Snow In Florida!

A powerful snowstorm is bringing chaos to parts of the country not accustomed to perilous cold conditions.

More than 35 million Americans were under severe weather alerts as a bomb cyclone, a kind of ‘winter hurricane’ that causes fierce winds when air pressure decreases quickly, swept in. 

States including the Carolinas, Virginia and Georgia have been worst impacted, with snow seen falling as far south as Tampa, Florida. In central Florida, temperatures as low as the high teens are possible. At this time of year, thermometers are more typically hitting the 70s.

There has been havoc on the roads, with North Carolina alone suffering 750 car crashes on Saturday, according to the highway patrol.

Around 100 vehicles were left stranded in the snow along a northbound section of Interstate 85 north of Charlotte, North Carolina, where more snow fell in a single day on Saturday than the city has seen in two decades.

A late afternoon crash involving a car and a tractor-trailer led to only one lane being open along the road near Kannapolis. That in turn caused long traffic jams just as heavy snow began accumulating on the highway, the North Carolina State Highway Patrol said.

Snow fell so fast that it caused tractor-trailers and cars on I-85 to become stuck, stranding drivers.

‘Once they’re blocking the interstate, everybody stops,’ North Carolina State Highway Patrol 1st Sgt. Christopher Knox told CBS 17. ‘We’re just limited in what we can do because of the interstate not being physically passable.’

‘It sounds like initially it is not necessarily a 100-car collision, but it’s just traffic that is stopped because we’re having to remove a vehicle that is blocking the roadway,’ Knox said.

The latest misery came about a week after a monster storm hit a wide swath of the United States, killing more than 100 people and leaving many communities still struggling to dig out from under the snow and ice.

Heavy snow fell in North Carolina and neighbouring states Saturday, with authorities advising residents to stay off the roads and warning that oceanfront structures were under threat as a so-called ‘bomb cyclone’ strengthened off the coast.

A winter storm warning was in effect for all of North and South Carolina, parts of Georgia, eastern Tennessee, and Kentucky, as well as southern Virginia.

The area near the North Carolina and South Carolina border closest to the coast is where moderate to heavy snowfall is most likely until about 1 am EST, with up to an inch of snow per hour falling.

Southern states aren’t equipped for snow or ice. They don’t brine, salt or sand roadways, and motorists often have no experience driving in these situations, so it’s not surprising that there have been numerous casualties and deaths.

We should also spare a thought for those with solar panels that will now be covered in snow, now generating zero electricity, and all those wind turbines frozen with ice, generating zero electricity. There are billions of dollars invested in these technologies, with zero electricity being generated. I bet the kids are having a blast, though?

It’s a lot of snow if you’re not used to it, so I hope everyone stays safe.

People talk about Global Warming, but it’s not, it’s climate change because climates change, and it has been doing so for billions and trillions of years. It’s just the natural order of things.

But just to make things a little more light-hearted. “A businessman is away on a work trip and he phones his wife, ‘We have snow here.’ Wife, ‘Yes, I got 8 inches last night, and it was fantastic.'”

I do hope nobody snorts coffee all over their keyboard!