Talk:February 5–6, 2010 North American blizzard

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Comment: In the US, sleet properly refers to ice. But even in the US, not everyone gets it right, and since the original source simply uses the word 'sleet' here, there's really no way to verify unless we can find another source that uses ice pellets or just ice. -- Soap Talk/Contributions 13:40, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I get the gist of what you're saying, but I think you have it backwards. In the US, sleet refers to ice pellets, not freezing rain or ice. -RunningOnBrains(talk) 03:19, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Blizzard?

Blizzards are defined by wind speed, which affects visibility, not by snow accumulation. If this was in fact a blizzard this should be a portion of the article. What were the wind speeds in different places? How long was it really a blizzard? If it was not a blizzard, we need to rename this Winter Storm of 2010 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.188.252.112 (talk) 16:38, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

At the very least, the warning that was issued was a blizzard warning. That should count for some verifiability. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.254.156.48 (talk) 00:59, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As I commented below, I read the report from the National Weather Service verifying that blizzard conditions were reached at two airports at least. I am currently trying to find the link. -RunningOnBrains(talk) 03:21, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I personally experienced blizzard conditions in Atlantic City. It is verified by the airport observations. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.12.88.10 (talk) 20:35, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Formation date

So what does anyone think about formation date (especially you meteorologists)? I have Feb 3 right now, but article content could support an argument as far back as Feb 1. Any thoughts?--Peter2212 (talk) 19:02, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The inclusion of rain in California in an article about a blizzard

Two things.
(1) It heavily rained here in California? Fooled me.
(2) Rain ≠ blizzard. Rain in California should be included in an article named "North American Early February 2010 Storms" or something.
Let's rethink the quality of this article and whether it is even necessary. This article reeks of recentism. Truly, rain in California is newsworthy, however, really unnecessary to include in an encyclopedia.

talk) 22:25, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply
]

I thought it was talking about the formation of the storm as it progressed across the country: it started as a storm system off the west coast and as it swept into the interior of the continent it developed into a snow storm. If it's true (it could use some citations, as you've pointed out) it seems okay to me. Cmprince (talk) 22:01, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Storm passed well south of California.

http://www.accuweather.com/mt-news-blogs.asp?blog=clark&partner=forecastbar&pgUrl=/mtweb/content/clark/archives/2010/02/storm_headed_for_arizonanew_mexico_then_to_the_east.asp

Ok, so it was back. Again someone asserted that California was affected by the storm system. It was not. (1) The above link shows that it was not (2) the citation given previously on the page for demonstrating California experience precipitation was not a citation and did not mention California. However, if anyone has any citations that state otherwise PLEASE prove me wrong and add it to the page. If you re-add California, make sure to include the part(s) of California because we're larger than most states.

talk) 18:08, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply
]

On a side note, I would like to retract a comment in my first post in this section: "Let's rethink the quality of this article and whether it is even necessary. This article reeks of recentism." CLEARLY, things have gotten worse and I see now the need for such an intensive, yet accurate, article.
talk) 18:14, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply
]

Middletown, Connecticut energy plant deaths

Under the casualty section, this incident was listed. Although the incident was undoubtedly very very sad, it is unworthy of addition to this article as the incident has zero to do with anything related to weather. Really, there are clear skies in Middletown right now. If anyone has any citations that say otherwise, please feel free to override me without discussion.

talk) 22:30, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply
]

I added the section because the explosion occured less than a day after the snowfall ended. When cold weather arrives during a big snowstorm, people are going to stay indoors, and thus use more heat from natural gas. This was an explosion at a power plant during a "blow down" procedure to suck natural gas out of its pipes, but it might also be unrelated to the storm because the plant was under construction. ~
U) 23:28, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply
]
Well, would it be fair to suggest that we include the Middletown incident once it is confirmed that it was weather-related?
talk) 23:31, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply
]
Works for me, but any assumption that it was caused by the cold weather is entirely OR until there is a confirmation of that. Ironholds (talk) 06:27, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Why is there a casualty list at all? Honestly, the list of accidents appears mostly like a list of pretty common accidents reported as front page news in small town newspapers but filler in any other medium. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.15.255.227 (talk) 18:45, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Completely un-related to this storm. The plant was not even delivering power to the grid yet. To include it as speculatively connected would be

original research.-RunningOnBrains(talk) 00:30, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply
]

