So after all of that frantic forecasting of dire events happening, and predictions of huge amounts of snow burying us all in our homes…
… we got an inch of snow here. And it’s already melting.
I feel bad for the folks stuck in Atlanta and other places further south, that don’t have as much equipment or experience dealing with this kind of stuff, but here it’s a non-event event. Maybe farther east it’s a bigger deal (they got a little more snow than we did), but it’s hardly the “Snow event of a generation” as a certain weather forecasting cable channel hyped it as. The same channel kept saying we were going to get 3-5 inches, when the snow had already moved out of the area.
For the record, the National Weather Service office in Raleigh nailed the event perfectly. Their estimates weren’t as exciting, though, and wouldn’t pump up ratings, so just about nobody went with their more conservative forecast, which was spot on.
Besides, I already had the “Snow event” of my generation in January, 2000, when we got 20+ inches of snow here. The forecast that night? 3-6 inches. So we were all kind of stunned when it just kept falling and falling, and piling up and piling up. It took more than a week to get back to normal.
This stuff? We’ll be back to 70-80% normal by tomorrow. 100% by Friday.
Hardly the “event of a generation.” At least not here.
But if you’re stuck somewhere, it’s closer to the truth, isn’t it?
I’ve been there, too. On my way back to college one spring, I got stuck in Norfolk for one night, then in Charlotte for 3-4 days as I tried desperately to get back to school at UNC. U wound up having to drive across the state on icy, snowy roads in an old rear-wheel drive car that was itching to careen into a ditch. (It didn’t.)
So those stuck out there in this mess have my sympathies.