G+ Migration Blog

Maybe the Bills should have to move their game for a natural disaster every week. Props for the snow shoveling. And thank you, Detroit. #snowboob2014

In news that was rapidly pounced on and is now fading away, Gov Cuomo took another taste of his talus claiming that NOAA meteorologists failed to warn the government about the approaching storm. Not only did all the local meteorologists immediately produce proof of the well-publicized warnings, The Weather Channel and others produced video of their people publicly warning about it. So apparently the Entire Country was warned of severe lake effect storms, except the capitol of New York. I raise my brow at you, sir. P.S. What is with the government officials trying to blame the meteorologists? #snowboob2014   #precipigeddon

http://www.runnersworld.com/races/despite-setbacks-nations-oldest-race-will-go-on-in-buffalo #snowboob2014   #precipigeddon   http://www.runnersworld.com/races/despite-setbacks-nations-oldest-race-will-go-on-in-buffalo

On the lighter side, somebody photoshopped The Bumble into the storm, and somebody else sculpted away enough snow to show its true nature. Kind of meta.  #snowboob2014   #lookforthemicroscopicfrozensupercooledclouddropletlining  

TIL there are roaming gangs of shovel armed Amish in minivans. I have not heard where they drove in from, but it's pretty awesome to see the random possibility that not all of humanity needs to be scrapped. http://wivb.com/2014/11/24/100-amish-men-help-save-mobile-homes/ #snowboob2014   http://wivb.com/2014/11/24/100-amish-men-help-save-mobile-homes

Meteorology lesson X in a series of Y. Snowmelt: why you won't need to decide between a mobile home and a house boat.  #snowboob2014   #precipigeddon

Huh. They gave away free tickets to the football game in Detroit tomorrow. Which is where the NFL moved the Bills vs. Jets game when the County Executive made it clear that it couldn't happen in Buffalo. I suppose I think giving the tickets away free was an intelligent thing to do, but I'm kind of surprised. #snowboob2014

Fun statistics: Semi-officially, over 7 feet of snowfall. SEVEN. The football stadium is estimated to currently contain 220,000 tons of snow. They've removed 32,000 tons of snow from just South Buffalo so far . Well over 600 pieces of heavy equipment have been brought to Western New York. Just under 400 members of the National Guard are helping in Western New York. Not only did mayors from all over New York State offer assistance, mayors from Southern Ontario offered assistance. #snowboob2014

Good News: 1. Thruway is open between Buffalo and Rochester. 2. You can get on it going from Buffalo south to Pennsylvania, but you cannot get off of it between Buffalo and Pennsylvania. 3. Almost all the other major highways are open. 4. This is important, because with no highways open, there was no way to truck in food for the grocery stores, or gas for the cars and snow removal equipment and generators, etc. Yes, some places were starting to run low. (Yeah, they removed all the refineries and terminals years ago. Which is why our gas is still well above $3/gal. The closest place we get it from is Akron, OH. Wtf, government. P.S. Good plan! That whole section of I-90 runs along the eastern side of Lake Erie. FYI, that would be the part where they get Lake Effect snow. All winter, every winter. Good strategic planning.) Bad News: 1. Roofs are collapsing all over the place. And we haven't gotten the melt and rain, yet. 2. A lot of communities are days away from being reached by the...

There are too many puns. This is hanging over us from our neighbor's house. #snowboob2014

This afternoon - and the sun breaks through! That's looking toward Cheektowaga, if anyone's been bored enough to note that level of detail in the reporting. As in, we're on the town line of Cheektowaga. Yay for being on the right side of the line! (Sorry, Cheektowaga). Yes, that is still the snow wall you can see the top of. It's just slipping slowly southwards and away. #snowboob2014

Ah, the recriminations begin.  There's an emergency communication system to coordinate emergency responses in times of emergency in Erie County. It's called the DLAN. Enjoy. Anyway, it's possible something may not have been working quite right, because there is now back and forth between the various Towns, the major news stations (who are actually pretty awesome about trying to help out as well as cover the news), and the County Executive. You know: Use the system! We did use the system! No you didn't! Yes we did!  And then there's the minimal backpedaling from the Governor on the whole you broke the travel ban thing. Again, there are dozens of miles between places where you would see any of these signs, if you could see them in whiteout conditions, exits were blocked so you couldn't get off the Thruway, there were accidents blocking the Thruway itself, and there's a real question as to when the travel bans and Thruway closures were put in place. They were n...

Schneikes. That is some nasty thundersnow with lightning we are suddenly having. I think that "Lake Effect Snow at 11" warning may have been slightly off.  #snowboob2014

Meteorology lesson X in a series of Y. Snow Load: why your roof is going to collapse in a few days if you don't figure out a way to get all that snow off of it. #snowboob2014

A few photos plucked from the thousands that have been and will be posted. There's apparently an official tag now, #Snowvember . I'm still calling it #snowboob2014 .  

There are some awesomely cool videos from the news folks of the storm as it picks up water from the lake and turns it into snow. You can see the lake effect snow forming. It is scary and cool. Still many people stranded on the Thruway - very bad - they have not been getting food, water, and fuel to most of them and seemingly have not been able to rescue them, either. They probably should just give up on projected snow fall totals through Thursday because they are at 8 feet and growing. At some point "a lot" and "really bad" are probably sufficient. But it's only falling at 1-2"/hr now, instead of 3-5"/hr. Yay? The projected weather beyond Thursday includes ... warming! But wait! It is supposed to go up into the 50's Sunday or Monday - and still be precipitating. So aaaalllll this snow will melt. And it will be raining. I hope you like floods. Sadly, there have been both fatalities and snowblower finger removals. Expected, but still sad. Not nearly...