Millions of people throughout the South are digging out and dealing with serious closures after a massive winter storm dumped several inches of snow.
Summary
A historic winter storm swept through southern U.S. cities, bringing record-breaking snowfall and widespread disruptions.
Memphis, Tennessee, experienced 7.5 inches (19 cm) of snow, the city’s largest single-day snowfall in 40 years. Atlanta, Georgia, recorded 2.1 inches (5.3 cm), the most in seven years. Other areas were hit even harder, with Arkansas receiving up to 14 inches (35.6 cm), Oklahoma up to 12 inches (30.5 cm), Texas up to 10 inches (25.4 cm), and northern Alabama around 5 inches (12.7 cm).
The storm caused significant travel chaos, with over 300 flight cancellations in Georgia and icy road warnings issued in Tennessee, Texas, and other states.
As the storm moves northward, sub-zero wind chills are expected to grip parts of the U.S. next week.
That's a big reason why Global Warming is not a good name. Climate change or climate disruption is much better at conveying that the climate is changing in an abnormal way, instead of just warming up.
The planet is warming though, so the term is not without merit. We have headlines every day about 1.5C of warming. The problem has always been that the earth's systems are too complicated for regular folks and they don't understand that a more energetic system can produce all sorts of anomalies in any given location. There's no magical term that will resonate with denialists anyway so why bother trying?
I don't really pay attention to the whole climate thing. But I have a co worker that always screams about global warming when it's hot, but when it's cold it's just weather
Global average temperature sets a new record high about every year. It's definitely warming which causes all sorts of strange aftereffects like extreme weather changes both hot and cold in localized areas.
I used to live in the south. Even in an area heavily populated by northerners, folks DID NOT know how to drive in the slightest bit of snow. I just left home early and laughed.
I also found it amusing when I first heard “snowflake” used as an insult, and have chucked internally each time since. In the south, snowflakes are hated, but more than that, they’re feared, and bringers of “chaos” if you refuse to learn how to interact harmoniously with them. Using “snowflake” as an insult says much more about the speaker than it does about you. I am proud to be a snowflake!
A lot of the problem here isn't snow, or people not knowing how to drive in it. It's that when it does snow, the temperature tends to barely be freezing. Then the snow starts to melt the next day only for all of the melt to become ice that night.
This is why we need an Earth week not just a day. Also, I live in Minnesota and it is the same here every year without fail the first snow just highlights how quickly people forget how to drive in snow.
I grew up in Illinois where we regularly had heavy snowfall, sometimes more than a foot. One year, we had an especially heavy fall, almost three feet, and the local university closed for a single day so they could shovel the paths. Otherwise, the city operated as it normally would.
I moved to Fort Worth, Texas for a job in my early twenties and my first year there they had an unusual snowfall. About two inches and it stuck around for a week and the entire time the whole city was in crisis. Things were cancelled/postponed, business were closed, etc. I got the whole week off of work due to the storm and went out to get food/groceries or visit friends a few times and was pretty amused by all the roads that were absolutely littered with bumpers, mirrors and shrapnel from countless wrecks.
It's not good, but I can see why. If they did they'd be flooded with denialist comments, and I understand not wanting that. I don't agree though, should absolutely be mentioned no matter the denialist idiots.