Organisation

Seems like E.US got some little more snow than usual. The common cure is snow plows (img File:Snow-in-Maryland-Feb-09.JPG shows that these exist) and shovels, but it also requires organisation. Would be interesting to know how organisations are adapted to these kinds of exceptional weather, if someone is interested. Rursus dixit. (mbork3!) 07:35, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Even the heaviest snowfall parts of Canada have some little more trouble than usual when the 2-odd feet of snow comes in the space of a single day. Few indeed are the organisations anywhere in the world fully adapted to be an equally overnight cure. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.254.156.76 (talk) 09:11, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Same for Sweden, and we have blizzards that make impression on us here too. But comparing Canada and Sweden to E.US is a little bit unfair, because both countries have organisations adapted for plowing, and also, in snow-countries, most of the snow falls gently and pretty predictably so the organisations can prepare and plan. In border zones this is usually not possible, and the snow fall tends to come in unpredictable blizzards with strong winds. This is the case for Scania, the southernmost Sweden.
However, my interest is in what organisations fixes the plowing, other countermeasures and sudden emergency turn-outs, and what vehicles they have at their proposal. When the situation is tricky in Scania, Sweden, the military may in rare cases be used with military vehicles and bandwagons. The situation seldom becomes that troublesome further north, but there's always the danger that the access to electricity fails in some rural areas and in a few towns. Rursus dixit. (mbork3!) 11:18, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
My apologies. I have been fielding so many snarky comments about the previous round of storms that I had read yours as another such. I don't have much, although I do know there is pressure on Obama to declare a state of emergency in DC, which would release federal funding and let the military vehicles out. Not certain how much that would help, though. (Have you seen the viral video showing the stuck personnel carrier?) The entire structure is not built to deal even with a normal amount of snow (for other places, that is; many of the areas that were hardest hit rarely get much snow at all). Even the existing snowplows are few and ill-equipped -- and at one point, they were pulled off the roads altogether, overwhelmed by the weather. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.254.156.115 (talk) 15:30, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Possible new article emphasis?

I am not an expert in writing weather articles but consider this possibility to reduce the diary aspect of the article.

Formation section: nice Snowfall: list only the worse and the biggest cities. May retitle it Extent of snowfall or Magnitude of snowfall accumulation. Impact: Is all these reports needed? U.S. federal government closing is interesting and should be kept. Casualty list: Is listing these sort of a non-notable memorial???

Good luck. Keep looking up references! I know lots of work has been put into this. Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 23:46, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think a casualty section is an important part of the article to measure the scope of the storm. However, I think the current section should be reformated to model something like the North American blizzard of 2008. Orracle107 (talk) 03:22, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Merger proposal

I suggest merging the article Lakota Electric Outage of 2010 into this article. There's no need to have a separate article about the outage. Anything that can be said about it, can be said a lot better in an article about the blizzard that caused it. 94.212.31.237 (talk) 08:35, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I could go with that but the blizzard is described as "bringing light snow showers to Montana, [and] the Dakotas" -Dashbullder —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dashbullder (talk contribs) 08:42, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This seems unrelated to the winter storm in the east. WTF? (talk) 18:28, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The article mentions the main problem being December storms. I have trouble believing the exacerbating ice storm in January should even be described as the same event. Strong No Merge vote for me. Edit: After noting that the storm is marked as coming shore on the west coast on February 1st, I'm adding a section on the North American storm to the Lakota crisis page (it is the 3rd or 4th major storm there), and a section on the Lakota crisis to the blizzard page, and removing the merge prop. Most of the damage was already done by the time this part of the crisis rolled around. Lesqual (talk) 19:02, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Renaming this article

