Posted on 10/07/2013 6:29:58 PM PDT by Olog-hai
A record-breaking storm that dumped 4 feet of snow in parts of western South Dakota left ranchers dealing with heavy losses, in some cases perhaps up to half their herds, as they assess how many of their cattle died during the unseasonably early blizzard.
Meanwhile, utility companies were working to restore power to tens of thousands of people still without electricity Monday after the weekend storm that was part of a powerful weather system that also buried parts of Wyoming and Colorado with snow and produced destructive tornadoes in Nebraska and Iowa. At least four deaths were attributed to the weather, including a South Dakota man who collapsed while cleaning snow off his roof. …
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I’ve fought the criminals. I would rather fight the weather. You couldn’t pay me to live in FL. Life in many ways is easier in the cities, but it isn’t worth it in the least.
Mentality would imply IQ and I haven’t seen it from that particular poster....
BTW, you have freepmail
ping
Don’t tell me to simmer down. You have to do far more than that to earn an ounce of respect, disrespect intended.
No we didn’t have several days to notice.
The first notice that we had of a winter storm was October 1st here in north central Wyoming. And the NOAA people weren’t talking much about huge accumulations. They just said “oh, we’re expecting an early snow. A couple inches as the temperatures go down in the impending rainstorm.”
That’s pretty normal in these parts. We get a little cold snap, and we get, oh, an inch to two inches of snow. It all melts the next day.
By Tuesday (10/2), they were repeating the same thing. They started adding warnings that trees could get coated with ice and wet snow as the temperatures dropped, and because the trees mostly had their leaves on (they’ve just started turning colors here in N/central WY at the foot of the Big Horns), the trees are fully loaded with leaves. NOAA and WX forecasters were predicting power outages caused by breaking trees and limbs on power lines.
Wednesday, they started waffling. The upped the watch to a warning. Still, the accumulations were modest in prediction - 3 to 8” above 4,000 ASL, with up to 18” in the mountains.
Thursday, they repeated the warning.
Thursday afternoon, the significantly upped the accumulation predictions AND - most significantly, they dropped the snowline elevations down to... well, whereever you were, you were going to get snow. The storm had slowed down - the change to snow happened about six hours later than forecast, but the accumulations went WAY up all of a sudden and the winds went way, way up as well.
By last Thursday night, the WX radio was starting to go off about every two hours, with changes to the prediction. The forecast area was rapidly growing. Previously, it had been mostly in Wyoming, from Cheyenne up to Billings, but the worst snowfall was predicted for the area north of Yellowstone (Livingston etc in MT). There wasn’t a huge snowfall package being put out yet for Rapid City.
Still... the prediction package wasn’t causing big changes in people’s plans. The NOAA people were not making it clear that this storm had the power to dump FEET (plural) on the flat grounds from Sheridan/Ranchester/Dayton east through Gillette and over to Rapid City.
Come Friday AM: It was snowing like a SOB. People poked their heads out and said “whoa - this ain’t the usual October skiff of wet snow” and schools started looking at the snow on the ground (which was already every bit of what was predicted for the 48 hour period) and school delays started. First it was “two hour delays...” then when 10AM came and went, and the snow was just coming harder, they cancelled - everything. But they waited until 10 AM to do it. By 10 AM, Buffalo, WY was completely cut off as WYDOT got out onto the roads and realized that they could not keep up. There were 18 wheelers stuffed into every parking lot in Buffalo up to Billings as the interstates closed tight as a drum, both north/south and east/west (I-90 east out of Buffalo to Rapid City). WYDOT was caught with lots of equipment out of position for a major storm as well.
People who don’t live in the mountain west think our weather is easily forecast. It isn’t. That’s why I carry a whole bunch of survival equipment when I’m out in the mountains hunting or even when I’m out on of town driving in winter. You never really know just how bad a storm can be. The predictions are usually wildly unskilled until about 12 hours ahead of time - and that is true for thunderstorms and tornado warnings in summer, too.
