs falling, wires down, roads blocked. Last big one of those was I think in 1987.
 

Hemingray

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We got the northern edge of this mess, lost power for about 3 hours (Sunday 630-930 PM) just enough to kill the little boob-toob watching I do...
Did give me a chance to try out various LED flashlights, lanterns, etc, plus dazzled my neighbor with the 5 watt cyan Luxeon "death ray"
I got from Elektrolumens a while ago. He was impressed, if "what the f*&% is that!" means anything
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About 4 years ago we had several of these icers,
with 2 and 3 day power outages, Maine and parts of Quebec lost power for several weeks
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I hate winter!!!!!!!
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/ed brown in frozen wasteland of NH
 

Stefan

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Hemingray
What current list of LEDs do you have? Curious if you tried a 1 watt LED, similiar to a Reactor. I like the way mine shines off of a path up to 50 feet out.
 
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