Given this article details the winter storm of the first week of February 2010 and now there is a winter storm in the second week of February 2010 that is already affecting the midwest, what would be an appropriate new name for this article to differentiate it from the second event now unfolding? --Sephiroth9611 (talk) 17:03, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Given the forecasts, even the second storm alone would be worthy of this title. This is a freakish amount of snow for the DC/Baltimore area, and the historical records for seasonal winter snowfall are going to be broken by a wide margin. The snow has shrunk a little, but that's just surface melting and refreezing. We're going to experience the entire 15 inches of today and tomorrow on top of the 26 inches of wet snow already there. I believe that this will probably constitute the highest roof-loading pressure this area has ever seen, measured in inches of melted water (anyone have data on this?). A lot of buildings are going to fail in the next 48 hours that would not have been affected if not for the first snowstorm. I think it will be difficult, but this article should have two sections that document the two distinct storms as a combined human-impacting event("Natural disaster" or whatever wording is appropriate). Lesqual (talk) 19:10, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think that would be too massive. I would rather see the names of the articles be unwieldy than have a super-article that is not very navigable. --Sephiroth9611 (talk) 20:03, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It's not a lack of article names that would propel a merger of topics - it's that the impact will be felt as one major event. In this area, schools, the federal government, and many businesses are still closed, about 25% of the initially affected homes still havn't seen power restored, the bus system is still mostly down, the train system still hasn't reopened many sections. The Northeast part of the storm was distributed like this, and the hardest hit areas are now going to see another large serving of freezing rain and snow less than three days after the first one. Lesqual (talk) 20:22, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You could pair up the two and call them "North American Blizzards of 2010", or something else, I just think they should be classified as one event even if they're two meteorologically distinct storms.Lesqual (talk) 20:24, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think we're going to need a little hindsight to come to a final conclusion on naming... for now I think two articles is probably appropriate given Wikipedia's tendency to over-bloat current events. A few weeks/months down the road we can discuss a hack/merge. For guidance on what NOT to do, see this dreadful article from a few years ago, which gives an incomplete treatment of both storms and only has the name of the first:
December 20–21, 2006 Colorado Blizzard
.
As for naming, I believe we should use dates, since that's really the only difference between these two. Also, remember that a storm must satisfy specific conditions to be called a "blizzard" (see that article). So until the National Weather Service declares it, the current storm should NOT be referred to as a "blizzard". -RunningOnBrains(talk) 00:23, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The National Weather Service did explicitly declare a blizzard warning. How much verifiability do you need? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.254.156.48 (talk) 01:03, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There seems to be some confusion...I was referring to the current storm, not the first one. I was rebutting the idea of renaming this article "North American Blizzards of 2010". And, for the record, a blizzard warning does not necessarily mean a blizzard will occur... This has happened for the February 5-6 storm, but unfortunately I have lost the link to the National Weather Service's statement of blizzard conditions. -RunningOnBrains(talk) 01:10, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Update: I found the link: February 6, 2010 Blizzard Conditions -RunningOnBrains(talk) 03:26, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Where is this going then? We have Second North American blizzard of 2010. The blizzard infobox has Feb 5-6 and then Feb 9-10. But this main article North American blizzard of 2010, despite some redirecting, remains the same. What will be the final plan for a rename? --Sephiroth9611 (talk) 16:55, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Given that the snow from the first week of February was still on the ground when the snow from the second week fell, it should all be in the same article. I have no idea what the article should be called, though. Grundle2600 (talk) 18:46, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That's not a good reason to have it be one big article. If we go by that, storms that dump snow on places with snow cover all winter long would be lumped all into one article. Not very handy. --Sephiroth9611 (talk) 21:41, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As far south as Maryland, this never ever happens. I would say that the criteria is that it shut down the governmental and local educational systems for a contiguous period. The area was still in a state of emergency at the time the second storm hit. This is a reasonable criteria to apply to merging a series of extreme weather events all over the world in different climates. Who's with me? Lesqual (talk) 04:22, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe we should have a disambig page (Blizzard of 2010) with multiple pages re: individual blizzards). — Rickyrab | Talk 22:23, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I would just like to point out that the precedent of creating a new article for each storm system throughout the course of one year is unsustainable. I understand everyone is very excited and riled up about the recent storms that have even affected the function of our government, but we need to remember to set the standards higher for covering these storms. We need to set the articles up for future success.

Anyway, I smell a merge of the articles covering the first and second storms.

talk) 17:57, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply
]

Nickname

Guys, the obvious nickname that should be used is Snowffleupagus. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.88.141.161 (talk) 21:32, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

DC's paper of record, the Washington Post, has taken a poll and decided to call it... Snoverkill. Lesqual (talk) 23:04, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think I'd rather wait for a more authoritative source than an online poll. -RunningOnBrains(talk) 00:25, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
5650 Ghits, baby! News orgs in Jakarta and Amsterdam are using it! As far as these storms will ever have a catchy name that people actually use, this is it. Slang moves fast these days. Lesqual (talk) 03:14, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes but there are different slangs being used by different people and news outlets. For now, the National Weather Service has not issued an official name, so a descriptive name (such as the one being used now) seems best. -RunningOnBrains(talk) 03:25, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There were three in total. December event - Snowmaggedon. First February event - Snowcalypse. Second February event - Snowverkill. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.254.156.115 (talk) 15:34, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

DC snowball fight numbers

Just making a note that I'm reeling in the statement that "5,000 participated" in the Dupont Circle snowball fight. That seems to be based on the number of people who joined the Facebook group, not how many attended. To be honest, 2,000 seems a bit much compared to how it looked at the time (and with the perspective of this video). But the (2nd) reference already included in the section seems insistent that the 2,000 number is those who actually attended, and that number agrees with the Washington Post's. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Qwerty0 (talk • contribs) 00:08, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Tell me we're not adding a snowball fight to an article about a serious weather event.
talk) 00:24, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply
]
Why not? For those who don't know, DC is a somewhat paranoid schizophrenic city with a split personality thrown in - the parts which tourists see, the parts where mid/high end government workers live, and the poverty-striken murder capital of the United States which is flirting with bankruptcy. Under what other conditions could a friendly snowball fight possibly break out? (And does this cast a different light on the police officer who drew his gun?) - Tenebris —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.254.157.38 (talk) 02:15, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a
requested move
. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not sure why this is still open, seems to have been done Kotniski (talk) 11:51, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]


First North American blizzard of 2010 → February 5–6, 2010 North American blizzard — New titles better reflect the time period the blizzards occurred rather than the cardinal order the storms happened. Dough4872 01:57, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, those are better.Famartin (talk) 04:23, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support In this case date disambiguation seems more appropriate.--Labattblueboy (talk) 15:50, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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