-12 is too cold to go outside to smoke.
The area I'm in you never know what you're going to get...even with weather reports....we get lake weather added to the cornucopia as well...all depends on where the jet stream moves but often wants to swing up and down here.
Because it wobbles through here...you can drive less than 5 miles and see a foot of snow after leaving home with dry ground!
WHAT tree huggers??!?! Wow...you are just a blanket of stupidity.
//The folks didn’t believe the forecasters and models? Why not?
Isn’t it their business to forecast with reliable models? //
The models aren’t that reliable. The models said that the central part of the state would get 1 foot of snow, didn’t happen, they just got rain and the ‘models’ failed on even being close to the amount of rain. Sometimes the storm changes, more often is isn’t even close to what they are predicting.
Running joke here is every day is a 20% chance of moisture - that is the model and this year we had a drought most of the year.
So, based on experience, nah a lot of people don’t trust the models.
Because the model outputs were so wildly at variance with historical experience for that time of the year, as well as how rapidly the models were changing their results from inputs.
Computer models aren’t fool-proof. There’s LOTS of times when the meteorologists make their own judgements of what is valid. Matter of fact, most of your local WX prediction is an amalgamation of several computer model’s outputs, and sometimes the forecasters look at the models and say “OK, we have four models in agreement and one which is wildly at variance - toss the last one.” And that’s what they do. They just toss the results, because it is coming up with something so wildly out of the past experiences for that region.
Sometimes, that one wild model is the one with the predictive skill. Often, it isn’t.
Yes, it’s melting fast. We now have flood warnings. It was 64 degrees here this afternoon.
Weird weather for early Oct.
Ok, to add to the things we have noticed. Our oldest basset hound is a roly poly this year, really packing on the pounds and sleeping a lot. My son commented the other day he is a wooly bear.
Our skinny chihuahua has packed on some weight, he has a layer of fat and a little fat roll behind his front legs.
And, they are growing so much fur and shedding so much I have resorted to vacuuming my wood floors every few days.
Now, we have survived the great flood of 2013. Hopefully we won’t ever see anything like that again in our lifetimes. But winter is just starting. We had a freeze over the weekend, so I am hopeful that the leaves will fall from the trees before the first snowfall. Nothing forecast so far.
Exactly.
I spent a winter in Gillette once with a steel erection crew putting up a school. It was uncomfortable going to work in the morning. Especially that portion of the morning spent on my back under a forklift trying to position an old style blow torch on the oil pan.
More like pissing me off...
When I married and our business catered entirely to the farmer I couldn't understand why so often it was necessary I “Hold dinner”...or all the “waiting” that happened when I planned outings etc. I had to learn that our life was wrapped up into that of our farmers schedule as well.
If their machinery broke down...that had a priority. Running a farm equipment business you never had regular business hours. You opened when they called and took care of their need as they needed it.
Ignore those who make judgments......all should be grateful for our farmers. Like it or not we don't eat without them.
What in the He** are you talking about? I live here! It is happening!
Has me a bit heated. I will have to get some sleep and get over it though!
Well that works for some who are close enough to town to get a job or two. Many don’t have that option. It is living on the edge more than you think for many, ranches are demanding so side careers suffer- meaning when ranchers and their wives get jobs they are usually not high paying jobs.
To be honest it is day to day for many, my dad went broke after a long drought, my mother raised chickens and sold eggs as his backup until the government regulated her out of business. He ended up working for other ranchers because he loved it, the pay is truly not great. Even the backup or fallback or what ever you call it is usually not that stable. Ranching is the priority, but no rancher is dumb enough to just starve to death instead of getting a job or his wife getting a job. Not sure what you are getting at with your comments? What do other business owners do if their business fails? What do you want ranchers to do when things are tough- go on welfare? Not sure why so many are so snide about ranchers, but hope it makes you all feel better when ranchers face tragedy and hard times.
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